Posts by Gordon Dryden
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Bart comments
I think what is being said is that they start by running a fashion show and then have to do the costings (maths) and write the script, presumably first in English (reading/writing) and then ...
Essentially it's learning the boring stuff by stealth.
Bart: Partly right in your first paragraph, but not in "learning the boring books by stealth". Remember this is the International Baccalaurerte Primary Years Program where students, in each age group, will spend six or seven weeks exploring an entire subject in as many ways as possible. Thus, for example, if exploring the human body, then there computer-studies will include interactive digital "games" to explore the human brain; art classes will include drawing the human body; second-language courses willl be on the same subject; math classes ditto.
But in all IB programs, each teacher is a "guide on the side" not "the sage on the stage". All PYP "topic inquiries" start with the young students first sharing what they know on each topic; and then what they wish to find out about topic. Thus, for example, eight-year-olds are studying planets of the universe (see the full-page photo in our "Unlimited" book) will start with all sorts of questions, such as: "What is a black spot?" "Is the sun a planet?" "Is there only one sun?" So the entire IB curriculum engenders a habit of asking pertinent questions, and then finding the answers.
Thus, PYP students are "multimedia journalists", not the passive recipients of knowledge passed on by a teacher.
And because the students themselves ask their own questions, and are seeking the interesting information they're interested in, learning is never boring. Well, seldom.
To revert to the French fashion show example: good teachers and students themselves come up with great, interesting ways to explore each top "experientially": by actually doing something.
And that is one of the real changes from schooling in the 40s and 50s and today. Once we listened to teachers lecturing us on "science" or history. Now, with the new interactive technologies, we can actually become a research scientist.
Instead of only reading about "ancient Rome", we can use Will Wright's "Sim City" software to reinvent Rome. (The "Sim", of course, comes from simulation. Just the same way that enthusiastic pilots learn their navigation, safely, in simulated flying.) (Will Wright, incientally, also went to a Montessori pre-school.)
For anyone interested in the International Baccalaureate programmes, check: www.ibo.org
And if you'd like to study "digital learning games", try out: www.marcprensky.com
Marc is a digital games designer, and has a great series of articles on his site. He also wants to involve all the world's students to reinvent "education" as online interactive games (to also appeal to all learning styles).
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Cecilia asks: I'd want my little Susie to read and write and do maths too. Can all that be taught in group projects?
I'm having a quiet day, Cecilia, so here goes, starting with maths:
1. it all depends how Cecilia learns best.
2. Some of us are strong visual learners: so we have to see "maths" in pictures.
3. Some of us are "spatial" learners, so we probably learn maths best by playing with blocks.
4. Some are mainly "kinesthetic" or physical learners — and if you have a young kinesthetic learner she may learn to count easily by playing hopscotch or other physical games. At a young age, she will almost certainly learn by playing other visual games such as "Snakes and Ladders" , "Chutes and Ladders" in the US) , "Ludo", "Grab" or similar beginner card games; and then on to Dominoes.
5. Some of us are musical learners — and there are plenty of
raps" and songs to encourage learning maths.6. Many of us learn best in groups — we have strong social tendencies, so weight learn best by playing verbal and mathematical games with friends.
7. Others are tactile learners: we learn best by feeling and touching. for example, if you have a young child who finds it difficult to learn to spell, and often confuses b, p, d and q. So try "back writing" by physically writing those letters on her back in bold strokes of your hand: "buh: down like a bat and around like a ball".
8. Others may be logical learners and may learn best by what, in my earlier days, we called "memorising the times tables". And
9. Some, like Danielle (above) , who hate learning in groups, are probably "introspective learners", and learn much better by themselves.
All good teachers know that every one of us has a unique learning style, and they make sure that lessons and learning plans cater to different types of learners. Unfortunately most written tests are "geared" to appeal to logical and linguistic learners: those who are strong in writing, speaking and doing basic mathematics.
Now let's try "writing", presuming your Susie is really little:
1. Montessori pre-schools use wonderfully effective ways to make sure that every child can learn to write well BEFORE turning five. (Maria Montessori was Italy's first qualified woman medical doctor; and around 100 years ago she developed the practical theory that young children learn best through all their senses. She developed a series of sequential activities to develop through those senses. Amazingly, in working with so-called defective children in "lunatic asylums", she soon had them, too, reading, writing, spelling and counting well before starting school. She would be appalled today to find that in an advanced country such as New Zealand, where 80 per cent of students get a great education, we were still debating how to teach children to read, write and do basic maths at primary school, when her "handicapped" children could achieve that much earlier in life.)
