“The most penetrating analysis of the failure of Australian schooling so far. If the stranded whale is ever to be unbeached, this book will hold the key.”
— Ken Boston AO, Gonski panel member and former director-general of education in NSW and South Australia
“Dean Ashenden compels us to reconsider the very basis of education policy in Australia and to contemplate how we might and should do better.”
— Carmen Lawrence AO, Gonski panel member and former premier of Western Australia
“Unbeaching the Whale presents inconvenient truths to be confronted and reconciled, and judgements to be questioned and contested.”
— Anthony Mackay AM, CEO of the Centre for Strategic Education, co-chair of Learning Creates Australia and former chair of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership
Read and comment on reviews and responses
Australian schools are livelier and more humane places than they were a generation or two ago. But many things are going badly in the basics of school life — in behaviour, discipline, school refusal, bullying, engagement, mental health, wellbeing — as well as in learning. Too many start behind, stay behind, and then leave early, unhappy and ill-equipped. The standing and morale of teachers are at a low ebb.
Repeated attempts at reform large and small, local and national, haven’t worked. The “education revolution” of the Rudd–Gillard years failed. And yet thinking and policy continue to be dominated by its language of “performance” and “accountability,” its tests, MySchool, “national approach” and “school reform agreements” and its stunted view of what schools can be.
Unbeaching the Whale offers a more generous way of thinking about schools. It insists that they can and should deliver twelve safe, happy and worthwhile years for everyone. It argues compellingly for a different kind of reform — of governance, of the sector system, and above all of the daily work of students and teachers.
Pungent, sober, inspiring, urgent, Unbeaching the Whale is that rare thing, a book about schooling that is lucid, jargon-free, challenging and gripping.