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Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Best wishes for the festive season from me
2009 has been a kind year for me as I have had the opportunity to travel widely around New Zealand to share ideas about creative teaching - ideas that are being placed at risk by the Government's imposition of National Standards - so the challenge continues.My thanks to all who have asked me to work with them. They have all helped me have my house painted!Ka kite anoBr...
Posted in: KTuesday, December 15, 2009
Testing times?
Mrs Tolley will go down as one of the disasters in education if her uninformed and simplistic views are imposed on teachers. The question is how strong will teachers be in resisting her reactionary ideas? We will find out next year.‘May you live in interesting times’, the Chinese saying goes; or as Charles Dickens’s wrote about the Victorian Era, it is the ‘best of and the worst of times’.Just as schools were becoming enthusiastic about implementing the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum the ‘new’ government is imposing its populist national standards in literacy and numeracy on schools; standards which have more than a whiff of the Victorian Era about them.It all sounds simple enough. From next year all primary schools will have to test children...
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Mary Chamberlain's defense of National Standards.
Mary Chamberlain's new role seems to be defending the imposition of the Government's populist simplistic National Standards.After having observed her present 'her' ideas at a seminar held in Northland I am sure her heart is not in it. After her great work in developing the highly respected New Zealand Curriculum this diversion is a shame. This blog is in response to a letter she wrote to our local paper defending the standards.It is sad to see Mary Chamberlain, a highly respected educator, in the role of the Government's 'spin doctor', defending the educationally unsound National Standards.While Mary acknowledges that New Zealand students are among the best in the world in student achievement it is the worrying 'achievement tail' that requires...
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
A chance to do some real inquiry: Harakeke study.
An environmentally alert teacher aways keep an eye open for interesting things to introduce to his, or her, students. November/December is an ideal time for environmental or ecological studies. My visits to schools this term indicates such awareness is a lost art.By term four students should be fully equip ed with all the skills and strategies in place to undertake inquiry topics on their own or with minimum assistance. The ability to do this would indicate that students are able to 'seek, use and create their own knowledge' as asked by the New Zealand Curriculum.Driving around last month I couldn't help but note the untapped resources available for teachers to involve their class in exploring.This is a great time to study harakeke or flax,...
Mr popularity and Mrs simplicity but where are we going as a country?.
'While I am popular we can do whatever we like - just keep smiling'.The new government is having a dream run.Running up to the election they tapped into all the fears and prejudices of the public - crushing boy racer cars, locking up people forever in jail and, of course, introducing national standards in reading and mathematics.This, plus a electorate grown increasingly tired of the previous government demeaned by those in opposition as leading us increasingly into a 'nanny state', has given them the mandate to put into action a range of simplistic solutions to complex problems. The simplest solution to a complex problem is the governments answer to education and they couldn't have picked a better minister for the job! Our minister has small...
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Dangers of National's Standards; let's get as mad as hell!
Intelligence testing on Ellis Island for immigrants entering the land of the free. Testing has had a long history sorting out people using doubtful measures. Nothing has changed it seems. Testing reflects the 'mindsets', or ideology, of those who set the tests.I recently read about a book 'Wounded by School' and ordered it on Amazon. By chance I happen to read an online discussion about the very book.It ties in well with the current standards debate.The discussion centred on all those who have not found schooling to their liking . It seemed to sum up the sad story behind the phrase 'achievement tail'- a tail created by outdated mono cultural schools and by the political decisions that force citizens to live lives of poverty and then blamed...
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Are we heading down the same failure track in NZ?
It is time for new thinking in education. If we are to transform our syten then our current minister and all the lackeys at the Ministry must go down with the ship. Who needs national standards that will sort out who fails and which will narrow the curriculum and take us back to a mean Victorian era?An article,see below, was printed in the Auckland Herald last week and seems to sum up the inherent problem in our education system; a system with its genesis in the wrong century.We can no longer afford to patch up our creaky system, we need a real transformational change. Too much reform of the past decades has been akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.And worse still our current Minister seems intent in looking back to past for...
Monday, November 23, 2009
National Standards or political dogma
School principals need to have a vision, no matter how undefined, and a set of shared beliefs to propel their imagined waka into an unknown future. Imposed distractions must be ignored.I am off to the far north this week to share my ideas of the dangers implicit in politically imposed national standards which will take schools attention away from the New Zealand Curriculum.This blog is an attempt to clarify what I want to say.I used to be totally opposed to the previous New Zealand Curriculum (NZCF) and all those who 'delivered' it to schools through predefined Ministry contracts. It was an incoherent curriculum; a futile attempt to impose an impossible confusion of strands, levels and countless learning objectives. It was all about accountability,...
Thursday, November 12, 2009
More information please: National Standards
It all seems so simple but does it give a true picture of a learners progress and what will be neglected while the focus goes on improving the graphs? With the 'real' plunket graphs parent could at least feed their child to improve height and weight.Newspaper editors and opinion writer have had a field day with the national standards 'debate'. Actually 'debate' there hasn't been. Opinion has held sway fed by Ministry of Education spin.Where are the investigative journalists these days are are papers just worried about pandering to the prejudices of their readers?Anyway I was motivated to write to our local paper after a poorly written editorial featuring the full range of shallow writing that seems to have taken the place for editorials these...
