Welcome to FrieMCS

"Government Education" has Become an Oxymoron

We believe that government education in New Zealand will continue to run down and standards will continue to slip, unless radical changes can be made. It is difficult to see those changes taking place. For the government system has been captured by teachers, teaching unions, and educational bureaucrats who do not believe in the objectivity of truth--which is to say they do not believe in a body of authoritative truth which is to be preserved and passed down from one generation to the next.

There is no authorised body of knowledge to be transmitted to the next generation. Education, amongst the experts, has morphed into a trivial exercise of facilitation. Any information the child or student might "discover" as a result of being "facilitated" is implicitly valid. As Christian educators we know this to be false. We know that certain truth exists because God has created the world, and governs all of it according to His will and power. Therefore, we, who have been created in God's image, can learn and discover truth about this wonderful world, its past, its present and its future. We can unlock many of the created world's secrets using the tools of learning God has given us. We can pass on this information and truth to our children, so they too can function well in the wonderful world God has created.

Now we do not wish to demean all teachers in the government education system. We believe, however, that a great deal of those at the chalkface, dedicated though they may be, lack the philosophical sophistication to understand why the government education system continues to undercut, undermine, and ultimately work against their endeavours. They don't understand why the government education system is constantly and ceaseless and restlessly changing. They just know that the system is not working and that there is no one silver bullet to put it right.

Sociologist Frank Furedi wrote recently criticising contentless education as it is now pervasively practised in government education systems. He also explains why it is so destructive to the government education system itself.

Let’s give children the ‘store of human knowledge’

In flattering kids as ‘digital natives’ for whom the past is irrelevant, we degrade a vital adult mission: transmitting knowledge.

Frank Furedi

In virtually every Western society, education is in trouble. Unfortunately, however, policymakers tend to obsess only about the symptoms of the problem – unsatisfactory standards in core subjects, growth of a cohort of poorly schooled underachievers or erosion of classroom discipline – and not the cause.

Yet the main reason education often is not educating is because it finds it difficult to give meaning to human experience. Time and again, curriculum specialists inform us that because we live in a world of rapid change, the conventions and practices of the past have become outmoded, outdated or irrelevant. Present educational fads are based on the premise that because we live in a new, digitally driven society, the intellectual legacy of the past and the experience of grown-ups have little significance for the schooling of children.

The implicit assumption that adults have little to teach children is rarely made explicit. But there is a growing tendency to flatter children through suggesting that their values are more enlightened than those of their elders because they are more tuned in to the present. So children are often represented as digital natives who are way ahead of their text-bound and backward-looking parents.

Although education is celebrated as one of the most important institutions of society, there is a casual disrespect for the content of what children are taught. Curriculum engineers often display indifference, if not contempt, for abstract thought and the knowledge developed in the past. Both are criticised for being irrelevant or outdated; only new information that can be applied and acted on is seen as suitable for the training – and it is training and not teaching – of digital natives.

In policy deliberations about education, the acquisition of subject-based knowledge is often dismissed as old-fashioned. Typically, an emphasis on the intellectual content of classroom subjects is labelled an outdated form of scholasticism that has little significance in our era. Policymakers often represent change as an omnipotent force that renders prevailing forms of knowledge and schooling redundant. In such circumstances, education must transform itself to keep up with the times. From this perspective, educational policies can be justified only if they can adapt to change.

Since they are likely to be overtaken by events, classroom innovations by definition have a short-term and provisional status. The instability that afflicts the education system is turned into the normal state of an institution that needs to be responsive to the uncertain flow of events. Although fads come and go, the constant feature of today’s throwaway pedagogy is a deep-seated hostility to teaching academic subjects to young people, especially to those who come from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. So-called modernisers regard the subject-based curriculum as far too rigid for a school system that must adapt to a constantly changing world. The dramatisation of change in Anglo-American education-speak renders the past irrelevant. If indeed we continually move from one new age to another, then the practices of the past have little relevance for today.

