Learningguild Letter 2.2014
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Learningguild Letter 2.2014 Dear members and friends of Learningguild, react in the mode expressed by “Get it down, get it up, give it back.” Many students, whether from being What goods are we most to value and seek to told by an Australian schoolteacher what to write or realize in tertiary education? What hindrances are from assumptions in their home country’s education there now to their achievement? What in particular that one must repeat what the teacher or textbook has should be our proximate aims? said, find it extremely difficult to think, plan and write for themselves. I use the wider adjective ‘tertiary’ rather than ‘university’ because we are concerned with a level of In this letter I shall invite close attention in turn education and not just with large institutions or those to several voices other than my own, because they that have the title ‘university’. Nor are we concerned have very good things to say about tertiary education. only with courses: education at any level does not Such comments may be expressive of delight and have to depend on a course, but it usually depends to a gratitude on the one hand and/or of adverse criticism large extent on one or more teachers or mentors as and warning on the other. well as the student’s own eagerness and diligence. (Let’s not forget that the Latin word ‘studium’ means eagerness and zeal.) Professor David Penington vividly recalls, on p.53 of his excellent autobiography Making Waves We should define the truly tertiary level in terms (2010), that, returning in 1967 to Melbourne to teach of what it requires of students. They need to be medicine, he would walk up and down among classes analytical, critical, and synthesist, beyond any require- of up to sixty students, inviting questions to himself as ment normally made at the senior secondary level. the hypothetical patient, and expecting them to join Hence the right question to ask of them (in many him in discussing “clinical findings we were searching different modes) is often of such a form as “Present for…, laboratory tests we would order and even how and discuss what A says about S in P”, where A is an we would advise the patient or their relatives”. author, S a subject, and P a place (a book, article or It was like creating street theatre as each other exposition). To be analytical is to distinguish story evolved, but the students loved it. It and explain different elements. To be critical is to was a great way to teach clinical medi- consider for oneself whether or not a view or conclu- cine, rather than just reproducing what sion has been supported by one or more good and could be learnt from textbooks. sufficient reasons, and whether or not an exposition Less dramatically, in lecturing in Philosophy I at Mel- (perhaps that of a textbook, or a lecturer!) is good in bourne at about the same time I would give out what I that way and others, such as clarity and depth. To be called “Some Questions for Investigation”, so as to synthesist is at least to attempt to begin to draw focus attention during and after my lectures on ques- together questions, ideas, evidence etc. for oneself, so tions to pursue for oneself. In 1974 I asked students as carefully to form one’s own (often tentative) view to spend the first half of one of two plenary sessions of something small or large. Students are unlikely to in small groups in the Public Lecture Theatre and develop these qualities without also taking part in work towards questions they wanted me to take up in cooperative work and learning to value it as an end as the second half. well as a means. From the 1940s to 1983, however, one could These great goods have always been difficult to assume in Victoria that most students had studied achieve with a wide range of students, and by contrast “Clear Thinking” in their senior secondary years, and lecture-dependent courses have often led students to so had some familiarity with the crucial ideas of 2 formulating and testing a hypothesis. For much of memory of Murphy’s book but of the competence that that period there had been secondary textbooks in the book enables one to build up. It should also English, at least in early years, expounding grammar, require an ability to reason and to identify faults in word-choice etc., and from 1960, for senior students, reasoning. Yes, it should be an exam such as the one I even such a demanding and wide-ranging book as A have set for 27 years for the Learningguild Certificate Wealth of Words, by H.G.Fowler and N.Russell. (See in Reasoning and Expression! (See, at ‘Certificate’ on my recommendation of it on p.1 of the report on our our website, the three testimonies to the value of that exam named May 2014.) David Penington himself, as exam, and the reports that can be so valuable to the Melbourne’s Vice-Chancellor from 1988 to 1995, did student who will engage with them.) much to ensure that the Victorian Certificate of Education maintained some of the traditional values, I seek to maintain the exam at close to the levels especially in maths and English (p.276). We now for results given in the Matriculation exam in what have to face the fact that numerous students in all our was called English Expression in Victoria 60 years universities are entering without much development of ago. To reach a lower B, and preferably a higher re- their powers of reasoning and expression, and that not sult, would take many local students some or much of a few actually graduate with extremely limited com- the gap year that is now so common, but be compat- petence in one or both areas. ible with travel and/or employment. Crucially, the examination is, as any similar one should be, half- I illustrated that in L’g L 1.2010 (p.2) from the yearly, repeatable, inexpensive, and not tied to any case (with a happy outcome through his diligent work course. over several years and my guidance) of a son of a migrant family who had had all his primary and secondary education at a Melbourne private school Another very valuable book on university educa- and had gained degrees in Arts as well as Engineering tion is a grateful but extremely disquieting one. How at Melbourne c.1990, but was unable to write proper remarkable that John Cain, the Premier of Victoria sentences. Some of my one-with-one teaching in from 1982 to 1990, should have co-written, after recent years has been of two people who have about ten subsequent years as a Professorial Associate graduated in social work at La Trobe or in in Political Science at Melbourne, a book called Off criminology at Melbourne without adequate English Course which argued that the University had changed for their communication in subsequent employment. for the worse. The book appeared in 2004, and the “English-language programs should be thoroughly co-author is John Hewitt, who had been a colleague embedded into the tertiary curriculum, not be – as in Political Science. Reports on the web concerning they often are at present – peripheral and optional”, him do not alter the debt we owe him as well as Cain wrote Martin Davies in Quadrant (1 March 2010). for pertinent observation and criticism. The book Has anything changed since then? Examinable continues to deserve far more attention than it has courses that include annotation of written work are received. Some of it concerns the privatising policies expensive, and the key question would remain of what (unsurprisingly unsuccessful) of David Penington’s standard if any was to be insisted upon. successor Alan Gilbert, but there is much else. In fact what is needed is a firm requirement that The first of three features that Cain stresses about could now be applied, at first unpopularly, within the University of Melbourne as he had known it as a courses, but would better be made, with due notice, a student c.1950 is its manifest “publicness” (p.33) – its prerequisite for entry, which could be satisfied by being there with the legislated responsibility it still has diligent private study in any country. All students to act for the welfare of the wider society, especially should reach at least a lower B level (and then be that of Victoria. Second is the readiness of some staff encouraged in their courses to aim at a middle B, members to express their views on “education policy, an upper B and an A) in a repeatable examination academic freedom, and university administration” and that requires familiarity with the range of current societal issues (p.17). Third is the campus sentence-construction contained in Raymond Mur- life: staff, mostly in secure posts, were readily access- phy’s famous intermediate text English Grammar ible to students, who normally attended five days a in Use. (Many, including a master’s and a doctoral week, talked extensively with one another, and often student at Melbourne whom I have recently assisted belonged to societies and/or sporting and other clubs. and for whom English is a further language, need his Four years junior to Cain, I recognize this as an elementary text Essential Grammar in Use first, even accurate description. at those levels.) Such an exam would not be a test of 3 By contrast, in 2004 Cain and Hewitt, recog- judged on the quality (and therefore, in part, the nizing the distorting effect of decline in federal intelligibility to others) of their research, and not its government support of universities, say that the quantity, and on their capacity and disposition to University of Melbourne has come to resemble a foster enquiry, understanding and creativity in stu- corporation competing with others; report that staff do dents.