Only way is up if we aim to end housing shortage

National curriculum should contain standardised base of academic knowledge from the arts, sciences, and humanities, writes Elizabeth Rata

Our national curriculum has a fatal flaw — a “knowledge blindspot”. It starts with what children should achieve rather than with what knowledge should be taught. This design fault is the reason assessment has taken centre stage. A recent UK report recognises the same problem in that country. It says assessment “should exist in the service of the curriculum rather than the other way round”.

So why has the assessment system become the default curriculum in New Zealand? Let’s start by asking what is the curriculum. Is it the selection we make from the vast accumulated wealth of human knowledge to impart to the next generation as the UK report says? The answer for us is “no”. In a bizarre move, our 2007 national curriculum emptied out knowledge.

What do all children learn in New Zealand schools? Incredibly we can’t The persistent problem of housing affordability is usually expressed as an issue of not just cost and debt sustainability but of the effect of the demand for and supply of housing and the most commonly aired solution is more houses on more development land.

The common approach is large separate dwellings — McMansions — on single sites. The position and bulk of these are controlled by planning regulations under the Resource Management Act, covering matters such as overall height, site area covered by building and sunlight access between neighbours. These controls have an effect on both the density of development and the form of the dwellings built. And on their cost.

In suburbia, the planning controls still dominate. Alternative, more intense development has been slow to catch on. The 2013 Census (the latest available) shows that nationally 80 per cent are separate private dwellings and of that 75 per cent are single level. In the Auckland region there were about 472,000 privately held dwellings, almost 293,000 of which answer this question. New Zealand’s national curriculum states principles and values. It describes skills and competences, and says what young people should achieve. But it doesn’t tell us what knowledge content is taught. Some random examples: Are all children taught the names and location of our cities and towns? What about the calendar? The names of trees? Is the periodic table taught to everyone? Do we leave school knowing who Martin Luther was and why he matters? What about that seminal piece of legislation in 1852? In the absence of a national curriculum with content that is prescribed for all students we need to ask what is taught.

At present curriculum content is up to what schools, teachers, students, and communities decide is important. This doesn’t mean that many students aren’t well taught and leave school knowing a lot. Those in wealthier areas certainly do, but there are problems there, too. Without a prescribed curriculum we can end up with a “bits and pieces” approach to knowledge. Deep understanding comes from being taught knowledge that is built in coherent systems of meaning. This is the knowledge organised as academic subjects.

My colleagues and I who write about knowledge in education call it “powerful knowledge”. We know that it is difficult to acquire. If it were easy then we probably wouldn’t need schools and we were single level. Corresponding figures for the Wellington Region were 177,000 and 118,000.

These single-level suburban dwellings sit on an under-utilised resource. If the space above or below an existing house could be used for an additional dwelling unit created with its own separate title this would result in an immediate additional supply of housing sites.

I suggest revisiting the bulk and location controls within district schemes to promote small-scale vertical redevelopment on existing sites. These new controls would be available only if a new title was created. These would be across the spread of all relevant existing residential zones and applied as near universally as possible.

It could produce dwellings in a spread of locations within the existing urban fabric and of a size and lower cost that better reflects the evident demand. (Lower cost because there is no virgin land cost and it would utilise existing services and infrastructure).

How might this work? Only a few specific controls would need to be considered in addition to existing rules. certainly wouldn’t need to spend so many years in them.

The fact that academic knowledge is difficult only makes it more important that we have a well-designed standardised curriculum. All New Zealand young people should have the same opportunity to acquire this powerful knowledge. Unfortunately stories about young people being “turned off” academic knowledge meant the knowledge itself was blamed.

But the blame lies in how the knowledge was taught not the knowledge itself. Good teaching is making the connection between the knowledge we think with and how we can use it. We call making the connection “depth pedagogy”.

We need to bring back academic knowledge into all our schools by putting prescribed content into the curriculum. The knowledge our children learn should not depend on where they live in New Zealand. The same knowledge should be available to all, whatever a child’s circumstances.

Knowledge from the arts, sciences, and humanities makes us intelligent, makes us capable of morality, makes us who we are. It is only by engaging with ideas that we become thinking people. To state the obvious — if we have nothing to think about then we can’t think. To deny young people access to this type of knowledge on the grounds that it is “too hard” is to Specifically, the height, sunlight and site coverage rules. For existing single-level houses, the building recession plane would need to be adjusted to spring from a height that allows for an additional level, say five metres above the boundary line.

Secondly, the overall building height would need to be reassessed to allow for the additional storey. In most residential zones this would be a minor change.

Thirdly, some adjustment to site coverage ratios would have to be allowed for to accommodate extending upper level decks for outdoor living space beyond the external walls of the existing dwelling, and for access stairs.

Many older houses are 100-120sq m and the resulting new dwelling above or beneath would be of a similar size. This would create a smaller new home at a more attainable cost than the current extravagant new-build monsters.

The bureaucracy needs to shepherd the changes through, but the opportunity to better utilise the existing land under existing buildings would be marketdriven. Once regulations were changed, the uptake would be random across any one local body area, much like the existing deny them the means to make themselves.

Its value also lies in what we can do with knowledge. A well-designed curriculum will not only teach that “knowledge in the mind” but will show how such knowledge is applied to real life. It’s not only professionals who need this knowledge. Electricians need to know about physics. Hairdressers need chemistry. Builders need maths. You can’t set up a business without knowing ideas from maths, economics, and sociology.

Most importantly of all, the value of a standardised curriculum is what it gives New Zealand. We are a country of diverse groups. What unifies us if not the education system? We do not share the same religion. We do not share the same history. We do not share the same experiences. Only at school can we gain a sense of ourselves as a unified people.

Only a standardised curriculum can provide this collective understanding of who we are as a people and who we aspire to be. It’s a way of thinking about ourselves that makes a democratic society possible. For all these reasons we need to do what has begun in Britain — engage in a debate about what knowledge we want all New Zealand children to know and re-design the curriculum accordingly. subdivision of larger suburban plots.

It would not overload service and infrastructure demand as the creation of “special areas” and tower block developments do.

There is a clear process for modifying district schemes and this will allow for a full debate. The first question to arise will be of the potential loss of sunlight and its value. It is highly prized, and yet apartments on the south side of a tower block get precious little, terrace houses have forgone it on two sides from the getgo and “borrowed light” is all there is in many rooms in apartments.

How we live within a dwelling will sway how we respond to any modification of the immediate environment. Bedrooms are night-time spaces mostly and do not welcome bright sunlight. The “outdoor flow” is about connectivity rather than containment. Living spaces are open plan.

With good design, all this is possible while allowing neighbours and the wider community the chance to add to the supply of urgently needed homes.