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 18th, "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