Schooling ourselves towards better NZ
Arecent email from an English cousin thanked me for the calendar I had sent for Christmas. She commented on New Zealand being a beautiful country. She also commented on the killing of tourist Grace Millane and the outpouring of concern and sympathy displayed by the people, the Prime Minister.
She asked me if we had prisons. How could I answer that — simply reply yes and move on? And say most New Zealanders were wonderfully generous by nature? Or should I put a check on her perception of this country and tell her it had a not-so-beautiful side?
Yes, we do have prisons. Sadly, one of the highest incarceration rates in the developed world, and high rates of child poverty, violence against women and children, drug abuse, youth suicide, and child obesity. Our Ma¯ori people and Pacific Islanders are over-represented in all these negative statistics and have under-achieved in education for decades.
We have high rates of educational inequality as measured against other OECD countries, bullying in schools, streaming of children, and I suspect of suspension and exclusion rates. We have the most competitive schooling system, with three qualifications and exams in the last three years. We allow schools to compete against each other rather than collaborate.
These are all interconnected, impacting on each other in numerous ways. New Zealand has two major reviews of education under way. There is concern about the statistics, and acknowledgement of links between inequality and competition between schools, and quality of teaching and assessment and children’s achievement. The system is being challenged, but not the model invented early last century.
This model was based on assumptions and beliefs that can no longer be justified. What we know now that we didn’t then is that the brain is not a hard-wired computer that has to be filled with “stuff” before it can be useful. It does not have to be programmed in a linear fashion; learning does not happen that way.
The brain grows even in old age in response to challenging, stimulating and sensory-rich environments. Intelligence is not fixed at birth and is multi-dimensional, not limited by the kind of intelligence IQ tests measure.
The four dimensions we all possess are mental, physical, social/emotional, and spiritual/cultural capabilities. Collectively they define who we are as individuals. Research shows these capabilities in combination determine success in life, including at university.
Yet often we judge the potential of children on IQ-type tests, and stream them, though research shows this is severely harmful to youngsters already disadvantaged. And even though we have all this new knowledge we still judge the success of our children, schools and the system, by “measuring” a limited range of mental abilities.
Our children will be the leaders of tomorrow. They face an uncertain future. Our planet Earth and its species, including homo sapiens, is at risk. We are embarking on the fourth industrial revolution driven by new technologies that will have massive impact. If we are to prepare children our schools need to nurture the full range of human capabilities and not just the “academic”. That means seeing knowledge in connected ways, not in subject silos, and changing how we see teaching and learning, and assessment.
The feedback to the two education reviews is heartening. Many see the connections and the need for change: a different purpose for schooling, one that puts children’s health and wellbeing and preparedness at the forefront of our thinking. Increasingly, schools are challenging the status quo with different ways of teaching and learning. And we have a Government that sees the connections, and wellbeing is the central point of new policies.
There is a saying, “Change a child and you change a family, change a family and you change a community, change a community and you change society”.
After all these years in education, I remain passionate about the power of learning. It can make a real and positive difference that goes well beyond the individual child. I hope we are on the verge of making progress.