The Big Questions.

Just Because I Meet Richie McCaw :-)
Just Because I Meet Richie McCaw 🙂

I wrote this little piece this morning for the school newsletter.  To be honest I am not quite sure where it came from, but there you go it’s out now.  Anyway I was quite proud of it, then I received an email from our local reporter asking permission to publish it in our Taihape Times.  I had a good hard think about it, and he sent a second one pleading so I said yes.  Anyway hopefully I get a few people thinking.

Earlier this week I was having a chat with our senior students about how different primary school is compared to when attended in the Eighties.  The kids were amazed when I explained that we had ask permission to leave our desks, go to the toilet or to get a drink of water.  For these 21st Century Kids who were sitting on a cushion in front of the fire, doing their math book work while munching on an apple, the thought of being confined to one’s desk was just abhorrent.
I guess that’s what much of education was like back in the bad old days (which really is not so long ago).  Children confined to a classroom, a year group, an achievement level, a set of standards or a desk.  Learning was confined to Three Rs, and occasional PE.
According to Sir Ken Robinson and many educational experts, this is called the Industrial Model.  Schools were formed to create batches of cookie cutter graduates that fit into an industrialized society.  Below is a link to a fabulous Youtube Video, which explains how education needs to change and move away from this industrial model in order to meet the dynamic needs of our 21st Century society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
The wonderful thing is, that New Zealand is already way ahead of the ball game, when it comes to dynamic education, with it’s world renowned New Zealand Curriculum.  The Vision Statement for our curriculum is to have “young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners”.  How wonderful is that!
I believe that it is really important that our community have a long hard think and begin a robust conversation about what we really want for our children in education. Our society has changed irrevocability, as a consequence shouldn’t our education system also evolve to meet our society’s needs?
Lately the media has been full of accusations that our education system is in a ‘crisis’, and how we need to get back to the ‘basics’.  Well, I say (and I will probably get in trouble for this but …) rubbish to that!  Can’t you remember how bored and uninspired you were at school?  Sure, if you were lucky you had one or two teachers who inspired you and broke the mold, but in general we were confined to our desks waiting for lunch time.
As I watched the kids this term, bubbling with excitement while preparing the school fundraising fair, experimenting with technology and science, and interacting with Richie McCaw on our Richie Day a horrible thought occurred to me.  If we went back to the basics, if we conformed to aspirational standards and league tables, if we turned to national testing like Australia, we wouldn’t have been able to participate in any of our exciting learning this term.  We would have been too busy pushing our children into their prescribed achievement levels, so that we could report that they weren’t ‘failing’.
I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem right to me.  I just want the school I teach in to be a place that inspires children to shine in all areas of their life, not just where the politicians deem necessary.
So that’s what I want for education, my question is what do you want?  And do those Suits down in Wellington know it?

Earlier this week I was having a chat with our senior students about how different primary school is compared to when attended in the Eighties.  The kids were amazed when I explained that we had ask permission to leave our desks, go to the toilet or to get a drink of water.  For these 21st Century Kids who were sitting on a cushion in front of the fire, doing their math book work while munching on an apple, the thought of being confined to one’s desk was just abhorrent.

I guess that’s what much of education was like back in the bad old days (which really is not so long ago).  Children confined to a classroom, a year group, an achievement level, a set of standards or a desk.  Learning was confined to Three Rs, and occasional PE.

According to Sir Ken Robinson and many educational experts, this is called the Industrial Model.  Schools were formed to create batches of cookie cutter graduates that fit into an industrialized society.  Below is a link to a fabulous Youtube Video, which explains how education needs to change and move away from this industrial model in order to meet the dynamic needs of our 21st Century society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

The wonderful thing is, that New Zealand is already way ahead of the ball game, when it comes to dynamic education, with it’s world renowned New Zealand Curriculum.  The Vision Statement for our curriculum is to have “young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners”.  How wonderful is that!

I believe that it is really important that our community have a long hard think and begin a robust conversation about what we really want for our children in education. Our society has changed irrevocability, as a consequence shouldn’t our education system also evolve to meet our society’s needs?

Lately the media has been full of accusations that our education system is in a ‘crisis’, and how we need to get back to the ‘basics’.  Well, I say (and I will probably get in trouble for this but …) rubbish to that!  Can’t you remember how bored and uninspired you were at school?  Sure, if you were lucky you had one or two teachers who inspired you and broke the mold, but in general we were confined to our desks waiting for lunch time.

