Opinion-12 February 2001

Neanderthals were probably too ham-fisted to make effective use of advanced Stone Age technology or to perform dexterous tasks such as carving. That's the suggestion of Wesley Niewoehner, an anthropologist at the University of New Mexico. Niewoehner built 3D digital maps of the surfaces of the metacarpals, the bones that make up the palm of the hand. The shapes of the ends of the metacarpals reflect the kind of grip Neanderthals had.

That suggests that early modern humans have out-lived the Neanderthals because of their superior use of the same kinds of tools. It was a matter of genetics, i.e. differences in the physical make up of the hands of the two species. In Australia today, as in all countries, the situation is reversed. It is the tools that determine what position a nation holds. And it is with accelerating speed that those tools are becoming increasingly intellectual in character.

Study after study has found that while individuals within a population differ in their intellectual interests and capacity, there is no evidence that there are significant racial or ethnic differences in intellectual ability.

While "success" of the offspring is correlated to the financial standing of a family, this is a marked oversimplification of the issues involved. Barry Jones' corollary in Sleepers Wake! observes that postcode is correlated with success, which is really saying the same thing in somewhat more "politically correct" terms. But basically this discussion is superficial. The matter is one of a child's abilities, environment and the opportunities afforded him or her.

If only one example were to be quoted, that of the account given by James McBride in his 1996 biography of his mother, The Color of Water, is probably as good as any. Pam Janis wrote in the February 1, 1996 Detroit News, "[Neither] McBride nor any of his 11 siblings knew that their mother, Ruth McBride Jordan, was born Rachel Deborah Shilsky, the daughter of an itinerant Orthodox rabbi-turned-shopkeeper in Suffolk, Va. The Mommy they knew was a devout Christian who started a Baptist church in her living room in the Brooklyn projects [house] where they lived, and married two blacks. Widowed twice, broke but resourceful, [she] sent the whole dozen of her children to college and most to graduate school single-handedly after her second husband, Hunter Jordan, died in 1972. Today her seven sons and five daughters are doctors, professors, nurses, teachers, chemists -- accomplished and impressive, all." Ruth McBride Jordan didn't go past a high school education, and the family ranged between poverty and subsistence. But she had the resolve that her children would have an education and appreciate learning. So if education, learning, and accomplishment are prized and encouraged in your environment you've got a good chance to realise your potential, if you're given the opportunity to learn and to continue. One or two accomplished offspring might have been a fluke, but 12 is no fluke.

Taking that a step further, very few Nobel Laureates have come from families where learning wasn't prized. That said, an awful lot of offspring from accomplished families have turned out to be pretty ordinary. But that's not the point. You cannot produce a "Clever Country", "Knowledge Nation" (choose any equivalent phrase you want to use) unless you start at the beginning. The nation's people must prize knowledge and learning. Without that we shall be "damned" to second class world citizenship. In one form or another, "it's education all the way down."

In our very recent past our Government has spent considerable sums in order to give us the opportunity to have a referendum on whether or not we wished to become a republic – an inevitability – but does it really matter if it's this year or even this decade. The Government has spent very considerable sums on not only implementing a GST but in explaining why it believed it is a good thing and how to cope with it. Is it unfair to ask of it to develop with all the state and territorial governments an educational system that will allow every child to reach his or her full potential. Perhaps our government[s] should ask, "What can we give our people, rather than what can our people give us?"

Where to start? Well, what about an "Education Summit", a real one! And while this site deals principally with Science, Technology and Innovation an Education Summit must be all embracing. That's a much taller order than the matters covered by the Innovation Summit or the Chief Scientists report, A Chance to Change.  The Glenn Report  which focuses on the teaching of Mathematics and Science in the United States is an excellent basis from which to start while the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) issued the "Occasional Paper" in October 2000, Mathematical Sciences In Australia: Looking For A Future. However, this proposal of an "Education Summit" asks to go both broader and deeper than the matters covered in the Glenn or FASTS reports. So, for example, unless all sectors of the community, the disadvantaged as well as the privileged, are included, unless all legitimate disciplines are included, unless all appropriate groups are represented,  the affliction of ignorance will become increasingly pervasive and debilitating.

Surely ignorance is an affliction.

Make no mistake ignorance is as crippling to a nation as any pestilence.  Unchecked it will bring this nation to its knees. Unless our political leaders come to the realisation that it is not a question of can we afford a truly functional education system but that we cannot afford to continue without it, the harm to the nation will be incalculable. Assuredly we shall continue to watch our finest minds in the arts and sciences leave our shores not to return – we shall continue to watch our cohort nations advance further and further away from us.

An essential requirement is that our leaders be interrupted from their tinkering, political point scoring, finger pointing, and self congratulatory posturing.

[Note: Julia Biard reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on January 18^th, "The report on teacher supply and demand, commissioned by the Australian Council of Deans, says that across the country the shortage [of teachers] will be critical by 2005, when it will be at its worst for three decades."]

Alex Reisner
The Funneled Web