If we ranked all the choices made by the NSW government, especially since the formation of the Perrottet-Mitchell-Harrisson triumvirate in education, there would be one decision which would come out worst.
The appointment of a new behaviour tsar for NSW schools is the most bone-headed idea ever. It’s an exhausted concept borrowed from a British education system run by second-rate conservative bureaucrats appointed by a third-rate British government which changes leaders as often as the rest of us should change our telecommunications providers.
In the UK, Tom Bennett, former nightclub bouncer and sometime teacher of religion and philosophy, was appointed to the role and nicknamed Tory Tom for his ideas around discipline, more suited to the Middle Ages but without the beheadings. Apparently eye rolling is punishable by death. He burnishes zero tolerance and suspensions, even though we know they don’t work. They just alienate kids from school more than they already are alienated.
Don’t take my word for it. British expat Viv Ellis, the dean of education at Monash University, sees the appointment of Bennett (and the appointment of tsars more generally) as pointless. He says it is tokenistic and bad behaviour won’t be solved by that individual. And, he asks, who knows what credentials that person will have?
Read the article by Jenna Price in WA Today.