要苹果肉？还是要苹果核？

patrickzhu

最近澳洲NSW教师工会发起的【反对学校排名/反对My School】的运动搞得如火如荼.
最近教师工会还做了一个电视广告 - 【切苹果】，宣传这个运动。
The Daily Telegraph的专栏作家Maralyn Parker今天撰文抨击了教师工会的做法的无知和破坏性。

这个广告还是做的满精致的，大家看看




还有5段电台的广告
http://www.nswtf.org.au/media/la ... 9_radio_ads_lt.html

我全文翻译了Maralyn的文章。

rdcwayx

支持，不应该只排名学习成绩这一个因素。

patrickzhu

教师工会“切苹果”是切掉了事实



NSW教师工会已经发起了一场反对学校排名的运动，我相信这场运动正在对公立教育造成深深地伤害。这场运功也正在误导家长和公众。

现在你大概已经看过了教师工会的电视广告了吧。在这个广告里有一只苹果被切开了好几刀露出了苹果核，同时画外音说“这就是正在发生在学校教学大纲上的事”。同时教师工会还做了5段不同的广播电台上播放的相似内容的广告。

最不公正的是其中一段电台广告（第三个），里面有一个母亲说她发现她Year 7的儿子用·很短的Kindergarten式的句子来简化写作，这样她儿子的学校就能够得到好的NAPLAN的成绩。这位母亲还给了一个例子：
The man slipped over.
He hurt his knee.
He started to bleed.

家长和学生应该了解这段教师工会的广告是非常错的。如果一个Year 7的学生用如此简单的句子在NAPLAN（Year 7）的写作考试中，那么他（她）肯定会被给减分（而不是加分）。

在NAPLAN写作考试评分标准一共有10条评分细则，包括了句子结构。如果用复合句和复杂的句子同时结合各种从句，那么就会被加分。

另外的评分细则包括了文章结构，词汇的使用，主题和文章的切题。学生有复杂的词汇，成熟的观点，扩展的譬喻和创造性的观点都会被加分。这些评分标准都能够在2009年版的Narrative Marking Guide里找到。

在NSW的每一所公立中学里的每一个教Year 7的英文老师应该感到对此震惊，因为教师工会的广告在暗示他们完全不知道Year 7的NAPLAN写作考试里到底考什么。

我有一个明确的观点 - 如果NSW的教师们正在为NAPLAN考试而教学，那么他们也在为全国教学大纲而教学，也就是正在为最重要的内容而教学。只要英文写作以如此的形式要求，就意味着鼓励学生们要有创造性和发展广泛的语言技巧。

Australian Council for Educational Research（ACER负责设计和对NAPLAN考试评分）的CEO Geoff Master教授也表达过一个明确的观点：“有一些学校没有在教学大纲的核心课程上花足够的时间。我们知道有非常高比例的澳洲学生没有达到全国最低标准。”

根据Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 网站上的报告，有4%-12%的NSW学生在英文和数学上低于全国最低标准。在另外一些州，例如在偏远地区的学生这个比例上升到50%-75%。

但是谈到教学核心，教师工会的电视广告上一个苹果被切掉了大部分，意思是艺术，音乐，戏剧体育，个体发展和批判性思考都被砍掉了，所以广告说，在英国发生的事情也会发生在这里（澳洲）。

在英国发生的所有事情不会发生在澳洲，因为澳洲政府从来没有要特别设立一个考试来让学校成绩仅仅成为一个数字，澳洲政府也没有如同英国政府所做要对学校进行排名或者给学校贴上一个“差”的标签。这可不是一个小小的差别。

这里让我最厌恶的地方是这个广告说，NSW的公立学校的老师（显然不是私校教师，因为私校并不抵制NAPLAN）除了英文和数学之外将停止教学生其他任何课目，因为他们想要在少数报纸上刊登的名单里排名更高一些。

在澳洲NAPLAN这样的全国性考试有两个最基本的目的：
1. 让Year3/5/7/9的老师们能够诊断出他们的学生在英文和数学的那些方面低于教学标准的要求，并能够因此做改进和提高。
2. 让政府，教育部门，学校和老师有一个记录教学标准的即时快照（Snapshot）由此可以做比较。

联邦教育部长Julia Gillard已经把这些快照放在了My School网站上和你共享。这才是NAPLAN考试成绩合情合理的用途，也是教师工会所仇恨的。

然后，如同My School网站上所述，这些数据只是一个快照。网站很清楚地解释了如果学校的规模越小那么这个快照的精确性就越低。

你也应该知道学校的财政情况的数据马上要被加到My School网站上。教师工会和其支持者们一直在批评网站缺乏这样的信息。

所以，当你收到NSW教师工会给你的信的时候（教师工会正在发送15万封信给NSW的家长们），信里会说，My School是不精确的也是不完整的，这个网站必须改进以提供有意义的精确的信息给家长。这些就是教师工会要表达的主要意思了。

当然，不要期望你会从教师工会的信里知道更多的详情了。教师工会绝对没有任何意愿要提供给家长们更多的东西了。

patrickzhu

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/maralynparker/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/teacher_union_chopping_the_facts/

Teacher union chopping the facts

The NSW Teachers Federation has launched a campaign against league tables that I believe is a deeply damaging for public education. It is misleading and misinforming parents and the public.

