Our new Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins has set in motion a review of NZ’s education system. He has stated that NZ has as an education system to be proud of but it now needs to change to meet the needs of the 21stC.
His vision for the education portfolio is
a high quality, fair, and inclusive education system that provides all New
Zealanders with learning opportunities and prepares them for the future. (1) Who could argue with that!
The minister has called for submissions
on what this might look like and this is my take on things.
My thinking comes from 40 years of
involvement in the primary education sector. During this time I have been a
passionate observer, reader and writer on education matters. Currently I am a
principal of a moderately large Wellington primary school. (Waterloo School)
I
don’t claim to have it all ‘nailed’ and I recognise and delight I am still
learning as I approach the receipt of my ‘gold card’. What I do know is
evidence based.
There are a few key questions to what has
become so obvious to even the most cynical in the last few decades. These
include how do we prepare our children for a world that is beyond our
imagination? How do we craft a child’s learning journey towards a job that is
yet to be created?
There is a tsunami of evidence that has
been exponentially building that demonstrates the world we know today will be
radically different from tomorrow. “Roughly two-thirds of students entering
primary schools this year will work in jobs that do not exist yet, so the
ability of countries like NZ to respond as the digital revolution accelerates
depends on its future ‘skills makeup’ according to Microsoft executives at
their recent Education Exchange in Singapore.” (2) This might seem a rather glib
approximation but the statement is supported by reality and a lot of research and
modelling including an IDC study commissioned by Microsoft which has predicted
digital products and services will account for 55% of NZ gross domestic product
by 2021. (last year, just 6%) (3)
A little while ago I read a New York
Times article written by Thomas L. Friedman entitled, ‘Need a Job?
Invent It!’ (4) This provocative title deeply resonated
with me as it is clearly apparent that the days of assuming our young people
will transition from school or university into jobs has long gone. It’s tough
out there and the ‘playing field’ has changed.
Friedman
quotes an executive he interviewed as saying, “We can teach new hires the
content, and we will have to because it continues to change, but we can’t teach
them how to think-to ask the right questions-and to take initiative.”
Many of the answers to how can we prepare
our children for our rapidly changing world have been proffered by some of the
world’s best education minds including Sir Ken Robinson.
Despite the huge goodwill, energy and
resources that have gone into New Zealand’s education system over the last few
decades, many of our education outcomes have been progressively falling. (5)
We are not alone in failed approaches. Professor
Guy Claxton from Kings College, London listed the following international
failures. (6)
These
countries’ visions use similar words describing the desired skills and
attributes needing to be promoted in their students. Words such as ‘creative’,
‘confident’, ‘flexible’, ‘curious’, ‘independent’ and ‘collaborative’ abound.
These key skills and dispositions are widely recognised as being central and
critical to preparing our young for the wild ride ahead.
Claxton and
others asks, ‘So what goes wrong’? (6a) Why aren’t these
dispositions imbedded in our education system after so many years of talk? Never
before has it been so easy to access research and best practice pedagogy via
the world’s experts so what gets in the way of achieving better outcomes for
children?
I believe
there are two related barriers which get in the way of comprehensive and
meaningful implementation.
Firstly, fear
gets in the way. Everyone involved including the politicians set out to do the
right thing based on the best practice but often the desire to improve learning
outcomes is accidentally sabotaged and confused by each level of the education
hierarchy setting out to justify their existence.
I say fear because so called
‘accountability’ has too often got in the way. A classic example of this which
has been widely acknowledged in NZ has been the obsession with national
standards data gathering which has driven schools inwards so their lens
focussed on the traditional 3 Rs. This is a generalisation but unfortunately
the fear of allowing ‘standards’ to fall and / or a poor ERO review caused many
schools (BOT and Principals) to exhaust their staff with endless paperwork and
reviews leaving minimal reflection time for teachers to see the ‘woods for the
trees’.
We have a
great opportunity to make change now but we have to be fearless.
Many well-meaning people worry about falling standards and
the importance of the basics in education.