2. Very simply, "hand writing" (unlike speaking) is a learned process; before a child can learn to write fluently, he or she has to "play" using many physical activities. These activities firstly develop "big muscle hand coordination" (activities like rolling big balls, and then holding plastic hug handles and pouring rice from one jug to another; later fitting large coloured blocks, with large holding-knobs, into matching patterns. Then doing ditto by holding on to small knobs with smaller blocks to develop "the pincer grip" to hold a pen.
Now how about reading?
Would you like the short version or the long? The short? Fine:
1. English has more words than any other language in the world: 625,000 in the most recent Oxford Dictionary. But
2. Around 2,000 words make up 90 per cent of most spoken English.
3. Only 400 to 450 words make up 65 per cent of most written English.
4. Only 43 words make up 50 per cent of daily English.
5. Amazingly, ten words make up 25 per cent of most speech (are,and, the, be, it, of, have,, will, you to).
6. 84 per cent of English words have simple patterns (about half are phonetic: spelled as they sound — at, cat, sat, fat, bat, hat; ad most of the others have easily-identifiable patterns— fate, mate; and prefixed like un, dis and re; and suffixes like ed and ing).
7. All good books for infants are graded by sequential levels. My personal favourites are those of an old friend and colleague, Dr Seuss. His publisher once challenged him to write and illustrate a book using no more than the 225 most-used words. Seuss eventually did it with "The Cat In The Hat". Later he did another book using only 50 words. And this concept developed into his "Beginner Books" series. Highly recommended.
8. Seuss's genius (as well as being an incredible illustrator) was to rhyme words that sounded the same but were spelled differently: This was no time for FUN; there was work to be DONE. I must have read all the Dr Seuss books to our children dozens of times, so that the joy of reading and seeing the words and pictures embedded the most-used words and phrases.
OFFER TO YOU AND OTHERS TAKING PART IN THIS DEBATE:
You may know I'm the co-author of a series of books, entitled "The Learning Revolution". The latest has recently been published: "UNLIMITED: The new learning revolution, and the seven keys to unlock it". Go to our website, www.thelearningweb.net, and you can read the first 32 pages free of charge. For for those taking part in this debate: look through the Contents pages in those first 32, and email me the titles of any three chapters (gordon@learningweb.co.nz) and I will email the complete chapters back, also without charge.
Chapter seven is on early-childhood learning.
Chapter four is on learning styles.
Both might help Susie.
Above that, go see a good teacher. After all: remember I dropped out of the system illegally at age 14 — and started learning.
Fortunately I'd discovered an incredibly great primary school principal when I was 10. He quickly perceived that my "natural talent" was "communications": reading, writing, making wall posters, presenting "illustrated morning talks". So (praise be) he took me to the Greymouth Public Library and introduced me to the head librarian. His introduction echoes down the years: " Libraries aren't just places that store and lend books. This library is your window on the world. And this librarian is your guide; she is trained to help you find information you're looking for."
That Principal's name was Jock Graham. One of my greatest mentors.
Today my 24 X 7 librarian is Google (developed, by the way, by two students who went to Montessori pre-schools)— but only as the basic starting point on whatever incredible journey we're making today.
Like this interesting online conversation.
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Allan P writes: Gordon,
Apologies if I'm being a bit thick here, but what exactly does your interesting discourse on the use of online collaborative and multi-media tools have to do with my question on the possibility of keeping an individuals national standards results private?Gordon responds:
My poor communications skills. But
1. Personal portfolios of what each student can do are generally better guides to progress than written exams or reports by someone else.
2. With good digital school networks, individual "digital portfolios" can be restricted to viewing only by the individual student, the student's own parents and his or her teacher (thus protecting each student's privacy).
3. Most good "school network systems" then allow each teacher to view all the portfolios of students in his or her classes and — in the case of "individual tests" — the computer systems can print out comparative class results. However
4. Some of the best work done in digital classrooms now involves teams of students with different talents — and often those are shared on line, with students' approval, on school Websites.
5. As another example, for years most schools (certainly in affluent countries) have produced their own school "annual": with printed colour photos of work-examples from each classroom. But each school (with computer systems) can now enable each student to produce his or her own "digital year book" with examples of personal work, plus the outstanding work of one's own class or groups.
Let me give yet one more example from personal experience. I regularly visit one of the world's best private international schools — one of the first in the world to use the International Baccalaureate curriculum over all age levels from aged 3 to senior high. Because this school has 3,600 students from 70 nationalities, it offers a choice of six second languages, with one-hour's tuition every day. Because the IB primary years program (you may recall) revolves around six global themes a year, when, say, eight-year-olds are researching "the human body" for six weeks, then "literacy", "writing", "art", computer studies and second-language-study will also revolve around that "inquiry topic".