Sadly, the ceaseless repetition of the idea that the past is irrelevant desensitises people from understanding the influence of the legacy of human development on their lives. The constant talk of ceaseless change tends to naturalise it and turn it into an omnipotent autonomous force that subjects human beings to its will. This is a force that annihilates the past and demands that people learn to adapt and readapt to new experiences. From this standpoint, humans do not so much determine their future as adapt to forces beyond their control.

In the worldview of the educational establishment change has acquired a sacred character that determines what is taught. It creates new requirements and introduces new ideas about learning. And it encourages the mass production of a disposable pedagogy. Educationalists adopt the rhetoric of ‘breaks’ and ‘ruptures’ and maintain that nothing is as it was and that the present has been decoupled from the past. Their outlook is shaped by an imagination that is so overwhelmed by the displacement of the old by the new that it often overlooks historical experience that may continue to be relevant.

The discussion of the relationship between education and change is frequently overwhelmed by the fad of the moment and with the relatively superficial symptoms of new developments. It is often distracted from acknowledging the fact the fundamental educational needs of students do not alter every time a new technology influences people’s lives. And certainly the questions raised by Greek philosophy, Renaissance poetry, Enlightenment science or the novels of George Eliot continue to be relevant for students in our time and not just to the period that preceded the digital age.

Often change and social transformation are represented as if they are unique to our time. Innovation guru Bill Law makes this pronouncement: ‘We may not know precisely what shape the future will take but we do know that the futures of our current students will not much resemble those of our past ones.’ But when did we last think the future of our children would resemble our own? Not in 1969, or in 1939 or even 1909.

The idea that we live in a qualitatively different world serves as a premise for the claim that the knowledge and insights of the past have only minor historical significance. In education it is claimed that old ways of teaching are outdated precisely because they are old. Knowledge itself is called into question because in a world of constant flux it must be continually overtaken by events. Policy has become so focused on keeping up with change that it has become distracted from the task of giving meaning to education.

The fetishisation of change is symptomatic of a mood of intellectual malaise, where notions of truth, knowledge and meaning have acquired a provisional character. Perversely, the transformation of change into a metaphysical force haunting humanity actually desensitises society from distinguishing between a passing novelty and qualitative change. That is why lessons learned through the experience of the past are so important for helping society face the future. When change is objectified, it turns into spectacle that distracts society from valuing the truths and insights it has acquired throughout the best moments of human history. Yet these are truths that have emerged through attempts to find answers to the deepest and most durable questions facing us, and the more the world changes the more we need to draw on our cultural and intellectual inheritance.

If the legacy of past achievements has ceased to have relevance for the schooling of young people, what can education mean? Thinkers from across the left-right divide have always realised that education represents a transaction between the generations. Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist thinker, wrote ‘in reality each generation educates the new generation’. Writing from a conservative perspective, English philosopher Michael Oakeshott concluded ‘education in its most general significance may be recognised as a specific transaction which may go on between the generations of human beings in which newcomers to the scene are initiated into the world they inhabit’. Liberal political philosopher Hannah Arendt said education provided an opportunity for society to preserve and to renew its intellectual inheritance through an intergenerational conversation.

One of the key tasks of education is to teach children about the world as it is. Although society is subject to the forces of change, education needs to acquaint young people with the legacy of its past. The term ‘learning from the past’ is often used as a platitude. Yet it is impossible to engage with the future unless people do draw on the centuries of human experience. Individuals gain an understanding of themselves through familiarity with the unfolding of the human world.

The transition from one generation to another requires education to transmit an understanding of the lessons learned by humanity through the ages. Consequently, the main mission of education is to preserve the past so young people have the cultural and intellectual resources to deal with the challenges they face. This understanding of education as renewal stands in direct contrast to the present predilection to focus the curriculum on the future.

In Anglo-American societies, curriculum-planning is devoted to cultivating an ethos of flexibility towards the future. Of course, the capacity to adapt is a valuable asset. But the exercise of this capacity requires a grounding in an understanding of the world in which we live. The question of the balance that education should strike between orienting towards the past and towards a changing world should be a source of debate. However, today, when policymakers tend to be so fixated on the present that they attempt to distance education from the past, it is essential to reaffirm the importance of a traditional humanist education.

The impulse to free education from the past is influenced by a prejudice that regards ideas that are not of the moment as old-fashioned and irrelevant. Yet the project of preserving the past through education does not mean an uncritical acceptance of the world as it; it means the assumption of adult responsibility for the world into which the young are integrated. The aim of this act is to acquaint the young with the world as it is so that they have the intellectual resources necessary for renewing it. Through education, all the important old questions are re-raised with the young, leading to a dialogue that moves humanity’s conversation forward.

Education needs to conserve the past. As Arendt argued, conservatism, in the sense of conservation, is of the essence of education. Her objective was not to conserve for the sake of nostalgia, but because she recognised that the conservation of the old provided the foundation for renewal and innovation. The characterisation of conservation as the essence of education can be easily misunderstood as a call inspired by a backward or reactionary political agenda. However, the argument for conservation is based on the understanding that, in a generational transaction, adults must assume responsibility for the world as it is and pass on its cultural and intellectual legacy to young people.

An attitude of conservation is called for specifically in the context of intergenerational transmission of this legacy. Until recently, leading thinkers from across the ideological divide understood the significance of transmitting the knowledge of the past to young people. Conservative thinker Matthew Arnold’s formulation of passing on ‘the best that has been thought and said in the world’ is virtually identical to Lenin’s insistence that education needs to transmit the ‘store of human knowledge’.

A liberal humanist education is underpinned by the assumption that children are rightful heirs to the legacy of the past. It takes responsibility for ensuring this inheritance is handed over to the young. It is because education gives meaning to human experience that it needs to be valued in its own right. One of the key characteristics of education is its lack of interest in an ulterior purpose. That does not mean it is uninterested in developments affecting children and society; it means that it regards the transmission of cultural and intellectual achievements of humanity to children as its defining mission.

Once society is able to affirm an education system that values itself and the acquisition of knowledge, policymakers and the public can begin to envisage the steps required to deal with the practical challenges facing the classroom.

Frank Furedi’s latest book, Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating, is published by Continuum Press. (Buy this book from Amazon(UK).) This article was first published in the Australian and is an abridged version of his opening lecture at the Battle of Ideas conference, which took place at the Royal College of Art in London on 31 October/1 November.

An Old Family Staple

Risotto is one of those dishes which can be deployed in many different ways. You can make lots of it, very inexpensively, and freeze the left overs or eat over the next few days. With perpetually hungry teenagers in the house, it lines the stomach walls between coming in from school and the evening meal! A quick reheat in the microwave is all that is needed.

You can serve it with chicken, lamb, beef, venison, fish--lots of possibilities.

There are several tricks to a good vegetable risotto. The key is flavour, so the more intense the vegetable flavour the better. You cannot go past using vegetable stock to absorb into the rice--it helps achieve that wonderful vegetable flavour that complements so many meat dishes, and prevents the rice being bland.

Firstly, you need to get a good base of vegetables in which you will cook the risotto. Onions and garlic are always a good beginning; then add chopped celery and/or chopped capsicum. You can use other veges if you wish. These should be sweated down in olive oil in your risotto saucepan first. Meanwhile--and here is a trick--don't discard all the vegetable peelings and choppings (onion and garlic skins, celery leaves, whatever) but put them in a separate saucepan, cover with water, and bring to the boil. Salt and simmer for about ten to twenty minutes. Strain out the liquid. All the flavour of that liquid can then be used to add to the risotto rice, which will intensify the vegetable flavour.

The best rice to use is arborio rice because it cooks into a lovely waxy white creamy texture. But, if not, then basmati rice will be fine.

Ingredients

1 medium red onion, chopped finely
1 medium white onion chopped finely
4-5 cloves garlic, crushed
cup of celery, chopped
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
1 cup of white wine
vegetable stock
1 cup frozen peas
1 tablespoon butter
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Stage I: Prepare the risotto vegetable base.

