Julia Would Have Thought
GERMAINE Greer is hatefully contemptuous of a very widely admired Australian businessman, husband and father like Steve Irwin. But she loves a woman-harassing, serially unfaithful hillbilly like Bill Clinton. The animal kingdom gave Irwin what he deserved for so aggressively groping its various subjects, she insisted last year. Which, if Greer is consistent, will surely see her applaud Bill being glassed by the next female staffer he mauls in his travels. In Australia again to promote a new book - happily, this one won't lead to accusations of high-brow paedophilia - it's equally unsurprising that this childless, unmarried feminist who lives with geese should take such a strong liking to Julia Gillard, who spends most of her time with the likes of Kevin Rudd and Anthony Albanese. "I think Julia Gillard's great, I have to say – great for redheads, great for girls, great for straight-talking and great for having a slightly less than conventional lifestyle," she gushed.
___________________________________________________
“Prima facie, suspicion seems warranted that the report, by the NSW Secondary Principals' Council, is using guilt-mongering identity politics ...”
___________________________________________________
But Julia is not so great at understanding the decisions parents have to make to guarantee their children get the best education available. She responded yesterday to a report that children were being taken out of some government classrooms in a "white flight" from schools where indigenous or Islamic influence and culture now predominate. "I would have thought," she said, "that parents would value as part of the education experience, their child being in multicultural Australia, learning about different cultures, learning about diversity because that is the nation they are going to live in." "Would have thought" is code for "not that anything child-related is of any personal interest to me." Prima facie, suspicion seems warranted that the report, by the NSW Secondary Principals' Council, is using guilt-mongering identity politics to avoid the more substantive explanation for the increasing "white" (including Asian) preference for independent schools.
___________________________________________________
“Gillard's acceptance of that narrative as a verified reality - to say nothing of her sanctimony - will have alarm bells ringing for government backbenchers.”
___________________________________________________
That explanation involves values. And it isn't as though Aboriginal or Lebanese people don't have any of their own. Far from it. Or that a cosmopolitan familiarity with their cultures does our young people anything but good. It is dishonest - if not revolting - for anyone to simplify the collapsing faith in state schools in those ideologically self-aggrandising terms. Gillard's acceptance of that narrative as a verified reality - to say nothing of her sanctimony - will have alarm bells ringing for government backbenchers. After all, many of them send their children to quality independent schools. As they probably know, the trouble is not diversity but that so-called multiculturalism institutionalises subjectivism in values as a pedagogical medium for keeping all and sundry satisfied and "affirmed." The result is not the cosmopolitanism that Gillard praises but mediocrity, resentment and an un-Australian preoccupation with ethnicity and religion.
“Prima facie, suspicion seems warranted that the report, by the NSW Secondary Principals' Council, is using guilt-mongering identity politics ...”
___________________________________________________
But Julia is not so great at understanding the decisions parents have to make to guarantee their children get the best education available. She responded yesterday to a report that children were being taken out of some government classrooms in a "white flight" from schools where indigenous or Islamic influence and culture now predominate. "I would have thought," she said, "that parents would value as part of the education experience, their child being in multicultural Australia, learning about different cultures, learning about diversity because that is the nation they are going to live in." "Would have thought" is code for "not that anything child-related is of any personal interest to me." Prima facie, suspicion seems warranted that the report, by the NSW Secondary Principals' Council, is using guilt-mongering identity politics to avoid the more substantive explanation for the increasing "white" (including Asian) preference for independent schools.
“Gillard's acceptance of that narrative as a verified reality - to say nothing of her sanctimony - will have alarm bells ringing for government backbenchers.”
___________________________________________________
That explanation involves values. And it isn't as though Aboriginal or Lebanese people don't have any of their own. Far from it. Or that a cosmopolitan familiarity with their cultures does our young people anything but good. It is dishonest - if not revolting - for anyone to simplify the collapsing faith in state schools in those ideologically self-aggrandising terms. Gillard's acceptance of that narrative as a verified reality - to say nothing of her sanctimony - will have alarm bells ringing for government backbenchers. After all, many of them send their children to quality independent schools. As they probably know, the trouble is not diversity but that so-called multiculturalism institutionalises subjectivism in values as a pedagogical medium for keeping all and sundry satisfied and "affirmed." The result is not the cosmopolitanism that Gillard praises but mediocrity, resentment and an un-Australian preoccupation with ethnicity and religion.
<< Home