However what has to be realised and understood is of course we can’t
underestimate the importance of the basic skills and dispositions that empower
communication and knowledge building.
These skills will always be fundamental and need to be fostered with
rigour wherever possible using authentic and meaningful contexts. It is not the
‘content’ of these fundamental skills that needs changing but the ‘how’ they are
taught and scaffolded which is crucial. Essentially
we need a school system that values the
developmental nature of learning. Young children don’t and can’t jump the same
hurdles all at the same time, but we can engage their minds and capture their
unique ideas and thinking. Get this right and you build real learning power,
confidence and aspiration.
We need to value questions above answers and creativity
over fact regurgitation with an overlay of high aspirations for all.
People
like the world renowned ‘thinking’ guru, Dr Edward de Bono have always believed
thinking and creativity are skills that can be taught and learnt! The
exponential change our children will face, demands that thinking skills should have the same focus and currency as the core
skills of numeracy and literacy.
What
is exciting, is that once this is recognised, across the board academic
outcomes trend upwards.
According
to Friedman, Finland is one of the most innovative economies in the world and
it is the only country where students leave high school ‘innovation-ready’.
They learn concepts and creativity more than facts.” Intelligence is not
enough. Creativity, or the ability to
think divergently, can be developed and improved. It’s a learnable
process.
What
are these skills or dispositions and what is the journey we need to take
children on to give them real learning power? The answer to this question has
been written and spoken about for years and years.
Skills
such as perseverance, flexibility, questioning, curiosity, creativity, collaboration,
reflection, resilience and optimism. I like Guy Claxton’s metaphor
of a school as a mind gym v an assembly line. (7) The concept of
imagining the mind as a muscle you can build is appealing.
Seymour
Papert said, “Learning should be hard
fun” (8) where
there is engagement, passion and purpose.
Alongside
‘fear’, the other key barrier which gets in the way of successful
implementation of New Zealand’s vision for education is we haven’t unpacked what the key skills and dispositions actually
mean and look like for our teachers. Many teachers do not consider themselves
as creative and they need support to demystify ‘creativity’.
The
word creativity is bandied about quite often in education circles but what does
it actually mean? Do some have it and some not? It is a widely misunderstood
word.
Creativity
is not a magical quality that some have and some don’t! We have to ensure
creativity and thinking skill development is a dominant part of the curriculum.
Not only should it be totally integrated in the curriculum ensuring the
learning tasks engage higher order thinking and age and stage appropriate ‘hard
fun’, but right from pre-school, children need to explicitly know that their
thinking and ideas have merit and value. Take a subject like art as it is
a prime example. Traditionally most children have received implicit and
explicit feedback about their art related to how it looks and in many cases how
it mirrors realism. Art is an expression of a child’s thinking and this is
where the value should be put.
Part
and parcel of promoting creativity and thinking is treating these skills as
natural and important aspects of learning with children. Discussing these
attributes and providing skill development and understanding adds enormous
uplift in confidence and indirectly demonstrates to children that their
thinking has merit and it is an important aspect of their
development.
Most
creative achievements have come about through dogged determination. Without
going into the detail there are some common ways to improve creativity in all
of us and thus it makes enormous sense for schools to make time to teach these
skills and dispositions. Ideally schools
will have an active programme teaching thinking strategies and infusing
creativity and higher order thinking into every aspect of school life.
But
it isn’t going to happen by osmosis. Schools and teachers need support, the mandate and the
expectation that the culture of their school needs to live and breathe these
dispositions.
We need this education change not only because it has been
proven without doubt that children will benefit in all manner of means (not
only academically but holistically) but also for survival. The world is facing
unprecedented challenges such as population explosion, significant climate
change, significant human conflict via religion, politics and greed and of course
our growing resistance to anti biotics and the threat of super bugs. It is a no
brainer if for nothing more than making schools a place of true learning where
young people are set up wanting to learn and create for the rest of their life.
