In recent weeks a curious debate about how English is taught in Australian schools has been taking place. The debate has been characterised by wild claims of a literacy crisis and the post-modern take over of syllabuses.  

 What has been missing from the ‘controversy' has been any real sense of what is actually taking place in English classrooms.

On Saturday in the Herald , the NSW Minister for Education, Carmel Tebbutt, brought some badly needed sanity to the frenzied criticisms of English curricula, affirming her confidence in NSW syllabuses and acknowledging the good work being done by English teachers. And she has good reason for doing so.

Despite Brendan Nelson's talk of ‘narrow ideological approaches' and ‘cappuccino' courses, the nation's English teachers are at the international forefront in developing a literate community. That Australia is spectacularly successful in achieving this end has been confirmed by OECD testing. The reading outcomes for our 15 year olds are, by international measures, second only to Finland.

While the rest of the world looks on at our students' achievements with envy, Australian teachers and teacher educators are mindful that test results provide only a partial glimpse of what needs to be happening in classrooms in order to prepare our young people for the world in which they live.

The complexities of the twenty first century remind us that functional literacy is necessary but not sufficient. How we define literacy has shifted dramatically over the years and must continue to evolve. The ability to recite the parts of speech correctly and to parse a sentence is not, on its own, going to equip young people for the demands of contemporary life and the modern work place.

Let me now describe the realities of the teaching of English in NSW secondary schools.

Here in NSW, the study of Shakespeare is a mandatory requirement for all secondary students. But along with the immortal Bard, and other familiar great names such as Euripides, Austen and Wordsworth, students will also study film and television, and electronic texts such as web sites and CD-Roms.

Rest assured, the ability to communicate clearly and effectively is still valued by those who teach in our schools. NSW English syllabuses also put great emphasis on students reading for pleasure and understanding.

Today, as in past decades, great works of literature play an invaluable role in exposing students not only to the pleasures of masterful writing and beautiful language, but also challenging questions about who we are and how we are best to live.

However, in this digital age the questions which must be asked by students so that they may live what the ancients termed an ‘examined life' have become as diverse as the range of books and other forms of communication they read, use and enjoy.

Contemporary works and the electronic media have much to say to students about themselves and their world. Some of it, we as teachers and parents might think, is worth consideration, some of it not.

The study of English, then, becomes a way for students to learn to negotiate their way through the white noise of popular culture in a discriminating and considered way.

My year 10 students have recently read and enjoyed Andrew Marvell's wonderfully witty poem, ‘To His Coy Mistress'. This poem has continued to give pleasure and inspiration to readers for hundreds of years. Its theme of carpe diem, or seize the day, is considered by literary critics to be of enduring and universal significance.

My group of fifteen year olds found the seize the day theme to be particularly relevant to them at their stage of life. However, what became quickly obvious to them as they were concurrently following preparations for the Live8 concerts on television and the web, was that not everyone is free to seize the day. That such things as our gender, age, nationality, economic circumstances, and even where we live determine our possibilities in life.

Having first read Marvell's poem for pleasure and understanding, the students came to see the necessity of reading it critically. In short, they felt compelled to consider how the poem reflects a view of the world that is at once partial and chauvinistic. They understood that the call to seize the day is not one to which all of humanity may subscribe, contrary to the claims of some that the poem presents a universal and timeless truth.

My work as a teacher in assisting students to arrive at these different understandings of the poem was not about ideology or political correctness. What I was doing was encouraging the students to move from the poem to considering the factors that shape who they are and what they may yet become.

I was also encouraging them to imaginatively and empathetically connect with the experiences of others outside of their classroom, in order to give them a deeper understanding of the human experience in an increasingly globalised world.

This critical literacy does not amount to a ‘dumbing down' of the curriculum. It is a necessary and logical extension of the traditional concerns of English.