-Heat risotto saucepan with a dash of olive oil. Add in chopped onions and begin to sweat down.
-Add celery and finally garlic, stirring until all the crispness of the onion and celery has completely gone and they look like they have just been on a ten k run. If they are browned, that's fine too.
-Add balsamic vinegar and stir until it has thickened down.
-Add salt and pepper to taste.


Stage II: Prepare the vegetable stock.

While you are preparing the risotto vegetable base, put the vegetable tailings into a separate saucepan, cover with water, and simmer for about ten minutes. Strain the liquid, and set aside.

Stage III: Risotto

-Put a cup of rice (or however much you wish) into the saucepan, and stir into the vegetable base. This will let the intense flavours coat the rice which will then start to toast in the hot pan. Stir frequently, mixing thoroughly.
-Add white wine and stir. From now on you will need to keep stirring the vegetables rice pretty much all the time, so this is where you could use a good kitchen assistant. (Because there's lots of simple, repeated action, it's a great dish to start training the next generation of super chefs. Or, if hubby wants to come into the kitchen to talk to you, distracting you while you are working, at least you can put him to work.)
-As the liquid is absorbed and the dish begins to dry out, add about half a cup of the vegetable water (combined with vegetable stock, if you have any.
-As the liquid is absorbed by the rice, add more liquid, stirring all the time.
-Keep this process going until the rice is soft and cooked. (If you run out of vegetable stock, just keep adding water.)
-As the rice is getting completely soft, add in a cup of frozen peas at the end, and stir for about two to three minutes. They will cook quickly in the hot rice.
-Finally, throw in a table spoon of butter and stir it into the risotto. This will cause the whole dish to glisten and complete the creamy texture.
-Salt and pepper to taste.

Willingly Enslaved Parents

The Press recently reported on a "survey" conducted amongst 115 parents or caregivers by a Unitec Master's graduate. The sensationalised "result" was that 52 percent of those surveyed believed there should be a minimum age for cell-phone use.

Laying aside the robustness of the survey (sample size, question framing, whether leading questions were employed, for example--about which no information was provided) let us accept for the moment that 52 percent is a significant percentage.

Assuming it is reasonably representative, it represents an indictment of parents and family life in New Zealand. Even assuming that no more than a third of the "parental" population think this way, it implies that a large number of parents are now so insipid, incompetent, and ineffectual that they need a law to back them up, or provide some authoritative warrant to them so that they can regulate and supervise the behaviour of their teenage children.

From one perspective this should not surprise us. Since the Government has arrogantly determined, in a quantum power-grab, to direct and control parents in their child rearing and disciplinary responsibilities, it follows that more and more parents over time will view themselves as "children" needing the support of "Big Daddy" government. It is natural that, since the State has asserted illegitimate power over families, that parents will play the game and want the State to carry more and more of the can for their children. So, since control of cell phone use is a matter of discipline, and since the State has presumed to legislate to control and direct how we discipline our children, it is reasonable, is it not, to require the state to go further and use its legislative power to provides rules and regulations for our children as well. "If you are going to tell us what to do in our homes, you also need to tell our children what they can and cannot do. Fair's fair." The train of thought seems inevitable. Hence, apparently a large proportion of parents now believe that the government needs to legislate to direct teenage children's cellphone use.

But there is a deeper malaise at work here. Our culture of Unbelief has sought to tear down every authority higher than the autonomy of the human heart. "For in the day you eat of it, you will be like gods, knowing good and evil for yourself," hissed the Serpent. With respect to its ideology of the family, Unbelief postulates that parental authority is intrinsically misguided, if not downright evil. Children are to be raised with a profound respect for their autonomy, lest the honour and dignity of their personhood be undermined. Thus, parents may make suggestions, entertain, divert, reason, channel, guide, facilitate--but above all, parents must not command and control. This, we are told, is damaging to a child and a blasphemous contradiction of their human autonomy.

When children become teenagers they start to have tastes and ideas of their own. Raised within the orbit of individual autonomy they quite reasonably start reflecting and asserting in their teenage years the equal validity of their opinions, tastes, predilections, and preferences as over against their parents, or anyone else, for that matter. After all, since birth, by a thousand subtle techniques and methods their own parents have been indoctrinating them into just this very notion. And so they got the point, the state-run schools they attended sang daily from the same hymn sheet. The poor kids never had a chance. They were conditioned from birth to believe in their own autonomy and self-authority.

A point in time inevitably comes when parents completely lose control of their children; or, to put it another way, children become uncontrollable. The structures of authority have eroded away. Having denied God, and made themselves gods, modern Unbelieving man is suddenly confronted with the slavery of atomistic autonomy. Instead of raising their children to be in respectful subjection to their parents, the parents are now subject to their children, whose views, wishes, and opinions are to be accepted as equally authoritative and valid.

Of course the world and human culture cannot continue to function without the skeleton of authority structures. So the newly enslaved and subjected parents appeal to a higher court--the State. Whilst they have lost authority they hope that the State might re-assert it on their behalf to "prove" to their teenage children that cell-phones, for example, are bad until they reach a certain age. The "proof" consists of the naked dictat of the State. Autonomy is believable only to the point where someone bigger, meaner, stronger, and more bullying cuts you down by force. As the old saw has it: everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.

If over half the parents in Athens believe that the State needs to pass a law to ban their teenagers from using cell-phones we can see where the culture of human autonomy has led. It has resulted in a state of powerlessness, and a spirit of enslavement. An insatiable appetite for laws upon regulations, rules upon statutes emerges. And so the soft-despotic, velvet power of the State grows and grows, with each passing decade and administration. We become a race of Sharkey's little helpers, always looking to the bosses on the hill.

The Devil is the world's first, greatest, and leading slaver. The progressive enslavement of the human race has always been his goal. His preferred modus operandi has always been subtle insinuation. The emergence of soft-despotism in the West is his most subtle work thus far. Society is progressively being enslaved to a beneficent government and all the people love it. His handiwork is becoming more and more evident as Unbelief takes hold in our culture.

Thanks be to God that our Lord Jesus Christ has come forth to destroy the works of the Devil. The Serpent has been cast down, the Ring which binds in the dark has been destroyed. As we call men to the Saviour, they will once again breath free air.

Endowment Trust Increases Support to MCS

The Auckland Christian Schools Endowment Trust had its Annual General Meeting early in October.

In 2009, the Endowment Trust was able to contribute $4,000 towards MCS operating costs. Next year, the Trust plans to increase this distribution. Due to additional donations made to the Trust over the past year, the Trustees agreed to increase the annual support for MCS in 2010 to $4,500 pa, which will represent a 12.5% increase on the amount paid to the School in 2009.

The Trustees are keen to encourage donations and gifts to the Endowment Trust. Donations and gifts are fully tax deductible. The Trust is registered with the Charities Commission and with the IRD as a donee organization.

All donations (unless otherwise specified by the donor) are invested in high security income earning investments. All the income of the Trust is distributed to MCS to help with operating costs and expenses, thereby keeping tuition fees as low as possible. The Trust is required to keep the capital intact so that it will be able to generate a perpetual gift to MCS.

If you know of anyone, or of a business, which may like to donate to the Trust, please contact Geraldine at MCS (ddi: +64.9.269.1050)

Donations can be sent electronically to ACS Endowment Trust (ASB account: 12-3231-0647032-00). Please inform Geraldine of details so that a tax receipt can be issued, or drop a note to the Trustees, at ACS Endowment Trust, PO Box 100-937, North Shore Mail Centre, North Shore City 0745. Many thanks.

School Newsletter: Term 4, Week 2, 2009

This newsletter contains an initial draft design for a proposed adventure playground for our younger children by FrieMCS member, Bryan Williams. Many thanks, Bryan.