The last time I visited that school, on three days I was invited into three separate language classes. Of those:
Students in one class were learning French by dressing up as French models and running their own French fashion parade, with brilliant commentary — before an audience of their parents — while other students videotaped the show. Then the students ""showed what they had learned" by teaching French to their parents in interactive ways ("My shirt is red. What colour is your shirt?" — in French, which was not the language of any parent).
In another class, non-Chinese students were making an audio visual presentation in Chinese (written and spoken Mandarin) on the impact of diet on the human brain and its ability to learn.
And in the third, non-German-speaking students were learning German by presenting a play of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
All demos were being videotaped to go on the class websites — but teachers' reports on, say, individual student results are restricted to individual students and parents.
In "arts" classes, in particular (painting, drama, music etc), individual brilliance can, at the choice of each student, be either restricted to personal viewing online or be readily available on the school site.
And the importance of all this as it applies to the "standards" debate? If you were starting as a singer, painter, actor, graphic designer, television interviewer, puppet maker, or costume designer, which would enhance your prospects for a job: a written report by someone else or a multimedia demonstration where you actually show your skills?
It's all so bloody obvious (when you see great schools in action, in New Zealand and elsewhere) it's amazing (to me) there is any debate.
But there is an even bigger issue here, I think (to comment on Sacha's last post, immediately above this one): nearly all students have an individual ability to excel as something — and that is generally what they love to do. So encouraging every student to present their own individual talents, in action — and their ability to blend in multi-talented teams — is the first step to achieving a great career doing things you love to do.
Doubt it? Ask Susan Boyle. Better still: see how she demonstrated her talents to millions:
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Is a copy of the National party leaflet available online?
Yes, at
http://www.national.org.nz/education/
Does the query imply that people have been commenting on the party policy without reading it? Tut tut.
Incidentally, Tapu Misa's weekly Opinion piece in yesterday's New Zealand Herald is very balanced:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10624744
Now I really must get back to compiling my new video-3D/animation- touchscreen digital-ibook, where New Zealand students will provide most of the multimedia applications. (The New Zealand system works brilliantly when we unleash the creative power of our students. It's actually quite simple.)
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Alan P asks:
If the compilation of League Tables is genuinely not desirable, why doesn't the government keep the standards testing more or less confidential? ie: why should I know the results of anyone else but my own children?
Gordon comments:
Most schools with good computer systems already provide digital online "platforms" where students record their "personal digital portfolios". Individual parents have fulltime access to their own children's portfolios of progress, and teachers have access to all their class portfolios.
However (and this is one of the big pluses of the new New Zealand Curriculum Guidelines): in the 21st-century, multimedia world, most people now need to work in multimedia teams which brig together different skills, talents and passions. They do this not only in the obvious multimedia centres such as television and movie-making, but now in virtually all manufacturing. For example, while Steve Jobs may take the credit for Apple's iPod, iPod-touch, iPhone and iPad products, these are the result of highly-talented teams, including the 550,000 people who work for Foxconn in China manufacturing and assembling components for all these products, plus millions more from other countries. To get those to global markets (with software in various languages) entails putting together other talented design, software and logistic skills.
Fortunately, because New Zealand is a world leader in teaching our primary school students to use interactive digital technology, most of those students quickly learn to combine their strengths with others. This is most obvious, and demonstrable, in the incredibly brilliant multimedia video-animation-and music presentations produced in New Zealand schools to show their "21st-century literacy skills".
So, with the approval of students, most of the best "group portfolios" can also be shown on line.
Let me give a couple of personal examples of the difference between this (brilliant) New Zealand approach and the US "standardised testing" system.
I frequently visit one of America's leading colleges where students learn to qualify in digital technology (many of them as digital games designers). Nearly all students are products of the US school system, where (amazingly) the average elementary, middle and high school student spends only one hour a week in class on a computer. ("The Technology Fix" — subtitled "The promise and reality of computers in our schools", by William D Pflaum, published by the ASCD 2004; Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.)
On my last visit to the US University, I was asked to sit in and "evaluate" first-year college students' presentation on a semester assignment in which each had to report on one famous person in history. (These included Socrates, Aristotle, Newton, Copernicus, Lincoln, Martin Luther King and other prominent Americans.) Without exception, each college student made an almost identical Powerpoint presentation (just as Pflaum found in his one-year in his one-year survey). But even worse: every presentation read as if had been "pasted" straight from a Wikipedia entry. In no case did any student even think of analysing what current lessons can we learn (negative or positive) from each of those great thinkers.
Back in New Zealand, I often get called on to take teachers from other countries to some of our excellent schools. And what a difference: the last time I took Mexican school leaders to Gulf Harbour Primary School in Whangaparaoa, one of their "digital classrooms" was not long back from a school "adventure camp" in the Waitakere Regional Bush Reserve. And here they were: compiling an outstanding video of what they had found—of our country's history, geography, ecology, and future.
