News on the Australian Curriculum front confirms  the following: Personal, social, ethical and intercultural understandings are being reinstated!

Interestingly, in one context or another, these skills, attributes characteristics, traits and qualities have been or HAD BEEN part of Education going back in time. Attitudes were once an integral paert of assessment, particularly at Primary School level. However, they also drew primary comment at secondary level.

We used to talk and appreciate the attributes of holistic education, that went to the social, wwmotional and moral/spiritual aspects of life. And their ‘distancing’ was not undertaken so long ago, when one considers these attributes as key ambitions expressed as part of the Melbourne Declaration on Education in 2007.

A great deal of narrowed focus, for mine, came from the Howard then Rudd Goverenments’ focus on NAPLAN as being the ‘end all and ‘b’ all’ of education. The resultant magnified focus on narrow academic competencies meant that the rest was deemed as being somewhat inconsequential.

Guess what? Now all of a sudden the wider frame of awareness about student development is being revisited. It should never have been abandoned or allowed to suffer diminution.

While education is ‘good’, its undermining by foolish thinking and practice is not wise.