Also, there is an interesting piece by James Chapman (Massey University College of Education) who at a recent conference expressed disappointment on weak literacy levels amongst school leavers. We are thankful that literacy is a great strength of our School. We are thankful to our Lord, and to the dedicated and professional teaching staff He has raised up for the School.

Writing Helps Children Be More Creative.

Manukau Christian School emphasizes the importance of handwriting and written composition. Some recent US research by the University of Washington is showing just how important for our children the MCS emphasis is.

The Pen May be Mightier than the Keyboard

Source: University of Washington

When it comes to writing the pen apparently is mightier than the computer keyboard.

Second, fourth and sixth grade children with and without handwriting disabilities were able to write more and faster when using a pen than a keyboard to compose essays, according to new research.

The study, headed by Virginia Berninger, a University of Washington professor of educational psychology who studies normal writing development and writing disabilities, looked at children’s ability to write the alphabet, sentences and essays using a pen and a keyboard.

“Children consistently did better writing with a pen when they wrote essays. They wrote more and they wrote faster.” said Berninger.

Only for writing the alphabet was the keyboard better than the pen. For sentences results were mixed. But when using a pen, the children in all three grade levels produced longer essays and composed them at a faster pace. In addition, fourth and sixth graders wrote more complete sentences when they used a pen. The ability to write complete sentences was not affected by the children’s spelling skills.

The research also showed that many children don’t have a reliable idea of what a sentence is until the third or fourth grade.

“Children first have to understand what a sentence or a complete thought is before they can write one,” Berninger said. “Talking is very different from writing. We don’t talk in complete sentence. In conversation we produce units smaller and larger than sentences.”

The study was designed to compare methods of transcription, a basic cognitive process involved in writing that enables a writer to translate thoughts or ideas into written language. Both handwriting and spelling are transcription processes. Previous research by Berninger’s group showed that transcription predicts composition length and quality in developing writers. Transcription by both pen and keyboard involves the hands. Researchers, she said, are trying to understand why units of language are affected differently when hands write by pen and by keyboard.

“People think language is a single thing. But it’s not,” said Berninger. “It has multiple levels like a tall building with a different floor plan for each story. In written language there are letters, words, sentences and paragraphs, which are different levels of language. It turns out that they are related, but not in a simple way. Spelling is at the word level, but sentences are at the syntax level. Words and syntax (patterns for organizing the order of words) are semi-independent. Organizing sentences to create text is yet another level. That’s why some children need spelling help while others need help in constructing sentences and others in composing text with many sentences.”

Berninger and her colleagues recruited more than 200 normally developing children for the study. When the children were in the second, fourth and sixth grades they were given three tasks. For one task they were told to print all lower case letters in alphabetic order with a pen. They were also asked to select each letter of the alphabet in order on a keyboard. In both cases they were told to work as quickly and accurately as possible. In the second task they were asked to write one sentence that began with the word “writing” while using a pen and to write one sentence that began with “reading” while using the keyboard. Finally, the children were asked to write essays on provided topics for 10 minutes both by pen and by keyboard.

Although most children in the study developed transcriptions skills in an age-appropriate way, a small number showed signs of a specific learning disability – transcription disability. Both the normally developing and those with the disability wrote extended text better by pen than keyboard.

“Federal accommodations for disabilities now mean that schools often allow children to use laptops to bypass handwriting or spelling problems. Just giving them a laptop may not be enough,” Berninger said. “Children with this disability also need appropriate education in the form of explicit transcription and composition instruction.

“We need to learn more about the process of writing with a computer, and even though schools have computers they haven’t integrated them in teaching at the early grades. We need to help children become bilingual writers so they can write by both the pen and the computer. So don’t throw away your pen or your keyboard. We need them both.

“But we don’t want to lose sight of the fact that it is important for developing writers and children with transcription disability to be able to form letters by hand. A keyboard doesn’t allow a child to have the same opportunity to engage the hand while forming letters – on a keyboard a letter is selected by pressing a key and is not formed. Brain imaging studies with adults have shown an advantage for forming letters over selecting or viewing letters. A brain imaging study at the University of Washington with children showed that sequencing fingers may engage thinking. We need more research to figure out how forming letters by a pen and selecting them by pressing a key may engage our thinking brains differently,” she said.

Co-authors of the paper, published in the current issue of the journal Learning Disability Quarterly, were Robert Abbott, UW professor and chair of educational psychology and UW research assistants Amy Augsburger and Noelia Garcia. The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development funded the research.

Handwriting Encourages Patient Thinking

Umberto Eco is a prominent philosopher and historian of ideas in Italy. He is well known in English speaking countries for his books such as The Name of the Rose (a historical detective story, set in a remote monastery in Italy. It was later made into a movie, starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater).

Recently, two Italian journalists wrote a three-page newspaper article (in print, alas) about the decline of handwriting. By now it's well-known: most kids – what with computers (when they use them) and text messages – can no longer write by hand, except in laboured capital letters. . . .

The tragedy began long before the computer and the cellphone.

My parents' handwriting was slightly slanted because they held the sheet at an angle, and their letters were, at least by today's standards, minor works of art. At the time, some – probably those with poor hand- writing – said that fine writing was the art of fools. It's obvious that fine handwriting does not necessarily mean fine intelligence. But it was pleasing to read notes or documents written as they should be.


My generation was schooled in good handwriting, and we spent the first months of elementary school learning to make the strokes of letters. The exercise was later held to be obtuse and repressive but it taught us to keep our wrists steady as we used our pens to form letters rounded and plump on one side and finely drawn on the other. Well, not always – because the inkwells, with which we soiled our desks, notebooks, fingers and clothing, would often produce a foul sludge that stuck to the pen and took 10 minutes of mucky contortions to clean.

The crisis began with the advent of the ballpoint pen. Early ballpoints were also very messy and if, immediately after writing, you ran your finger over the last few words, a smudge inevitably appeared. And people no longer felt much interest in writing well, since handwriting, when produced with a ballpoint, even a clean one, no longer had soul, style or personality.

Why should we regret the passing of good handwriting? The capacity to write well and quickly on a keyboard encourages rapid thought, and often (not always) the spell-checker will underline a misspelling.

Although the cellphone has taught the younger generation to write "Where R U?" instead of "Where are you?", let us not forget that our forefathers would have been shocked to see that we write "show" instead of "shew" or "enough" instead of "enow". Medieval theologians wrote "respondeo dicendum quod", which would have made Cicero recoil in horror.

The art of handwriting teaches us to control our hands and encourages hand-eye coordination.

The three-page article pointed out that writing by hand obliges us to compose the phrase mentally before writing it down. Thanks to the resistance of pen and paper, it does make one slow down and think. Many writers, though accustomed to writing on the computer, would sometimes prefer even to impress letters on a clay tablet, just so they could think with greater calm.

It's true that kids will write more and more on computers and cellphones. Nonetheless, humanity has learned to rediscover as sports and aesthetic pleasures many things that civilisation had eliminated as unnecessary.

People no longer travel on horseback but some go to a riding school; motor yachts exist but many people are as devoted to true sailing as the Phoenicians of 3,000 years ago; there are tunnels and railroads but many still enjoy walking or climbing Alpine passes; people collect stamps even in the age of email; and armies go to war with Kalashnikovs but we also hold peaceful fencing tournaments.

It would be a good thing if parents sent kids off to handwriting schools so they could take part in competitions and tournaments – not only to acquire grounding in what is beautiful, but also for psychomotor wellbeing. Such schools already exist; just search for "calligraphy school" on the internet. And perhaps for those with a steady hand but without a steady job, teaching this art could become a good business.

• Umberto Eco's latest book is On Ugliness. He is also author of the international bestsellers Baudolino, The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, among others.

The Mermaids Have Stopped Singing

The latest edition of The American Scholar contains an article by William M Chace on how English Departments have declined significantly in US universities and colleges.

While there are many causes, he identifies the main reason straight off:

What are the causes for this decline? There are several, but at the root is the failure of departments of English across the country to champion, with passion, the books they teach and to make a strong case to undergraduates that the knowledge of those books and the tradition in which they exist is a human good in and of itself. What departments have done instead is dismember the curriculum, drift away from the notion that historical chronology is important, and substitute for the books themselves a scattered array of secondary considerations (identity studies, abstruse theory, sexuality, film and popular culture). In so doing, they have distanced themselves from the young people interested in good books.

Increased Funding for Independent Private Schools

The former Labour government was ideologically opposed to independent schools, believing that independent schools were "elitist" and the preserve of the wealthy. For over six years the government capped support for private schools--which, with the increasing rolls--meant that every year the support per child went down.

This meant that families choosing to send their children to an independent school such as Manukau Christian were paying a double burden for education. They were paying for the support of state schools (through their tax dollars) and paying again for the education of their own children. It is a most unjust system.

The present government has taken the first step towards rectifying this injustice. Below is a press-release from Heather Roy, Associate Minister of Education.

New Scholarships Increase Choice In Education
Posted on 05 Aug 2009

Today, in my capacity as Associate Minister of Education, I announced a new scholarship initiative that will enable students from low-income families to attend independent secondary schools that they and their families would previously not have been able to afford.

ACT and National pledged to increase families' education choices, with scholarships for every child being a key part of ACT's manifesto. This announcement is an important step toward honouring that pledge.

In Budget 2009, the Government increased private school funding by $10 million - the first increase since 2000 - to make independent schools more affordable to parents. Of this, $7.4 million will be allocated directly to independent schools and $2.6 million used to provide 250 scholarships to students from low socio-economic backgrounds from 2010.

The additional funding and new scholarships will increase choice by making independent schools more affordable for New Zealand families.

Next year 150 students from low-income families will be able to go to an independent secondary school, increasing to 200 students in 2011 and 250 in 2012. Students' fees will be covered, and they will receive an allowance for uniforms and other school-related costs, to ensure no student is disadvantaged.

Over four percent of school-age students - 30,000 children - currently attend independent schools, saving the State around $200 million annually and relieving some of the pressure on State schools. I am delighted to announce the introduction of this scholarship initiative - which will provide more choice and opportunity for young people from low-income families.

This Government knows it is parents who are best placed to make the decisions about the education that best suits their children's needs. This funding will support parents in their choices and improve access for many families to a greater range of educational opportunities for their children.

Traditional Butter Chicken

This recipe represents a family tradition, passed down through generations. It is a Pakistani version of a favorite--therefore, northern Indian. It is very easy to make, and if the ingredients are prepped and to hand, it can be made without stress, in a relaxed manner--which is not unimportant as "arsenic hour" (evening mealtime) approaches!

As always with eastern cooking, the order in which ingredients are added to the dish is very important. We have broken down the key steps.

Ingredients

1 kg chicken (chopped 2cm pieces; although any chicken portions will do)
2 teaspoons garam masala
2 teaspoons ground coriander
3/4 teaspoon chilli powder
2 teasppons grated fresh ginger
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons of white vinegar
1/4 cup (60ml) tomato paste
1/2 cup yoghurt (plain, unsweetened)

*********
80gm butter
1 large onion chopped
1 cinamon stick
4 cardomom pods, bruised
1 teaspoon of salt
3 teaspoons of sweet paprika
425 gm can tomato puree
3/4 cup chicken stock
1 cup of cream

Method

1. Combine spices, ginger, garlic, vinegar, paste and yoghurt in a large bowl. Add chicken. Coat with marinade. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours. Relax--most of your work is done. The rest is easy peasy.

2. Heat butter in a large pan, add onion, cinamon and cardomom. Cook stirring until onion is lightly browned.

3. Add chicken and marinade. Cook, stirring about five minutes.

4. Add salt, paprika, tomato puree, chicken stock. Simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Add cream. Simmer about ten minutes or until chicken is cooked.

Serve with rice, and/or roti bread or equivalent.
Serves five to six adults. So you will likely have plenty left over for the next day or for the freezer. Have fun.