In brief: here were 11-year-old New Zealand students competent and confident to use the world as their classroom (physically and online), and the latest 21st-century tools to record, compile and present their conclusions: not in similar "death by Powerpoint" presentations but in professional-quality movies.
I wonder how many MPs can do that, apart from Maurice Williamson.
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Deep Red asks: Can anyone compare similarities & differences with the No Child Left Behind Act? Gordon Dryden responds:
Basically, America's "No Child Left Behind" Act is based on "US education" being mesmerised by "standardised testing".
This has its roots in the "school curriculum" at nearly all US state and district K-12 schools ("kindergarten" through 12th grade, with "kindergarten" in the US being more the equivalent to New Zealand's entrant classes at primary or elementary school).
Thus at nearly all US public schools each year's "curriculum" divides each day into individual subjects (similar to most traditional high schools). And "success", from the earliest grades, is based on examination results, testing students on knowledge or recall of each "subject". Thus "reading" is a separate subject, and is tested as such.
This means that year-by-year textbooks become the basis for nearly all class teaching. And "teaching to the test" becomes the basis for most teaching.
But "the plot thickens". In two major states, California and Texas, the subject-based textbooks are ordered by the state governments and provided to all students. These, then, tend to become the "textbooks of choice" for other states. This results in some "unusual twists", particularly in subjects such as history and how the texts cover the US civil war (or "war between the states"). For example, it's an open secret that, to get a history textbook accepted in Texas, Sam Houston's photo has to be given equal prominence to President Lincoln.
(As an aside, the State Government of California is almost bankrupt and, in one effort to save money, has decreed that, from last year, all textbooks will be digital, with a saving of more than US $400 million a year).
As well as subject courses being the core of US elementary schooling, students' admission to "college" (immediately after high school) is generally based on SAT scores. Over the years these initials have variously stood for "Scholastic Assessment Test", "Scholastic Aptitude Test" and now "Scholastic Reasoning Test". This is a "standardised" written and multiple-choice-questioning test. And its critics say it also forces US high schools to "teach to this test": and thus to encourage simple memorisation of test-answers rather than broad-based thinking, reasoning, research and communications abilities.
New Zealand, since the late 1930s, when C E Beeby became New Zealand's Director of Education, has — at primary-school level — been based more on developing each child's total ability to become a self-acting, self-motivated learner. (For historians, C E Beeby's autobiography, "The Biography of an Idea", published by the NZ Council of Educational Research, is great reading.) Beeby and his wife also played a big part in developing early childhood centres in New Zealand — again where young children learn by doing, and learning through all their senses. (Our high schools have largely carried on the English tradition of separate subject-courses — but based on each child assumed to start high school already an enthusiastic learner, as a result of the "whole child" approach to primary schooling.)
To be fair to the current New Zealand Government, it stresses that it does not want to introduce such "standardised testing" in New Zealand. Its policy is the subject to the present New Zealand debate; and, in another contribution too it (on these pages) I have set out what I see as some of the conflicts between it and the introduction of the new New Zealand Curriculum Guidelines.
One of the best articles on that new curriculum appeared over two pages in The Press, Christchurch, on March 20, 2008"
A-Plus for Inquiry" I think it should be essential reading for the present debate. Here it is (and I played no part in its writing — although I endorse it strongly, even though I personally prefer the shorter International Baccalaureate global curriculum guidelines for primary, middle and high schools):A-PLUS FOR INQUIRY
New Zealand schools get a new curriculum next year and it is winning approval from many quarters, writes JOHN McCRONE.
What is the capital of Ethiopia? Which year was the Flagstaff war? What is the chemical formula for sulphuric acid?
A generation ago, we might have expected educated people to carry such facts around in their heads. Now we would say forget it, just Google it.
The world is not merely changing, but changing at an accelerating rate. Information is growing exponentially.
In 1900, a scientist could pretty much keep on top of every important development as only 9000 research papers were published in any year. By 1950, it was 90,000. By 2000, it was 900,000.
Today, drinking from this well of knowledge would be like trying to sip from the Huka Falls. Every 24 hours another 4000 papers are churned out.
A good job all this human wisdom now goes online because even university libraries have long since given up trying to accommodate the flood. They do not have the shelf-space. And extrapolate the curve 10 or 20 years into the future and you can see what a hopeless task faces our children.
Some parents do not understand this phenomenon yet. Just look at the rough ride given to the NCEA exams, the constant calls to go back to basics.
But it is the reason why the Ministry of Education is about to tear up its old curriculum. Next year, with the adoption of the new curriculum, New Zealand is plunging wholeheartedly into a different style of learning. And the rest of the world is jealous.
Top Canadian educationist and director of the Council for Human Development, Stuart Shanker, of York University, is here on a whistlestop tour of the country's schools.
We meet at Rangi Ruru, the private Christchurch girls' school. Through the window, we see young women toss rugby balls back and forth. But Shanker spent the morning at low-decile Linwood Avenue Primary and to him, the view was not really that different.
Shanker says he is bowled over with what we are attempting here. New Zealand is already top five in the world for its quality of education -- something he is puzzled to find we do not seem too aware of.
"It's been kind of surprising that New Zealanders don't seem to see that they have an outstanding education system. Here I am looking at all the great things you're doing and the only questions I seem to get asked are what are we doing wrong?"
Ad FeedbackBut it is a fact. Shanker says just check the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment results which place our school children near top of all English-speaking nations for science, mathematics and reading.
Now we are going to be the first country anywhere with an educational curriculum specifically designed for a knowledge economy, for the internet age. "What you're doing is what other people are saying -- you know, at a think-tank level. But you're actually doing it. And doing it at the population level, so every kid benefits. I mean no-one else has gone near that far," he says.
So what is this curriculum all about? For such a revolution, things have gone rather quiet since the slim document was released in November.
The reason for the silence has been the new curriculum appears to be that rare beast -- a radical policy change which has met with almost universal approval. Everyone from teaching unions to business leaders are saying it is a job well done.
Mark Treadwell, an e-learning consultant and member of the curriculum's review group, says it would only be natural to expect moans. Teachers are going to have to put in a lot of extra hours to prepare. And problems may arise once theory begins to be put into practice.
"But people have been going rah-rah. No-one's complaining. They've been saying this is fantastic, it's what we dreamt of as teachers," says Mark Treadwell.
The old state school curriculum, which covers what pupils are expected to learn in both their primary and secondary years, had become an enormous tick-list of topic points to be taught. Facts to be crammed into small heads, says Treadwell.
Each year, new essentials seemed to be added and teachers were rushing through course work so they did not get marked down by school inspectors for skipping mandated items.
The new curriculum goes in the opposite direction. It is light on details, emphasising broad principles and flexibility. The thick manuals have been thrown out.
Indeed, the new curriculum is written in such wholesome tones that those with an old-fashioned view of education -- the chant-your-times-tables, sit still and shut up brigade -- will find it positively toe-curling.
There is a vision statement that speaks of creating confident, connected, lifelong learners. The new curriculum lays down principles like excellence, equity, cultural heritage and coherence. There is a long list of values to be fostered, such as integrity, respect and care for the environment.
And there are five key competencies which our education system is now meant to teach. These are the ability to manage self, relate to others, participate and contribute to the community, think clearly, and be comfortable with language, symbols and text.
Yes, it sounds more like a bunch of hopeful New Year's resolutions. But Treadwell says it is bang on for many reasons.
Take a step back, he says. The old education system was designed for the print age. You read books and memorised the facts. There was a premium on how much you could store in your head. And clerk or carpenter alike, good hand-writing and quick arithmetic would get you ahead in life.
Another big difference was that children learnt values and basic life skills at home. Parents were not working all hours and had time to talk. There were no chatrooms or PlayStations to distract. Modern life and the modern workplace have irrevocably changed and so a new kind of education is required.
"The internet has made a fundamental shift of the kind we haven't seen since the 1450s when the printing press was invented. And we're only a few years into it. The transformations it will make over the next 10 or 15 years are going to be stunning," says Treadwell.
It is all about the quantity of information and the ease of tapping it.
"This shifts us from a `just in case' kind of framework -- learning stuff just in case it might one day be useful -- to a `just in time' framework," he says.
But a Google-based approach to life then requires a new set of "meta-skills". Treadwell says children have to become more expert at evaluating sources, more questioning, more able to apply the knowledge they glean.
Some schools, such as Christchurch's Cobham Intermediate, have already pioneered classes with this inquiry style of learning. In inquiry-based teaching, children are encouraged to work in teams. They choose their own study projects and present their findings to the class. They are not pinned to chairs and forced to work through a textbook but go out into the real world to gather information from businesses and community groups.
Treadwell says it sounds dangerously like having fun. People are fearful about children having too much control over what they learn. Parents are naturally conservative and prefer any educational experiments to be carried out on someone else's kids.
But what is education for but to teach children the exact skills they will need to employ in tomorrow's workplace? Teaching them yesterday's skills would be ridiculous.
Treadwell says we already need to be lifelong learners. The facts on which jobs are based are no longer static but always changing.
In the old days, it was conformity that was valued. Learn a trade or profession and then apply that knowledge mechanically. Only about one in 20 would have a job that was in any sense creative. But now economies are being held back by a lack of creative self-starters.
