'Scienceworks' on the rocks

I took my kids to 'Scienceworks' few weekends ago. It's the kind of thing a father would do with his children but to be honest I was looking forward to it myself. The name implied hands-on science stuff and even though my hairline is receding, I am still a kid at heart. The trip went off without a hitch and the kids had a good time but to be honest, I felt a little disappointed. Somehow the place didn't feel right. One exhibit in particular - about storm water and recycling, left an odd feeling of discomfort. It took a bit of thinking but I eventually worked out why. In the exhibit the smog and rubbish are 'bad' and recycling is 'good'. The 'bad guys' even have suitably scary make-up and voices. This is fine if you are presenting to four-year-olds about toilet etiquette or crossing the road. But these are pre-teens, capable of coming to their own conclusions. And this is science. Science is meant to be about education, not indoctrination. Science is mean to be about understanding the facts, not 'good' and 'bad'. Funny thing is, when I quizzed my seven-year-old son at the end of the day he recalled easily the train display, the historic sewerage pumps but didn't remember a thing about recycling. Herein, I suspect lies the great failure of the education system. Treat children like toddlers and they will forget. Treat them like adults and they will remember.

Power-board from hell

Let me save you counting time - that power-board has 27 sockets. Guess what my first thought was when I saw it - that's right, the owner of this will have major problems meeting their Carbon Tax obligations. Now let's see if you can work out where I took the photo. Here are the options:

a) A cannabis plantation
b) Aluminium smelting factory
c) Primary school 

Yes, you guessed it - Primary School. Which brings me to my next question. Schools are major consumers of energy. They have air conditioning, computer labs, etc. Yet no-one is talking about compensation. So how do you think schools will recoup their Carbon losses? That's right by charging the parents and that means you and I. The private schools will put up their fees and the Public schools will make new fees. Let's think of a good name ... I know - 'Planet protection fee'. I am sure that will stick.

Oh boy, so many 'opportunities'

A taxi-driver friend of mine recently enrolled into a teaching degree. He says he wants to fight 'disadvantage' in schools where it begins. I do understand him. In the taxi business the only time you encounter 'disadvantage' is when a non-paying customer smashes a beer bottle on the back of your head. As a teacher you expect you encounters would be a little less traumatic. One would hope. The unfortunate thing is that even if my friend tries his best as a teacher, not a few of his pupils will probably graduate to smashing bottles over unfortunate taxi drivers' heads. The story of why that is has to do with 'disadvantage' - not what the word means but how it is used within the education system. What is 'disadvantage' anyway? If we are running a marathon and you start fifty meters behind the rest of the field, that's called a disadvantage. It's not you - it's your starting position. Now lets say you walk into a typical public school classroom somewhere in the Northern Suburbs of Melbourne. Down the back are a few kids whose dads are drunk by mid-afternoon. That's called alcoholism. In the corner is a boy who covered in bruises. That's called physical abuse. At the front are a couple of kids on Ritilin. That's called ADHD. And the rest of the room is peppered with the pupils whose dad went out one day and never came back. That's called broken families. Or you could lump all of those problems together and call it 'disadvantage', but that wouldn't tell you anything other then 'That class at the and of the corridor - stay away from it.'

The education sector is famous for eviscerating the meaning of words. Violence becomes 'impulsive behaviour' and bigotry is renamed 'cultural stereoptypes'. But this verbal deception is more then just misleading. The education system can not possibly correct unacceptable behaviour if it can not even call that behaviour by its' name.

A teacher-friend of mine once remarked that the education gurus once took exception to the words 'problem child'. That's labelling, and we can't have that, can we. Instead of 'problems' they started using the wold 'challenges'. Fast forward five years and 'challenges' wasn't good enough either, so the new buzz-word was 'opportunities'. In the staff room the teachers would joke with each other: "I had so many 'opportunities' today in my class. Look at all the bruises I got." "Oh, that's nothing. I had so many 'opportunities', I barely got out alive." Changing the words around doesn't make the problem go away. It just makes it that much more difficult to fix. Right now the school system is facing quite a few challenges of how to turn children into well adjusted and responsible adults. And no, I wouldn't be calling them 'opportunities'.