The New Australian English Edjumication

If you can get past the quote in the Australian from the Teachers Union the implications are disturbing.

"meaning making in and through language, in a range of forms, media and expression, should be the core organiser of the curriculum."

First you will need to check their definition of literature as being "culturally valued texts" and not things like "plays, novels, poems" that they define as being too "nebulous."

If you want culturally nebulous think about what culturally valued means. From the students perspective this might be some idiotic TV show and the nuances of SMS texting. Lazy teachers can select movies to watch in stead of actually standing up and teaching anything. Instead of teaching there seems to be a trend towards social engineering.

This includes pushing social agendas like global warming and socialism over grammar and a well constructed sentence. Instead of challenge the curriculum demands equality. "Equality" in this sense means materials aimed at the dumbest or least privileged members of the class.

So they have no access to books at home so the plan is to make sure that they don't read any good ones at school? I.e. if you are disadvantaged we are going to make sure that you stay that way, in the interests of "equality."

A conspiracy theory might go this way. There are a small, elite group of people who recognise that having good language skills are important for staying on top and being recognised around the world. If these people ensure that the majority of the population graduate with poor language skills then their positions at the top of society are assured and they can make sure that only those people they want to rise to those positions do so.

This kind of theory is of course just crazy talk, isn't it?

If you want to see some examples of what pompous and meaningless English looks like I direct you attention to The Australian, Letters to the Editor, Feb 28 (Sat) from Frank Brennan, Brian Tee and Stephen Brady.