State educators study techniques in New Zealand

A recent trip to New Zealand gave some Northwest Arkansas educators a chance to observe how schools there approach teaching and learning, inspiring ideas for changes in their own schools.

The group of 36, mostly teachers and administrators representing one private school, one charter school and five school districts in Benton and Washington counties, spent the last full week of October touring schools in and around Auckland, New Zealand.

The knowledge gained was well worth the time and money spent traveling halfway around the world, said Megan Slocum, associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction for the Springdale School District.

“You can read about things and see it on the Internet, but being there in person and being able to talk with students and teachers and pick the brains of administrators there is a unique experience,” Slocum said.

The trip was arranged through a partnership between the Office of Innovation for Education at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and the Walton Family Foundation.

New Zealand is widely regarded as having one of the top education systems in the world. The trip was part of a two-year project meant to spur educational innovation in Northwest Arkansas, according to Kim Davis, a senior education program officer for the foundation’s Home Region Program.

The foundation is providing $350,000 for the project, Davis said.

The Bentonville, Fayetteville, Rogers, Siloam Springs and Springdale school districts as well as Haas Hall Academy and the Thaden School sent teachers and administrators on the trip. Employees of the foundation, the Office of Innovation for Education and the Arkansas Department of Education participated as well.

Core Education, a professional learning and development organization in New Zealand, facilitated the group’s tours of seven public schools over five days. The group spent a few hours in each school.

Kimber Jungles, a math interventionist at Bentonville’s Barker Middle School, jumped at the chance to go when Barker Principal Eric Hipp asked this summer for a staff member to join him. It was an opportunity few people ever get, she said.

“We got to sit down at a table with the teachers and talk to them,” Jungles said. “We got to talk to principals, we got to talk to students. One principal opened the door and said, ‘Here’s the school, you have an hour, go do whatever you want to do and come back.’ We were able to really get in there and see what we wanted to see and ask questions we wanted to ask.”