Michael Rosen on literacy
Current Children’s Laureate in the UK, Michael Rosen, has spoken out about standardised testing and the dangers of teaching to the test - what is called SATS in Britain, NAPLAN here and something else in the USA and Canada and New Zealand.
This was very much a focus at the May CBCA Conference in Melbourne: literacy versus literature and politicians who don’t seem to understand the difference.
Rosen says:
Only when all children are in a book-loving environment will they achieve literacy, yes, but a lot more: a confidence in handling abstract ideas, an understanding of a multiplicity of viewpoint and the complexity and diversity of human interaction that comes through reading widely and often. At the moment, the government is barking up the wrong tree.
Change the acronyms and what Rosen has to say is relevant to every country that is going down the standardised testing path at the same time that school libraries are fighting for survival.
Britain’s Laureate and the USA’s Ambassador both have the gravitas to speak out for the importance of books and libraries. Don’t Aussie kids deserve a high-profile spokesperson too?
