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The Literacy Wars: Why Teaching Children to Read and Write Is a Battleground in Australia
Drawing comparisons with the United Kingdom and the United States, this educational reference details the often bitter disagreements that occur in Australia between the critics who want to reclaim old ways of teaching literacy and the educators who emphasize the possibilities for creative change. It illustrates the strong beliefs, deep divisions, and politicization of the debate, which has repercussions for policy decisions and funding. An essential reference for anyone involved with literacy education, this contention explains that the challenge facing literacy teachers everywhere is to find a balance between preserving the legacy of the past and preparing children for the literacy demands of the future.
- GenresEducationNonfiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 26, 2010
In 2006 ‘The Australian’ – that hideous Murdoch rag, that tabloid masquerading as a broadsheet – began a concerted attack on the teaching of reading and literacy in Australia. The problem with this sort of thing is that it is insanely easy to make these kinds of attacks, particularly in a multicultural society like Australia – a society where 44% of the population were either born overseas or have at least one foreign born parent. It is not difficult to see why it might be the case that some kids struggle to learn to read and write.
The only problem is, of course, that there are international tests that allow comparisons between countries and Australia generally comes out at the top of these league tables. Okay, so we generally are beaten by Finland, but actually, that is one of the few countries that does beat us. Naturally, ‘The Australian’ rarely reports this and when it does says daft things like the results would have been very different if punctuation had been included in the test. It prefers to quote material out of context that shows that English teachers in Australia are a bunch of radical Post-Modernists who are dumbing down the English curriculum to the point where kids can pass without ever needing to learn how to read or write.
Naturally, there is never an opposing side given when ‘The Australian’ begins on one of these rants. No, rather everyone congratulates each other on being able to recognise just where English teachers are going wrong in teaching our kids – a wonderful ability which does not require any experience in ever actually teaching English. This is all reminiscent of Hegel from the first Volume of the Encyclopaedia, “Everybody allows that to know any other science you must have first studied it… Everybody allows that to make a shoe you must have learned and practised the craft of the shoemaker, though every man has a model in his own foot, and possesses in his hands the natural endowments for the operations required. For philosophy alone, it seems to be imagined, such study, care, and application are not in the least requisite.” I would add English teaching to Philosophy here. No one seems to need to have ever thought about the issues English teachers face every day, but everyone is an expert merely because they can more or less put together a sentence in the language and remember a time (probably at high school) when they even read a book.
This is a ‘debate’ where facts are never allowed to get in the way of a good argument, where the very word ‘debate’ is much abused - given there is only ever one side that is ever presented, and where the main method of attack is reductio ad absurdum, that is, constantly reducing the ‘other’ side’s arguments to the point of utter absurdity mostly by turning Them into straw-men. I think it would be remarkably difficult to find an Australian English teacher that does half of the things ‘The Australian’ accuses virtually all Australian English teachers of doing. It would be hard to find one, for example, that consistently argued that no books should be read or that no ‘classics’ should be read or that only films should be watched in class, or that spelling and punctuation are petty-bourgeois concepts and can be ignored. Most English teachers I’ve met would love their students to read and love Shakespeare. In fact, most of them became interested in being English teachers because they were so moved by literature. Rather than being the storm-troopers seeking the destruction of Western Civilisation by slowly and methodically destroying our cultural canon; generally English teachers are the last bastion in its defence.
But English teachers have to be realists too. They know that the kids they teach are likely to get most of their entertainment and virtually all of their information about the world from audio-visual materials (film, television, internet). To ignore this fact would be virtually criminal, to not give kids the media literacy skills they need to decode and understand these texts would be negligent in the extreme. Perhaps, one would not need to be too cynical to be reminded that Murdoch not only owns ‘The Australian’, but also Fox News – and therefore has a keen interest in discouraging media literacy.
We live in a world where it is simply not enough to be literate in the works of the ‘canon’. Australia is increasingly a country dominated by various tensions and harmonies that simply did not exist here in the 1940s and 1950s. When I studied literature at high school there was not a single Australian novel on the syllabus. The only things written by Australians we studied were two poems – Australians were not capable of extended prose at the time, obviously. The poems were both written by white, Anglo-Saxons, although, admittedly, one of these was a woman (who would ever have though even they could write literature?). There were no migrant voices in our literature, at least, not in the literature we were taught at school. There were, however, lots and lots of English voices and even a couple of American ones. We didn’t read any Australian plays. And although this was all a long time ago, the cultural cringe in Australia is still alive and well. What is really interesting about this book is that it shows just how much the writers for ‘The Australian’ would prefer to just go on cringing.
This is the sort of book that puts fire in your belly. It is the sort of book that makes you realise just how dumb many of our cultural critics (particularly those who wrap themselves like slightly off fish in a Murdoch rag) can be. It is the sort of book that gets under your skin. If you think that all of the world’s problems are due to English teachers not teaching people how to read and write according to the rules of phonics, you won’t like this book, but you probably ought to read it anyway. If you are sick to death of hearing about ‘back to basics’ as if this was the solution to the problems of literacy in Australia (or anywhere else for that matter) then you really do need to get hold this book.
It is a fascinating history of an ignoble argument by aggressively ignorant people. Ilana Snyder, though, presents a well reasoned look at an incredibly complex set of related issues (ranging from the teaching grammar to Culture, to Gender and even to Numeracy). This is a troubling although very worthwhile read.
