BLOOM BRINGS BACK THE BASICS

Up to mid-1960s, students in Australian schools learned the basics. They learned grammar rules, sentence structure, parsing words, analysis of sentences, synthesis of sentences and derivation from Latin and Greek.

My grade 8 teacher in 1959 was a soldier from World War 1 and born in 1890. He taught the basics well. His handwriting was copper plate and he expected us to be the same. We knew our sentence structure well.

Then it all changed in the mid-1960s. All grammar and sentence structure went out the window. Students learned to read by reading not knowing words and sentences. They learned to write by writing. It was a mess and has remained so. The standard of teaching has dropped, never to rise again.

But Bloom tried to raise the basics again in the 1970s with his Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. The first level was KNOWLEDGE. This was knowledge of words, grammar, derivation, structure of sentences, general knowledge of the world and specialized knowledge.

But people still criticize Bloom. Perhaps they do not want to go back to the basics. Perhaps they do not know how.

That is why the Australian consultants have hidden Bloom's Taxonomy and Mastery Learning from PNG teachers. They were paid only for Outcome Based Education. They knew it would not work. It may be that the advisors want projects to fail so that they will be invited back to clean up the mess.

Selling Outcome Based Education without Bloom's Taxonomy and Mastery Learning awareness is like giving aircraft to the PNGDF without training in the tools and without the tools. The Australian advisors did the same with HIV/AIDS awareness.

AUSTRALIAN AIDS PROPAGANDA RUBBISH - FAMILY POSITIVE LIVING - AIDS ...

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So many friends in PNG advise that they can not see the difference between Mastery Learning OBE and the way that they were taught in the 1970s and 1980s. They were taught to master skills. They practised and practised until they mastered.

So what is different? The difference is that their teaching had not been spoiled by young smart-arse advisors with a private agenda.

Perhaps the PNG Department of Education should scrap the name Outcome Based Education and replace it with Mastery Learning. Then we all know where we stand.