You must have seen it by now, the television advertisement where the apple is chopped to the core while a voiceover says this is happening to the school curriculum. There are five different radio grabs to go with it.

The most iniquitous is one of the radio messages (third on on the site) where a mother says she discovered her Year 7 son is dumbing down his writing by using short “kindergarten material” sentences so his school can get good NAPLAN results. She gives examples:The man slipped over. He hurt his knee. He started to bleed.

Parents and students should know this union message is very wrong. If a Year 7 student uses such simple sentences in their NAPLAN writing task they will be marked down not up.

There are ten criteria used to give students marks for their NAPLAN writing task including sentence structure, where students are marked up for using compound and complex sentences and a variety of clause types and patterns.

Other criteria include text structure, use of words, ideas and cohesion. Students are marked up for sophisticated vocabulary, mature viewpoints, extended metaphors and creative ideas. For more click on 2009 Narrative Marking Guide at the bottom of the page here .

Every Year 7 English teacher in every public high school in NSW should be horrified the union is running an ad that implies they have no idea what is being tested in a Year 7 NAPLAN writing test.

Which brings me to the significant point - if NSW teachers are teaching to the Australian NAPLAN tests they are teaching to the curriculum and they are teaching the most important elements. As far as English writing goes this means encouraging children to be creative and to develop extensive language skills.

Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Council for Educational Research professor, Geoff Masters, also makes the point, “Some schools are not spending enough time on core elements. We know there are significant numbers of Australian students not meeting the minimum standard.’’ ACER develops and marks NAPLAN tests.

According to reports on the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) website, from between four to 12 per cent of NSW students are below the minimum standards in literacy and numeracy. In other states, for remote students for example, this rises to half or even three quarters of students.

But talking of cores. The union’s television ad showing an apple being chopped down mentions art and music, drama, sport, personal development and critical thinking saying “It happened in England, it will happen here.’’

Whatever happened in England will not happen here because our government has not set up tests specially to reduce schools to one number. Nor does it rank schools or label any as “inadequate’’ as the English government does. This is not a small difference.

What offends me most about the ad is it is saying NSW public school teachers, obviously not private school teachers where the tests are not banned, will stop teaching anything but literacy and numeracy because they want to appear higher in lists published in a few newspapers.

In Australia the national skills testing program is specially developed to do two things. The first is for teachers of Years 3,5 7 and 9 to diagnose where their students are under-performing in literacy and numeracy and to do something about it.

The second is to give governments, school authorities, schools and teachers a snapshot of standards and how they compare.

Julia Gillard is sharing that snapshot with you on the MySchool website. It is quite a legitimate use of NAPLAN results, much as the union hates it.

However, as the website says, it is just a snapshot. It explains clearly the smaller the school the less accurate the snapshot.

You should also know school financial information will soon be added to MySchool. The unions, among others, have criticised the absence of such information.

So when you get a letter from the NSWTF - it is sending out 150,000 letters to parents - saying MySchool is inaccurate and incomplete and must be improved to provide “meaningful and accurate information for parents’’ these are the main issues it is referring to.

Of course you won’t get such detail from the NSWTF. The union has absolutely no intention of providing anything of the sort for parents.

chermside

那几刀切苹果的，切得我心惊肉跳的，挺狠的

smiletolife

我觉得我女儿的学校，在英文写作方面，根本不教什么，老师说我女儿的写作是outstanding，我觉得是乱七八糟的，句子不漂亮，用词不变化，结构不紧密。以前我是完全放手，不管她的写作，现在才知道这些公立学校是没有什么好的老师，数学不行，英文竟然也那么差。看了还得家长多多跟进。

air

个人觉得这些当老师的，和学生一样需要有约束力和压力，不然大多都喜欢混日子。 抵触排名，多少都有害怕竞争的心理吧。

对澳洲很多老师来说，这仅仅就是一个工作，他们都想要一个easy job而已，所以希望别人都不要拿这些麻烦事去烦他们。

Mylittlelover

MY SCHOOL是可以参考，但是很重要的是，那个成绩只是考虑学校的一个方面而已。千万不要在两个成绩差不多的学校之间拘泥不定，最后以成绩好的那个胜出完事儿，而是更应该从综合因素上来考虑。