"Creative cities like Dublin are saying their growth is stalling because they're running short of clever people."
Treadwell says the new curriculum plugs important gaps. There is a new emphasis on statistics as that is crucial to evaluating the quality of information. Second languages are being pushed, vital for working in a global economy. And perhaps surprisingly, oral skills have been identified as a new priority.
Treadwell says teachers everywhere are finding children are becoming more inarticulate. And yet 80% of jobs are in the service sector where being a good speaker, a polished presenter, is arguably the No. 1 requirement.
An obvious criticism of the new curriculum is that it may suit some but not others. Some may blossom with the freedom of inquiry learning. Others might find it too airy-fairy and prefer the comfort of strong structure.
Treadwell says this is a misunderstanding. In fact, the move away from a prescriptive "one size fits all" curriculum to a more flexible approach means schools are being encouraged to find the strategies that best suit each pupil.
"It will allow for a more vocational style training if that's what the child requires."
The new curriculum's focus on values might seem another "warm fuzzy". But Treadwell says the need is obvious. If we want children to be good citizens these days, we actively need to teach it.
Sadly, he says, many children are not learning the lessons at home. But also a more complicated world means children have to have the skill of navigating their own path through life. Moral debates which were once for the few are now a requirement for the many.
And Treadwell says the greatest misunderstanding is probably that all the old subjects will be junked from next year as children just study competencies.
In fact, what children learn will remain largely the same. It is how they learn it -- a nationwide shift to inquiry learning -- which is changing.
Principals who have been looking at the new curriculum, such as David O'Neil, of St Mary's Primary, in central Christchurch and Chris Reece, of Linwood Avenue Primary, agree.
Reece says in many ways, the new curriculum is simply endorsing changes already made at many schools. The old curriculum did nail down what needs to be taught and that will be carried forward. So all that will alter next year is teachers will be given more freedom to apply effective teaching methods.
One concern is there might be a knee-jerk reaction from parents to the new curriculum. Feelings that the NCEA was a dumbing down of standards quickly led to pressure for international qualifications such as the Cambridge exams and International Baccalaureate.
Treadwell says it is widely agreed the introduction of NCEA was bungled. It was not the shining success that the new curriculum seems to be.
But tinkering is seeing the exams come right. And half the problem was that they were simply ahead of their time. Treadwell says NCEA stems from the same educational philosophy, valuing understanding over rote learning, and so should sit much more happily with the new curriculum.
It all sounds like good news. Much too good really. That old Kiwi inferiority complex rises to the surface again. We are taking a bold step. Are we sure we are doing the right thing?
Treadwell, and others like Shanker, have no doubt. This is no whacky liberal exercise, says Shanker. It is the kind of training required for tomorrow's jobs.
Treadwell says other larger nations, like the United Kingdom and United States, have fallen for the political call to go back to basics. An obsession with testing has led to an environment where children are just taught how to pass tests.
"In America, for example, the `no child left behind' policy brought in by Bush has just reduced every school to a testing machine.
"The educational system there is going backwards at an incredible rate. Whole states in the US now don't teach things like drama or art," he says.
These countries responded to the dawn of the internet age and the apparent erosion of standards by going down the wrong path. Treadwell says that is the theme at every international educational conference he now attends.
New Zealand is lucky because we are small enough to react quickly. We can be the first to embrace the new direction. But the rest of the world is scrambling to follow.
Treadwell was actually on his cellphone from Australia, there to tell them about what we are doing. Treadwell reckons Australia is about 10 years behind in its policies. He says Tasmania did try to make a new curriculum-style change but stuffed it up by being overly ambitious. However, the new Rudd Government will soon be throwing serious dollars at the issue.
And if on this side of the Tasman there is an Achilles' heel, this looks like it. Resourcing.
Robin Duff, president of the Post Primary Teachers' Association, says the theory of the new curriculum is right, the practice is do-able. But will our government really spend what is required?
Duff says promises have been made about giving teachers time to prepare, and to provide other support, but he has learnt to be cynical about such commitments.
"Our experience with recent initiatives like NCEA has been that they say here it is, we've spent a lot of money creating it, now you go put it into operation."
Duff says another nagging issue is that, so far, the new curriculum covers the early years, yet is missing the detail of what happens over the NCEA years. It would be helpful to have that sooner rather than later.
But as to the new curriculum itself, Duff agrees it does indeed seem that rare thing, a case of a well-considered, well-timed policy change.
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This is the first time I have joined one of these on-air discussion forums. But it seems to me the debate is veering off the key "national standards" debate and into all sorts of obscure side alleys.
So thanks to three latter contributors, Geoff Lealand, Tim Wong and Mikaere Curtis, for helping bring it back on track.