It is time to focus on learning and not schooling. Education
should not be seen as something that starts at kindergarten and finishes at
university. Even from a practical point of view, a university degree is no
passport guarantee for a job anymore. The 19th and 20thC
roadmap for success has been disrupted by exponential change, much of which has
been brought about by technology.
This of course applies to us as educators. We must not be swayed by fads or pressure to do things for the
wrong reasons but follow what our hearts, experience and quality research is
telling us. Data is so important! Good teachers are natural ‘inquirers’
constantly gathering important qualitative and quantitative data because they
know this will provide rich information so they can provide the best programme
possible. They are not driven by top down expectations unless of course it
makes good sense.
Sir Ken Robinson gets it big time when he said, Of course
technology is important as is science, maths, engineering (STEM) but they are
not enough! STEM is at risk of becoming a fad and a diversion away from the
heart of the matter. Students need equal doses of the arts, the humanities,
physical exercise and play. But more important than any subject content is
school culture. (9)
So
enough talk! Why would any country ignore what all the research is showing and
in particular the common view points of the best education minds in the world?
Why ignore the likes of Sir Ken Robinson, our own John Hattie, Professor Guy
Claxton, David Perkins, Art Costa, Sugata Mitra et al.
A
central part of this ‘culture’ is recognising the immense importance of teacher
connection and building self-belief in students (relationships), combined with
fostering an exciting and rigorous thinking philosophy where ideas are
celebrated and questions valued over answers. The role of the teacher is more
complex and demanding than any time in history. The walls of the class room
have to be metaphorically and in some ways literally broken down.
Interestingly
enough there is nothing ‘earth shatteringly new’ with what we know about how
children learn and thrive. From 1949 to 1962 Elwyn Richardson at Oruaiti School with
the blessing of the then and now famous Director of Education, Clarence
Beeby, discarded
the official syllabus and turned to the children’s lives and immediate
environment for the basis of his curriculum. Using the children’s natural
curiosity and interest, Richardson taught them how to observe closely the world
around them and to record their new discoveries and their own responses to
these. From here, he developed a school programme that was anchored in the
children’s surroundings and real lives. Through environmental study the
children learned the basis of scientific method, and brought these skills to
bear on studies that spanned all subjects. His method was a revolt away from
science as a separate subject to an integrated programme of arts and science.
Richardson wrote In The Early World (10) at Oruaiti School published
by The New Zealand Council for Educational Research NZCER in 1964. The book tells the story of how Richardson’s
students became increasingly aware of their own capacity for personal
expression, while collectively establishing a shared understanding of aesthetic
values.
Richardson’s holistic philosophy capturing the children’s
thinking and creativity has stood the test of time and is an inspiring story.
The aesthetics and the power of nature holding the secrets of so much are as
relevant today as ever. Our best
internationally acclaimed educationalists continue to champion such beliefs.
For most children up to the 1960s their world was their neighbourhood but now
technology has shown us a global neighbourhood which our young people are
embracing. It is time to thread this holistic and constructivist philosophy
through our schools leveraging and integrating the powerful digital tools of
the 21stC. How exciting would that be!
Let’s
get on with it with rigour, high aspirations and passion. Let’s really create a
nation of curious and creative minds combined with empathy and good will.
(E.Q.) Let’s be fearless in the pursuit
of what we have known for a long time.
How do we do
this? It won’t happen overnight and I have already said enough but our biggest
focus needs to be Whole School Professional Learning building the capacity of
our current cohort of teachers to take on this exciting challenge of building a
‘thinking culture’ in schools. Let’s
find the people who already exist in our school system who deeply understand
these dispositions and use them to work with schools to support them to
providing transformational education that will not only excite students but set
them alight to achieve more than they thought possible.
Warren Owen
(2) Adele Redmond, The Fourth Industrial
Revolution, DomPost 31/3/2018
(4)
T L Friedman, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/friedman-need-a-job-invent-it.html
(6) (+6a) Professor Guy Claxton, Kings College,
London, U.K.
(7) Professor Guy Claxton, Kings College, London,
U.K.
(9) Sir Ken Robinson, p19