The only problem is, of course, that there are international tests that allow comparisons between countries and Australia generally comes out at the top of these league tables. Okay, so we generally are beaten by Finland, but actually, that is one of the few countries that does beat us. Naturally, ‘The Australian’ rarely reports this and when it does says daft things like the results would have been very different if punctuation had been included in the test. It prefers to quote material out of context that shows that English teachers in Australia are a bunch of radical Post-Modernists who are dumbing down the English curriculum to the point where kids can pass without ever needing to learn how to read or write.
Naturally, there is never an opposing side given when ‘The Australian’ begins on one of these rants. No, rather everyone congratulates each other on being able to recognise just where English teachers are going wrong in teaching our kids – a wonderful ability which does not require any experience in ever actually teaching English. This is all reminiscent of Hegel from the first Volume of the Encyclopaedia, “Everybody allows that to know any other science you must have first studied it… Everybody allows that to make a shoe you must have learned and practised the craft of the shoemaker, though every man has a model in his own foot, and possesses in his hands the natural endowments for the operations required. For philosophy alone, it seems to be imagined, such study, care, and application are not in the least requisite.” I would add English teaching to Philosophy here. No one seems to need to have ever thought about the issues English teachers face every day, but everyone is an expert merely because they can more or less put together a sentence in the language and remember a time (probably at high school) when they even read a book.
This is a ‘debate’ where facts are never allowed to get in the way of a good argument, where the very word ‘debate’ is much abused - given there is only ever one side that is ever presented, and where the main method of attack is reductio ad absurdum, that is, constantly reducing the ‘other’ side’s arguments to the point of utter absurdity mostly by turning Them into straw-men. I think it would be remarkably difficult to find an Australian English teacher that does half of the things ‘The Australian’ accuses virtually all Australian English teachers of doing. It would be hard to find one, for example, that consistently argued that no books should be read or that no ‘classics’ should be read or that only films should be watched in class, or that spelling and punctuation are petty-bourgeois concepts and can be ignored. Most English teachers I’ve met would love their students to read and love Shakespeare. In fact, most of them became interested in being English teachers because they were so moved by literature. Rather than being the storm-troopers seeking the destruction of Western Civilisation by slowly and methodically destroying our cultural canon; generally English teachers are the last bastion in its defence.
But English teachers have to be realists too. They know that the kids they teach are likely to get most of their entertainment and virtually all of their information about the world from audio-visual materials (film, television, internet). To ignore this fact would be virtually criminal, to not give kids the media literacy skills they need to decode and understand these texts would be negligent in the extreme. Perhaps, one would not need to be too cynical to be reminded that Murdoch not only owns ‘The Australian’, but also Fox News – and therefore has a keen interest in discouraging media literacy.
We live in a world where it is simply not enough to be literate in the works of the ‘canon’. Australia is increasingly a country dominated by various tensions and harmonies that simply did not exist here in the 1940s and 1950s. When I studied literature at high school there was not a single Australian novel on the syllabus. The only things written by Australians we studied were two poems – Australians were not capable of extended prose at the time, obviously. The poems were both written by white, Anglo-Saxons, although, admittedly, one of these was a woman (who would ever have though even they could write literature?). There were no migrant voices in our literature, at least, not in the literature we were taught at school. There were, however, lots and lots of English voices and even a couple of American ones. We didn’t read any Australian plays. And although this was all a long time ago, the cultural cringe in Australia is still alive and well. What is really interesting about this book is that it shows just how much the writers for ‘The Australian’ would prefer to just go on cringing.
This is the sort of book that puts fire in your belly. It is the sort of book that makes you realise just how dumb many of our cultural critics (particularly those who wrap themselves like slightly off fish in a Murdoch rag) can be. It is the sort of book that gets under your skin. If you think that all of the world’s problems are due to English teachers not teaching people how to read and write according to the rules of phonics, you won’t like this book, but you probably ought to read it anyway. If you are sick to death of hearing about ‘back to basics’ as if this was the solution to the problems of literacy in Australia (or anywhere else for that matter) then you really do need to get hold this book.
It is a fascinating history of an ignoble argument by aggressively ignorant people. Ilana Snyder, though, presents a well reasoned look at an incredibly complex set of related issues (ranging from the teaching grammar to Culture, to Gender and even to Numeracy). This is a troubling although very worthwhile read.
February 7, 2024
This has been one of the most timely and profound reads in relation to teaching English. I've had the gut feeling that the prescribe method not only misses the mark, with the student results reflecting this in spades, but actively does damage to my students love of learning. Without some love for learning, little learning takes place. This book explains the historical underpinning of why the dominant current approach doesn’t work and furthermore how the politicisation of literacy education in Australia is damaging our kids further. Importantly, the further application of this books findings is the way that politicisation and conservative media interference is further polarising our society, so that sustained critical public debate can’t take place. In short, how the divisive conversation we are engaging in will only further negatively impact our society. I implore anyone who teaches to read this.
December 5, 2017
Excellent in-depth discussion of topics affecting literacy. It helped me assess 2 students who had learning difficulties. It also revived critical thinking to better cope with life's events. It has a very good bibliography of newspaper clippings.
September 16, 2012
For someone who doesn't read much non-fiction because I find them rather laborious to read, this one was remarkably easy to follow and I found it very, very interesting.
I'd recommend it for anyone interested in their child's literacy and what schools are really doing in this area.
I'd recommend it for anyone interested in their child's literacy and what schools are really doing in this area.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews