Anthony Plesko BE, Grad Dip Ed, JP, Ballina
Miss Gillard and Mr Garrett, I have read the Gonski report in full and, I believe, its findings are good… good in addressing equity in the funding of teaching. Education however is teaching plus learning. E=T+L.
You can have the best funded teaching in the world but if the kids do not want to learn there will not be any education. I teach high school maths and science and industrial arts, and 80 per cent of my classroom time is wasted in disciplining students who hate school, don’t want to be there and have no respect for teachers, their parents or the community.
The attitude coming in the school gate is Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen, Kim Kardashian, silicone augmented models, drug enhanced sports people, arrogant shock jocks, tattooed, girlfriend-bashing, public-urinating footballers etc. Hugely successful people, mostly despite limited education. You are proposing to spend resources on ‘teaching’… nothing on ‘learning’.
You have the cart before the horse and now are flogging a dead horse. The attitude of the students and community needs to change. We changed community attitudes on smoking, sun exposure, litter etc, with campaigns (slip, slop, slap etc). We need a campaign addressing the importance of education. This is where some of the money needs to go. I can teach classes of 100 if every student wants to learn and co-operates. I will always fail in a one on one situation in the face of a determination not to learn. The parents need to push their kids to behave and try their best in the classroom and need to support the teachers. The opposite is the current status quo.
Proof? Asian students have a respect for education and a desire to learn, inculcated and promoted by their parents. Thus they perform better than the rest. Please, please address the most important factor in the equation: the attitude to learning.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