To refresh: the current NZ debate revolves around the perception of primary school standards for literacy and numeracy.
And, under both the former and new NZ curriculum guidelines, "literacy" and "numeracy" are included across all strands of the those guidelines. Thus "literacy" (under those guidelines) includes the way in which all students are required to use language in a wide variety of ways across all "subject areas": how to use language to research, inquire, analyse, speak, write, create, create television scripts, produce radio plays and not just to read books. To repeat: 21st-century literacy is Peter Jackson literacy—and many of our students and schools excel at it, to a standard that world educational visitors regularly applaud.
This is entirely different to the US and similar "subject-based" curricula, where (as happened when I was at high school in NZ in the 1940s) "English exams" could easily be based on a series of questions based on a particular book, such as "The Merchant of Venice". Read and re-read the one book, answer a series of questions on it, in a once-a-year exam and, wow!, you've passed! Challenge "The Merchant of Venice" as anti-Semitic racism and you've failed! (It is probably the one Shakespeare play that would not be used today in US "standardised resting".
And is it in the possible clash between the new National Curriculum Guidelines (on literacy) and the new "national standards" for "reading literacy" that I see huge potential conflict in the way in which schools and teachers are no required to teach and now "assess" whether each student has reached some sort of reading "norm". To me, that dumbs down the entire way in which 21st-century literacy is already inspiring a New Zealand cultural renaissance: Peter Jackson/Fran Walsh/Richard Taylor again. (Example: the last time I took eight Chinese Professors of Education to a leading New Zealand state primary school, they were blown away. First, an eight-year-old Korean boy, who a year before spoke no English, made them welcome with his multimedia presentation of New Zealand history: in English and Maori. Then he took them into his class of fellow eight-year-olds; and the first one was completing a multimedia quiz on the history of Tolkien and "Lord of The Rings". Then the visitors looked in at a class of six-year-olds, all working in multi-talented teams to edit, on computers, video they had shot, along with music they had composed and animations they had made. That is 21st-century literacy. And I suggest the majority of MPs and Ministers, if tested for these "national standards", would fail. When the Chinese professors drove away from the school, their first comment: "If China doesn't catch up with this, we'll be left behind.")
In practical terms, we now know that every one of has a unique combination of learning styles, thinking styles and working styles as unique as our finger prints. Every good primary teacher I know in New Zealand is very familiar with research into "multiple intelligences" (Harvard Professor Howard Gardner's research), "learning styles" (a wide variety of research and practice in our country), and "thinking styles" (such as Edward De Bono's "Six Thinking Hats"—so that students learn the difference between using literacy skills to think logically, creatively, sequentially and in many other ways).
Reduce those different abilities, passions and talents to simple one-dimensional "reading-literacy", and the dumbing down continues.
At the same time, New Zealand (in my view) leads the world in marrying these concepts with interactive digital technology in learning and teaching.
Let me give a practical example. The new NZ curriculum guidelines are, in some ways, very similar to aspects of the excellent International Baccalaureate Primary Years '"Inquiry" Program (which is much simpler). That program is more specific in that students in each grade explore six main themes a year (each six or seven weeks), such as "Planets of the universe", "Endangered species", "The human body" and "Oceans of the world". All other "subjects" (mathematics, science and "literacy" etc) are woven into those themes. And, more importantly, under the entire curriculum guidelines, students become open-minded discoverers and explorers; so that, in effect, they learn to tackle any problem, challenge or issue they face in life as, in effect, multimedia journalists.
In fact, the IB program encourages all students to become great questioners (and not mere memorisers of information) and to absorb an entire ethos of open-ended, objective inquiry — and different creative ways of expressing their findings.
This, in a variety of ways, is similar to the excellent system that Dr C E Beeby introduced into New Zealand primary education from the late 1930s and through the 1940s; and what then became the basis of the "Tomorrow's Schools" program of the 1990s.
That latter program coincided with the development of personal computers, digital networks, and the entire array of interactive-technology multimedia tools that have emerged over the last 20 years.
It is in this latter era that New Zealand schools have begun to lead the world in using digital technology as the catalyst to reinvent schooling.
In particular this has led to excellent advances in learning through multi-talented teams — exactly as Jackson and his great movie and creative teams work; and have, in effect, reinvented Wellington.
This is thus no mere "academic" debate.
This is about the way in which the world is organised today — and, more importantly, tomorrow.
All our best primary schools already lead in preparing our students for that world.
And that includes some of our best low-decile schools with high Maori rolls (in the past, among our lowest "English test scorers") who now simply delight in blending their own music, dance, culture and song in with the new multi-talented digital technologies.
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Perhaps we should lift this discussion into the real 21st-century, and celebrate a few successes:
1. Peter Jackson (our best model for 21st-century literacy?) never went to university; started making his first movies with an 8mm camera, using his home vegetable garden for film-sets, at age 8. His real-life assessment for success: his team's world-record-equalling 11 Academy Awards in a night and 23 over all three episodes of "Lord of The Rings".
2. In China, to enter university students need a minimum 70 per cent pass-mark in all basic subjects, including literacy, mathematics and science. On his first try, student Jack Ma scored near the top of China in English, and dead last in mathematics: 1%. The following year (while earning a living guiding English-language tourists around China), his English marks soared again, but he still failed the entrance test: only 19% in maths. Third time lucky: he spent hours every week memorising rote-mathematics, and just made it with 70%. Then he married his English skills to the Internet and set up Alibaba.com for China to "Open Sesame" to the world. It's now the world's biggest e-commerce Web site (much bigger than Amazon) and links around 40 million Chinese manufacturers with English-language Western buyers. The first day it floated on the Hongkong Stock Exchange, its share value hit US $26 billion — much higher than Google's float price. Ma is now one of China's richest men.
3. Bucklands Beach Intermediate School in Manukau City is one of the 2000-plus New Zealand schools to use interactive digital technology as a catalyst to reinvent a school system (classroom, desks, blackboard and textbooks) designed over 300 years ago. And its assessment-reporting system is great: all students record their achievements on digital portfolios and parents can view their children's portfolios 24 X 7 on their home computers any day of the year, and not from a simple half-yearly one-dimensional assessment. And on a light note . . .
4. After my one year at Christchurch West High School (now Hagley High) in 1945, the school still refused to allow me to learn shorthand and typing (which I wanted as tools for a career in journalism, but such tuition was solely for girls). And even though I was then reading an average of four books a week (mainly mystery stories), our half-yearly "English assessment test" was on only one book: Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice". In disgust, I quit school (illegally at 14) and spent several months working on a farm while taking International Correspondence School courses in short-story writing and journalism. They were enough to win a job as a junior proof-reader the following year (with shorthand and typing at a mainly-girls' private commercial college), and a journalistic career a year later. As some of your readers may know, I still earn a living as a multimedia writer — mainly on "education" and learning:-)
Now assess that — and enjoy a TV flashback: http://www.send1keep1.com/tlw/bgo/
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Good discussion. Thanks Russell, for ther summary.
For those interested in Finland's system and results:
1. Finland's Minister of Education has been visiting Namibia recently, and has an excellent summary in Namibia's New Era online magazine: http://www.newera.com.na/article.php?articleid=9411
2. On average four-fifths of students' waking hours around the world are spent outside school classrooms. Finland provides some of the world's best before-school and after-school programs for all students, to cater for all learning styles, passions, talents and tastes (all, like their school system, free—including school meals).
3. Finnish students have come out number one in the three international assessment tests published since 2000: in reading-literacy, science and maths. New Zealand rates number 3 in reading-literacy, fourth in science and ninth in maths.
4. Finland, as with its neighbouring countries—Sweden, Norway and Denmark— also provides excellent free early-childhood development programs for a much higher percentage of pre-schoolers than New Zealand. (Videotaping at such Swedish centres for children from refugee families in 1990, I can still recall every four-year-old able to speak and read fluently in three languages: Swedish, English and the language of their parents . . . well before starting school.)
4. I think everyone agrees that 80 to 85 per cent of New Zealand students achieve results near the top of the world in primary and secondary schooling. Our problem area has always been among the lower 15 to 20 per cent. Those occupying the lower rung are easily identifiable inside school, at home and in New Zealand horrifying prison statistics.
5. So the challenge remains: how to solve the problems we have identified for years. And not fool ourselves that finding a new assessment system is, in fact, a solution to those problems.
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In hosting a recent series of radio programs on New Zealand's future, I found one of the most interesting interviews was Gavin Lennox. After several high-paying years in the IT industry (top-level jobs included with IBM and Lotus), he is now back in New Zealand. Apart from the lifestyle, one of his renewed pleasures is the standard of education he has found here for his primary and high-school family. Also interesting to find how his own schooling at Auckland Selwyn College fitted him for those high-qualified jobs overseas. Daniel and others can listen to a podcast of the complete interview (now commercial-free) at www.thelearningweb.net by clicking on the "radio interviews" line on that site's home page. His is the first interview listed under Thursday, January 1.
Those Kiwis currently living abroad, with young families, and considering a "return home", may also find the interview with Nick Billowes, on Wednesday, December 31, of interest. It summarises the way in which clusters of New Zealand schools, especially primary schools, are leading the world in using interactive digital technology as the catalyst to rethink schooling for the 21st century.
Gordon Dryden