Creativity places creativity further at risk.
New Zealand creative teachers about to be straitjacketed by the imposition of the failed concept of national standards.NZ is introducing national standards in education. This is akin to shifting the deck challenges on the Titanic! It will finally destroy what is left of creativity in the system after a decade of conformist ‘best practices’. We need a better vision of what the world can be and then to develop education systems to develop all the gifts and talents of our students to help this vision be realized.In NZ we have a futurist curriculum but it is now being sidelined by reactionary national standards.New Zealand currently sits in the company of the best in the world educationally yet the populist (and thus popular) conservatist government...
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Guy Claxton - building learning power.
Anyone who has attended one of Guy Claxton' presentations ( as I did yesterday) ought to buy his book 'What's the Point of School'. This book is powerful and timely examination of why our schools are built to fail, and how to redesign them to meet the needs of the modern world.' The challenge of redesigning schools is a big ask but the book gives lots of very practical advice about how to create enthusiastic learners and more effective teaching. In particular the 'learning power' ideas gives guidance to how New Zealand teachers can implement the 'key competencies' of the new curriculum.I have just spent an enjoyable day listening to Guy Claxton talk about 'Building Learning Power'.All the more enjoyable because I have long been an avid reader...
Monday, November 2, 2009
Are we brave enough to live for the future?
The past seems a simpler place to think about - the future is so messy and unpredictable.Years ago educational philosopher John Dewey wrote that the best preparation for the future is to live well today. Good advice.A while ago I listened to an interview about such things.Hindsight bias, it seems, drains the uncertainty from the past while looking into the future is just so unpredictable. This uncertainly interferes with our judgment and provides us with a bias to conservatism.Our conservative autious minds tend to see minor changes as progress but most of such changes are inconsequential. We, it seems have two sorts of minds - a reasoning one and an emotional one. Over the centuries we have learnt to distrust our emotions but they still underpin...
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Creativity or back to the past?
If you haven't heard Sir Ken Robinson speak about creativity you have missed a treat. A great antidote to the current back to the past diversion of national standards. Google him and listen to his TED Talk video. Teachers' attention seem to have been taken up of late by the issue of national standards where all students in the future will be reported on to their parent about where they stand in comparison to their age group. There is little research or evidence that students actually achieve better when such testing is in place as in the United Kingdom. The opposite is almost true as initial improvements have plateaued and are now trending down. And to make matters worse students attitudes towards the tested subjects is falling and...
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Future competencies - beyond the 3Rs!
The universe is continually evolving - as are societies and individuals.Our populist government is rushing ahead to return us to the limitations of a Victorian education system.This is not to say literacy and numeracy are not important, they obviously are, but they are at best 'foundation skills' for more expansive learning competencies.And if the government's intention is to find out, and focus on, those students who are falling behind ( the so called 'achievement tail') we know where these students are already. And, as well, we have very efficient national monitoring systems in place to uncover areas of weaknesses across the system.It all boils down to simplistic political promises and tapping into, or creating, parent worries without any...
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Qualities required for creativity by Claxton
Guy Claxton is aways worth a read. It is important for anyone interested in developing and new ideas to appreciate the creative process. One thing is certain it is not as simple and as easy as many think. Studying creative individuals in any field involves dedication and good old fashioned practice and personal effort.Guy Claxton proves some guidance. Creative people, Claxton writes, draw on a great deal of prior knowledge and experience. Creativity , writes, Guy Claxton ‘is an advanced form of learning that involves a finely tuned sympathy orchestra of mental attitudes and capabilities playing together in complicated rhythms… it builds on basic skills and habits of more familiar kinds of learning.’ Creativity, as such, is a long way away from...
Rip van Winkle would be pleased with National Standards
At least Rip would feel at home in many secondary schools!All is not well in our current education systems as more and more students fail to leave the ‘confident, connected, creative life long learners’ equipped with the necessary future competencies, our new New Zealand Curriculum asks of schools to deliver. Failure seems endemic in educational systems worldwide. The new curriculum provides a ‘more informed vision’ of what could be but our current system, particularly our secondary schools, remains caught up in a web of educational thinking that was set in place over a 100 years ago. The assembly line mentality of such schools needs to give way to more enlightened ideas.If Rip van Winkle were to awaken in the 21stC after a hundred year snooze...
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Time for a transformational vision?
As Einstein said 'Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.'We are a battle between populist politics of national standards and creative education. Time to speak out!It is at the ‘edge’ that all new learning occurs but it is not always a comfortable place to be. New ideas, in any area of life, are by their nature unsettling and to those in power can even be seen as heretical. Mind you, nothing wrong with heresy –all it means is having an alternative point of view.I think now is the time for a bit of courageous heresy as the current government is determined to impose National Standards in schools no matter the professional opposition and even though NZ currently does well in International literacy and numeracy testing....