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1. The open classroom was tried in the 1970s in Victoria and, of course, was subsequently abandonned for very good reasons and Greg Whitby would be well advised to do some research into its demise.
   How one group can do any quiet effective work with a noisy group next to it does not seem to occur to these trendy educationists.
   Most ideas in education are recycled ones and, unfortunately for a number of students, their progress is significantly affected when tried and failed ideas are brought back as the 'latest' cutting edge.
   How much experience in the open classroom have these people had?

   Posted By: graham

2. I remember this being trialled in the late 70's and my class had the lowest pass rate in HSC for years.
   Many of us taught ourselves and the trial was quickly scrapped, as it was disastrous.
   For myself, as a deaf teenager, it was a very bewildering and isolating experience.
   As one parent noted, a noisy group in the vicinity of your group was a huge distraction. Imagine what that was like for a hearing impaired person?
   I'm all for new teaching methods, but this is not the path to take.
   Sitting on the floor for lengthy periods is not good for the posture anyway.

   Posted By: Mary

3. On a trip to England about 14 years ago I wondered whether a news item on the BBC was a joke. It went something like this: Some schools in Britain have introduced a revolutionary method of teaching. Children will have a timetable, sit at desks in classes of about 20 students in separate rooms; will have time allocated for individual classes for mathematics, english, spelling, social studies, science, art, drama, music etc...
   As I said, I thought it was some kind of joke. It wasn't.
   

   Posted By: Phillip Turnbull

4. Graham is quite correct in reminding the reader of tried and tested teaching and learning strategies which have been found to be failures.
   One needs to be aware of the fact that there is a whole growth industry not the least in education which flourishes and thrives on amnesia. This particular sub-group in the educational community is, of course, the Consultants.
   Their bread and butter consists in digging out of their files educational theories and strategies, failed and forgotten, and giving them a new life, supported of course, with 'latest research shows' studies.
   All of this 'new' world's best practice stuff is then magisterialised, packaged and presented to those endless and costly seminars and professional development programmes.
   All this gives CEOs something to do, school admin and staff busy and the Consultants occupied for yet another rotation in the endless cycle.

   Posted By: David Timbs

5. Mr Whitby says that the flexible or agile learning spaces, featuring learning stations, smartboards and reading corners with beanbags - rather than traditional desks - were a hit with students, and that preliminary data showing the method has made a difference.
   I hope that his organisation is providing the essential re-training for teachers that will be required to prevent this trial simply being another failed experiment.

   Posted By: Kevin Langley

6. I think we have to be flexible with how we teach children because they learn differently.
   The more individual a program can be tailored for a child, whatever level they are learning at, is the best outcome.
   I fear Catholic schools could be left behind with such large groups.
   Public kindergarten classes now having a max of 20 children, while some of our schools are 30 plus.
   And it is very difficult to keep every student interested and understanding the lesson as it is, let alone introducing so many more distractions.
   I like flexible learning and different settings for that learning, but such large groups sounds like a negative to me.

   Posted By: Cate Wallace

7. Greg Whitby is a very experienced educator and administrator. He's not trendy and easily swayed by new or recycled ideas or the enthusiasms of consultants.
   Many of us recall open-planning from the 70s. Is this the same? I doubt it.
   Different kinds of media and resources are available for a start.
   As he said, it's early days and data is being gathered.
   Would people prefer unimaginative and timid educational leaders? It's wise to be cautious, but sometimes different things have to be given a try.

   Posted By: Adrian Jones

8. I agree entirely with David Timbs. But wasn't RE the area most devastated in the 60s and 70s by just such fads? Whatever bishops may think, I get the sense from young people I know there's still a lot of pop psychology and pop sociology in which God rarely rates a passing mention.
   
   

   Posted By: PM

9. I would not like my children to part of this experiment.
   It is all very easy for the academics to try these things out but if it all goes badly it its the children that have to live with it. If they want to do this so badly, let them use their own children as guinea pigs.

   Posted By: Ian Spencer

10. We were very disappointed with the overall accuracy of the article published in the Sunday Telegraph as it was not fully representative of the interviews given by our principal Carmel Agius or myself, and presents an overly simplistic view of the work of our schools in the Diocese of Parramatta.
    We are not running a trial or an experiment and our approach to learning and teaching is very different to the approach taken in the 70s.
    It is not about modifying learning spaces but about transforming schooling. Each of our schools is committed to identifying the best ways to improve the learning outcomes of their students by building the capacity of their teachers.
    International educational research demonstrates that the best way for teachers to improve their practice is for them to collaborate, and learn and teach together. In many cases, this has impacted on the way our learning spaces are designed, configured and used.
    Unfortunately some families have preferred to move to more traditional schools. Whilst we are always disappointed to have families leave, our enrolments have grown in the Diocese over the last few years.
    Our school communities are working very hard to ensure the best opportunities for students and to make learning and teaching relevant in today's world, a movement not restricted to Parramatta but occurring across the world.
    So it is very disappointing for none of this work to be represented in the published article.

    Posted By: Greg Whitby Executive Director of Schools

11. There is a serious concern particularly regarding boys' education in open classrooms.
    Those with Central Auditory Processing Disorder will struggle to function in a room with so much background noise. There are many other factors which will stifle their progress in this environment.
    The late Dr Ken Rowe left a great deal of research into this disorder.
    As a teacher of more than 40 years experience I am alarmed at this trial. I urge everyone to read as much as possible about CAPD because it is a very real problem.
    It is twice as prevalent in boys than girls and is often mistaken for ADD/ADHD. It will be obvious why open classrooms will disadvantage many students who are already struggling to survive at school.
    My experience of teaching in an open classroom in the 1970s was that it failed to deliver the promised outcomes, in spite of the best efforts of the teachers.

    Posted By: Ann Wyatt

12. A worrying aspect of pedagogy is the extent to which the structure and culture of schooling has remained the same since the C19th, when universal childhood education took off.
    This phenomenon essentially reflects the imperative to control young people and to treat them as blank slates on which the teacher might inscribe the kind of one-way instruction that socialises children into becoming compliant and co-dependent adults.
    The literature and research on schooling is replete with examples and critiques of this.
    While, since the Seventies, there is widespread appreciation of this, as evidenced by the amount of interest and opposition the Parramatta initiative has evinced, a more balanced critique of the purposes of schooling is available from Foucault, who critiques the origins of disciplinarity and inter-disciplinarity.
    In essence Foucauldians show that in the rigid dismemberment of knowledge into subjects, 'discipline' itself has come to take on connotations of control and punishment.
    A major revolution, since the Seventies, that no one has mentioned, except commendably Adrian Jones, is technological and electronic, which has removed the teacher from being the source of all instruction, but reconfigures him or her as a facilitator.
    Of course, no one teacher has the skills and energy to discharge such a role and so good educators increasingly work in teams and off one another to respond to the multiplicity of tasks, far over and above instruction, that is part of the postmodern and emerging classroom.
    In such policy arrangements teachers should always be consulted, especially in Catholic schools.
    

    Posted By: Dr Michael Furtado

13. I am a parent of 2 kids in the Catholic School and every single person I speak with says that the open plan has had negative impact on the performance of their kids.
    Parents who have withdrawn from the Catholic system and now have kids in the public system are positive that the kids' performaces and behaviours has improved.
    Is it not the feedback that has been received overall?
    I am very confused as I would like my kids to remain in the Catholic System to learn the values and be in an enviorment which is happy and safe but should I do this knowing that their education is being affected?

    Posted By: Preeti

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