150 years. What's changed?

I was wondering about how little schooling has changed during the past 150 years. Teachers at the front, kids sitting at rows and columns of desks, textbooks, notes-books, pens, lines. Detentions. School rules. Aloof and distant PhDs in Education making the decisions.

I asked around and this is what I was told schools should teach… defensive driving, healthy and sustainable eating, fashion sense, personal hygiene, budgeting, contraception, values, self defence, drug and alcohol abuse, relationships, communication skills, pretty assignment cover pages, research skills, handwriting, i before e except after c, the periodic table, vegetables are better than red meat but tofu is even better, global warming, globalisation, self esteem, law and order, consumer rights, entrepreneurship, pet-care, gardening, macramé and other non-competitive hobbies, how to call 111, CPR, safe bicycling, drop kicks in the last few minutes, sailing, fast-bowling, and did I mention feeling good about oneself?

Teachers get too many holidays and they only work from 9 til 3 – this came through a lot when I asked what schools should teach.

Schools must, of course, prepare kids for the 22nd century so schools should teach kids how to send text messages, and rip DVDs (or do we burn them?), how to upload stuff to Facebook, Youtube, and rate my teachers.

Schools should teach about charity and community service and helping old people across the road and saving whales, trees, plastic bags, low-lying Pacific Islands, rainforests and other countries’ indigenous cultures and water too.

There should be something in the modern curriculum about decorative cushions and pastel colours and fruity aromas and daytime television and comfort food and peace, love and scented candles with sea-shells and cinnamon sticks and vanilla pods inside. And glass containers with coloured stones and filled with water. Students should understand these too.

You can see the modern curriculum taking shape, can’t you?
Of course, schools should also teach Romeo & Juliet, circle geometry, small ball handling skills, how many electrons are in a carbon atom, the inner structures of a plant cell and semi-quavers. And Latin.

The government weenies in charge of such things, the Nigels with their pocket protectors and PhDs in Curriculum Development won’t throw the baby out with the bio-degradable soapy water.

Schools will continue to teach kids how to blow their nose and comb their hair and clean their teeth and when to say thank you and please and I’m sorry.

You see, schools must teach everything. This is so that whatever goes wrong – from losing the footy to melting glaciers to fat kids to thin kids, to losing Spiderman drink bottles, to violent crime, to welfare abuse – it’ll always be a teacher’s fault.