I read in the Australian today with some dismay and then reflection the following:

BARACK Obama is proposing a new blueprint for the US public school system that would overturn a heavy emphasis on standardised testing favoured by his predecessor, George W. Bush, to identify failing schools.

In the 41-page blueprint, the President declares that he wants to overhaul "flawed law" promoted by Mr Bush in 2002 under a policy known as No Child Left Behind.

The Obama White House wants to end a pass-or-fail approach to judging schools.

Standardised testing of students would remain but would steer away from the current focus on reading and maths.

Now in Australia we are steering in that very direction. NAPLAN, National Curriculum doesn't mean a focus on reading and maths but it is certainly on a path towards a benchmark of academic standards that schools will either meet or not meet.

Actually, it is not the school but the student who will either meet or not meet the standards set down. The parents will decide based on results and identification in the case of less than expected results whether it is the student, the teacher, the school or in extremely frank reflective circumstances the parent that is the key reason for less than expected results.

Once identified, there are only a few choices and I immediately rule out changing parents. With a child in grade three, I am not really qualified in any thrust and parry of swapping teachers within a school.

I do believe in an enriched experience that goes beyond swatting for mathsand literature exams. Our travels are probably testament to that. I do think that kids need to be tested or challenged and that maths and english are cornerstones to the education that should be delivered. As mentioned previously it is important that we do what we can as parents to help - not because we have to but because it can be really fun for all involved.

I think that creating an enjoyable environment where the writing, reading and arithmetic is an extension of the adventures in our life is our challenge as educators and parents - a challenge I really have tried to take up with Joe.

Joe and I took a walk together today - me to lose a bit of fat (which I don't think worked as I drank an iced coffee after the walk) - but on our walk from our house to the Casuarina shopping centre we did some mental arithmetic with numbers to the power of x. We started with 2x and went further. Now I am hopeless at maths but in our discussion I discovered some relationships between 2 to the power of something and 4 to the power of something. So 2 to the power of 6 is 64 and 4 to the power of 3 is also 64. We explored this number relationship for a bit and Joe's curiosity was genuinely piqued. So was mine because I hadn't needed to really think about the relationship between numbers in this sense. Joe observed that even though we were out walking, throwing the ball we could still mess around with learning as we chatted our way to our destination.

What is really sad is that the reason for the US suggesting that they refocus the emphasis away from "pass or fail" is that they don't have enough graduates. Now is that because people down't like taking tests, or is it because this generation is not that smart, or the world has changed and we only need to worry about being able to use google or facebook? I am not sure, but if my son is closing a multi-million dollar deal in 12 years time, I want him to know how many zeros make up a million...

So, today I taught my son and myself something about maths and didn't mean to do it... That is good.

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