The wife of Tasmanian Governor Peter Underwood, Frances Underwood, who trained as a primary educator in 1980 delivered the 2010 William Oats Memorial Lecture last night entitled “Nourishing the Spirit in the 21st century: a Challenge for Education.”
Mrs Underwood says that education must get back to core values.
“The real challenges and opportunities for education in the 21st century will only be met by re-assessing our obsession with performance testing being the only measure of educational success and by enabling well-educated passionate and creative teachers, who are at the forefront of knowledge and skill, to fire up the imagination and motivation of students,” she said.
Test like Naplan clearly put a great deal of pressure on teachers and students alike. Whilst I think it holds lesser teachers to account for their sloppiness, it complicates and stifles the average, hardworking teacher. Whilst I’m not sure about what “core values”really means, performance testing seems to be quite problematic.
Topical Teaching 