As I watched the kids this term, bubbling with excitement while preparing the school fundraising fair, experimenting with technology and science, and interacting with Richie McCaw on our Richie Day a horrible thought occurred to me.  If we went back to the basics, if we conformed to aspirational standards and league tables, if we turned to national testing like Australia, we wouldn’t have been able to participate in any of our exciting learning this term.  We would have been too busy pushing our children into their prescribed achievement levels, so that we could report that they weren’t ‘failing’.

I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem right to me.  I just want the school I teach in to be a place that inspires children to shine in all areas of their life, not just where the politicians deem necessary.

So that’s what I want for education, my question is what do you want?  And do those Suits down in Wellington know it?

Published by

marama28

A New Zealand Principal, living in Taneatua. Where's that you say? Just Google IT!

8 thoughts on “The Big Questions.”

  1. You’re hit the nail on the head, Marama. An excellent post applauding our curriculum and the creative, inquiring classes we have. NZ is world leading and we need to ensure the intent of the curriculum is kept alive and well. Well done.

  2. Hi Marama

    I couldn’t agree more with you on how education should be done.

    When my very bright and very active elder son started school in suburban Wellington in 1971 he went from being a happy constructive preschooler to a distraught and destructive new entrant in a couple of days. Because he could read when he started school and would, without positive diversion, muck around while waiting for others to catch up, he ended up spending most of his time under the teacher’s desk as punishment!

    As I had no intention of letting my equally happy, but not so academically able, second son suffer this way, I paid to have them educated privately at Matauranga in Te Aro Wellington. This was no elitist private school. The thirty or so children were educated in an old building abandoned by the Catholic church as beyond upgrading. It was so financially strapped, parents were not only expected to help out in the classrooms, but were also rostered on to do the cleaning, including the outside toilets, which were regularly fouled by disgruntled kids who went to the nearby ‘regular’ school.

    The school had been set up by Playcentre stalwarts, Gwen Somerset and Marie Bell. It was run on the lines of A S Neill’s “Summerhill” in England – a ‘free’ school, where children not only helped to create their own learning environment, and learned at their own pace, but were also encouraged to contribute to the administration of the school at adult school meetings, where all decisions were made by consensus.

    Older son spent all of the first nine months there doing only maths! It was an act of faith for me to see him ignoring reading and writing throughout that time. He is now earning squillions as a systems analyst overseas. Younger son, who like his mum, didn’t learn to read until he was eight, but whose own stories were recorded on tape, and were illustrated by his wonderful art work, now reads stuff so complex I wouldn’t contemplate it!

    Many of the kids from Matauranga are now leaders in their various fields – both academic and in creative pursuits.

    Stuff teaching the so-called ‘basics’ and ranking kids on so-called national ‘standards’! If the environment and support is there equally for academically able kids; for slightly slower kids; and for those who are just plain different; each will learn without frustration at being held back, without being labelled failures if they aren’t reading by age six, and without being forced to become abjectly conformist. Until the so-called national standards recognise that the ‘normal’ age to learn to read in particular, is up to eight years, and for a few can be up to age ten – standards-driven schools will turn off more kids than they educate.

    Your ‘rant’ reflects what I see happening so positively at Pukeokahu School, and why I enjoy being involved where I can.

    Kia kaha!

    Madalene

  3. yip this is what its all about- unfortunately we have some dangerous people in education now who are loading guns and taking aim, under the instruction from a real estate agent pretending to be a minister.
    she says parents tell her they love the standards, how would those parent like it if they were told how to do their specialist job by a real estate agent.

  4. Thanks Regan, it is so important that we keep the curriculum at the forefront of our minds at all times.

  5. Thank you Madalene, the experiences of your children were precisely why our education system changed for the better. I only hope that we will be strong enough to resist the political meddling and just do what is right for the children.

  6. I don’t know about the word ‘they’ (which she seems to use all of the time), I personally don’t think you should use it if you don’t specifically name at least three ‘theys’.

  7. You’re not a ‘suit’, Paul! You’re an educator! You actually know what you are talking about due to experience and you are working with us lowly teachers … no Sir! You are definitely not a suit!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *