Tag: teachers

  • The Science of Learning verses The Art of Teaching

    The Science of Learning verses The Art of Teaching

    In the early 2020’s there became a real shift in New Zealand Education. Evidence Based Practice. The Science of anything. Every teacher was getting this thrown down their throats in a force-fed effort by every PLD provider in the country.

    It’s okay. Catch-phrases are fairly common to teachers.

    One large piece of popularised evidence was that of the Science of Reading. In it, researchers looked at how we learn to read. They identified core elements of reading that young children need to become good readers.

    How do children learn to read?

    As a fully trained teacher, I won’t even pretend to tell you that I know how children learn to read. I wouldn’t have a clue.
    I can show you methods and ways in which I encourage reading in my class.
    There are strategies to help students improve their comprehension and understanding of what they have read.
    I have a range of supports for students when they get to a word they don’t know how to read.
    But as for answering ‘How do we learn to read?’, I don’t know if I would even know where to start.

    I think this is why the Science of Reading took off so fast. Many teachers have no idea on how we learn to read. We are led to believe that knowing how we read helps us identify how to teach children to become better readers. Sounding credible and academic helps. Putting “The Science of” in-front of anything will do that. “The Science of Cupcakes” will sound far more academic and evidence-based than “Grans Cupcake Recipe”. However, we all know which one we would rather have!

    The Science of Learning sought to deepen our understanding of how the brain learns. It explores how to maximise memory, instant recall and long term cognition. We identify methods of teaching that enhances and “hacks” the way the brain learns best. Intertwined with things like Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), Scope and Sequence, and Working Memory, it provides a scientific basis for many things we generally take for granted.

    Putting “The Science of” in-front of anything will do that. “The Science of Cupcakes” will sound far more academic and evidence-based than “Grans Cupcake Recipe” – even though we all know which one we would rather have.

    Shift

    It has been a long time since such a shift in pedagogy has occurred. Certainly not since Tomorrow’s Schools in the late 1980’s. Teachers have observed students struggling with their reading for years. They implement a vast array of strategies and teaching approaches to address the decline.

    Along comes Structured Literacy, backed by the Science of Reading and supported hand in hand with the Science of Learning, and find themselves in the middle of a storm of teachers looking for answers. I’m not going to suggest that it was just happenstance. I believe early adopters saw positive results in the first instance. This placed confidence in the approach, allowing them to encourage others to adopt it and the word spread.

    Not Convinced

    I am naturally skeptical. It does make me mildly negative to be around at times. I question. I don’t just accept things at face value.

    Change is hard. I’ll admit. I don’t enjoy change.

    I’m not one to just keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Because of this, I try to keep my practice up to date with the latest insights and research. I’m often either the one giving new approaches a try, or being an early adopter with others.

    It is difficult to keep up with the latest insights and research. Especially when there is such an overwhelming amount of it. It feels like its changing for popularity sake – a fad. A trend rather than anything pedagogically sound. It is also very difficult when you see first hand the cons before you see any pros.

    Science of Reading, the Science of Learning, and the Science of everything else does not convince me. There are several reasons that it leaves me skeptical. Some may appear trivial to you, but no one said reservations had to be well founded.

    The Science of…

    The Science of Reading, Learning, Writing… what next – the Science of Science? There are at least two reasons why Science in general does not impress me:

    1. Society regularly juxtapose Science against my faith. Creation vs. Big Bang Theory is a decades old fight. ‘Evolution’ as a theory factors in our curriculum which I am never likely to teach due to my beliefs. The secular world sees ‘Science’ as the truth, or the pursuit of truth; seeking to understand that which we don’t yet understand. For me, the pursuit of truth is found only in Christ. My belief leads me to know that we won’t understand everything. It is only faith that allows us to bridge that gap between what we understand and what we can’t comprehend.
    2. Science and Art often appear on opposite sides of the curriculum. The main basis for this is that we use different hemispheres of the brain when dealing with them. Science based on facts, figures, experiments, data and logic. Art based on creativity, imagination, visual representations, emotions and ideas. My mind as a creative prefers to use the opposite side of the brain to what Science requires.

    Needless to say, chucking ‘The Science of…’ in front of everything doesn’t impact me the same way in which it does others. If anything it probably has the opposite affect. It allows me to question, where others feel like they just have to accept it, because they’ve been lead to believe Science is truth.

    The Art of…

    Guy Claxton, who we read more from later on in this article, puts it as such:
    “Another part of the problem is the gullibility of educators in the face of authoritative claims to scientific warrant by a small posse of overconfident, and in some cases ideologically-driven academics and consultants. A little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.”

    One of my biggest issues goes back to an anciently old adage that is still strong in education. It is, and always has been ‘The Art of Teaching’. Yet here we are, in the mid 2020’s, and we are being told that it is the Science of Learning. And maybe that’s where the two opposites meet. However, the way in which the Science of Learning then suggests how we are to teach in order to allow students to learn in the most effective ways, it is fast assuming that it has to be the Science of Teaching as well.

    Explicit Teaching: How We Teach Matters

    The Science of Learning says that the most effective way to teach is by explicitly teaching information and concepts. This has been widely adopted throughout education in this country and is the single biggest shift in how I teach. Explicit Instruction flips the script teachers have used for decades.

    An example of this would be when learning about Dolphins. In the past, I would have asked the class “Okay class – what do we know about dolphins?”. Of course, my ideal class would all put up their hands and wait their turn, but in reality, the answers come thick and fast with various students calling out louder than others. “They’re fish!”, or “They have flippers”.

    Example

    Explicit teaching doesn’t ask the question. It states the facts and then checks for understanding. Now, using an Explicit Teaching approach I would say “Okay class – Dolphins are fish and the have flippers.” – teaching the content that students need to know. Checking for understanding would then have me asking “What are dolphins?” and “What is something that they have?”
    We flip the script. The explicit teaching of a concepts happens first, and then the students can answer.

    To some extent this makes sense. If we were approaching a topic the students knew nothing about, asking them to tell me what they know about it is pointless. Getting them to guess answers isn’t the way we learn best. “I don’t know”, even if muttered internally, is a sure fire way to get a brain to shut down to new learning.

    However. I’m not sold.
    The good thing is I’m not the only one with reservations.

    The way in which the Science of Learning then suggests how we are to teach in order to allow students to learn in the most effective ways, it is fast assuming that it has to be the Science of Teaching as well.

    Simplistic Views on Complex Reality

    Guy Claxton is a UK based cognitive scientist who has a wide range of experience at a number of prestigious institutions in the United Kingdom.

    On his blog he has written about the Science of Learning and the Practice of Teaching. In it, he outlines shortcomings, misunderstandings, and areas of contention with the Science of Learning.

    One of his early points centres around the limitations of the research into the Science of Learning. The main issue is the limits on purpose or outcomes. He says that if you focus on superficial tests of understanding (i.e. “A dolphin has flippers – what does a dolphin have?”) then explicit teaching has positive outcomes. However, explicit teaching does not foster curiosity, independence, imagination, which are also incredibly important in developing functioning individuals and learners.

    It follows that there is no such thing as ‘good teaching’, only teaching that is good for certain purposes or outcomes. For example, if all you are concerned about is scores on relatively superficial tests of understanding , then there is a good deal of research that shows that explicit or didactic teaching – that which maximises Explanation (by teachers) and minimises opportunities for Exploration (by students) on the grounds of ‘efficiency’ – is perfectly good.

    If, however, you also value (note: in addition to, not instead of, ‘knowledge’) the cultivation of character strengths such as curiosity, independence, imagination, critique, collaboration or intellectual humility, then different kinds of teaching are needed. Indeed, relentless ‘explicit teaching’ may well stunt the development of such valuable strengths.

    One size fits no one.

    Claxton takes umbrage at the promotion of explicit teaching across all areas of teaching. Promoting the good version of explicit teaching and pitting it against the bad version of inquiry-based learning is bad faith.
    He says: “Any kind of teaching can be done ‘badly’. Explicit teaching can be dull and disengaging, just as inquiry-based teaching can be unfocused or pitched inappropriately. It is intellectually lazy to promote a ‘good’ version of one by attacking a ‘weak’ or caricatured version of the other.”

    Claxton continues: “In reality, the craft of teaching mostly involves a judicious and dynamic mixture of both explanation and exploration, depending on a whole variety of factors… to which good teachers are sensitive and responsive… To try to enforce a single template is bad education and bad science.”

    Claxton raises a good point here. It tends to be a bad trait of teachers in that we are one-trick actors. The research tells us that explicit teaching is effective. It is sold to us as ‘best evidence practice’, so we assume that we need to apply it to each and every situation, . It’s not that we can’t teach using multiple methods throughout the day, but that we’ve been sold a lie; because this is how brains learn, then this is how we must teach to be effective.

    Cognitive Load Theory

    This is exacerbated when we learn that the research behind CLT derives from work on high school mathematics and science teaching. These subjects are not valid prototypes for other subjects on the curriculum nor indeed for the many wider forms of out-of-school learning.” The Science of Reading has it’s podium crumbing under it. It wasn’t even a subject that was researched under CLT and yet we find it being used to promote specific teaching methods in Reading at primary school level.

    Not only that, but it is made worse by the insights of this cognitive scientist who points out that things like Working Memory and Long Term Memory, of which CLT leans on, were “…formulated in the late 1960s and [are] long past [their] sell-by date (except apparently in dwindling bubbles of cognitive and educational psychology).”

    In teaching circles, some of us are familiar with ‘Learning Styles‘, which even though were debunked, still find their way into public perception of truth because that’s what they were taught, and they sound completely plausible.

    Complexity and Consistency

    Another contention Claxton has with the Science of Learning is that teaching is such a complex task, juggling so many variables and consistently making judgement calls, that to over-simplify that task by whittling things like CLT down to the reason why students might be struggling with a learning task, when in reality, there are an incredibly wide range of factors that could be impacting on that student.

    The primary aim of CLT is to explain why some students find learning some things hard, and to derive teacher actions from this explanation. There are a host of reasons why a child is apparently struggling with a particular learning task, that may reflect preoccupations with emotional matters in or out of school, lack of interest, the ‘work’ being too easy and boring, or its difficulty (for a particular class) being misjudged, the desire to appear rebellious to peers, and so on. To leap to narrow cognitive explanations without taking account of these and many other possible factors, is facile and often unhelpful.

    Simplifying Complexity

    Closer to home, we have Prof. Stuart McNaughton, Chief Education Science Adviser to the Ministry of Education for 10 years and Professor at Auckland University since 1976. Earlier this year he wrote about the mandate of Structured Literacy across the county and expressed concern in it’s implementation.

    “Unfortunately some of our recent policies and practices suffer from simplism by markedly simplifying the complexity of teaching, learning and education,”

    His article outlined the concern that “…years of experimental studies found focusing on decoding words in the first years of primary school could raise decoding levels “but has limited (if any) impact by itself on medium to long term comprehension.”

    Radio New Zealand, 11 July 2026: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/education/698992/education-professor-pans-simplistic-school-reforms

    “Clearly you need a form of structured literacy in place in order to teach some of the basics… What I’m worried about is focusing only on those relatively simple components, the phonics components, and ignoring or at least not supporting an emphasis on the more complicated things like the role of self-regulation in early reading and writing and maths, or, like in the case of reading, enjoying reading.”

    I wrote about this earlier this year after seeing first hand the de-motivation of a group of students due to the explicit teaching approach in Reading.

    Dismissal of this View

    The supporters of Structured Literacy and the Science of Reading in this country were quick to dismiss McNaughton’s opinion – none more so that Sir James Chapman. Chapman was made a knight this year upon Stanford’s suggestion for his work in Structured Literacy in this country. You can read his rebuttal here: https://www.liftingliteracyaotearoa.org.nz/blog/the-flimsy-case-against-structured-literacy-in-nz-schools

    What I’m worried about is focusing only on those relatively simple components, the phonics components, and ignoring or at least not supporting an emphasis on the more complicated things like the role of self-regulation in early reading and writing and maths, or, like in the case of reading, enjoying reading.”

    Any Actual Reasons?

    But what reasons do I actually have from my own experience that the Science of Learning, Science of Reading, or Structured Literacy aren’t all they’re cracked up to be?

    Well, there are a few.

    Less Motivated

    Firstly, as mentioned above, I’ve seen first hand students becoming less and less motivated to read due to teaching using a structured literacy and explicit teaching approach to it. As a society, we’re ‘already battling the decline in students reading less and less in their own time, as their access to more entertaining alternatives chew up the time that our predecessors would have used for reading.

    Increased Results? Not yet

    Secondly, so far, I have yet to see any significant improvement in any reading, writing, or mathematics results in the standard tests. Over the course of 15 years as a classroom teacher, I’ve got a pretty good idea as to where students sit within the curriculum, and what level they are at for Reading. In the 2 years I have been beginning to teach using explicit instruction and following Structured Literacy guidelines to the best of my knowledge and ability, I’ve yet to see a significant shift in academic results in Reading.

    Now, that’s not to say that it won’t happen. 2 years is more than likely too soon to make any statements regarding its effectiveness, and I am prepared to give it more time. But it begs the question – how long before we should start seeing significant improvements? 5 years of implementing and effective practice? 7 years? 10 years?
    I’m just not seeing the results that I’ve have been lead to believe I would get.
    Maybe I’m doing it wrong!

    Supporting Struggling Learners

    My other reasons focus more on holistic views of teaching. One is the ability to adequately support students where they are at in their learning. Explicit Instruction has lead teaching towards a whole class model, where all students participate in the same lesson learning the same content.

    Providing additional support in smaller break out groups can happen at an earlier, or later time, but the main focus of teaching has shifted to having the whole class participating in whole class lessons. The idea would be to then set the class up with independent follow up tasks while you, the teacher, pull out small groups of students who need support. But this feels too targeted, and too obvious for it to not be detrimental to a students’ psyche and how they see themselves as a learner if they’re always getting pulled out and never get to do the independent work everyone else is doing.

    Increased Planning Time

    Another factor is planning time. I have begun taking to creating slideshows for my Reading and Writing lessons. This is in an effort to work smarter and have resources for the future as I begin to cover similar curriculum content over the next few years. Slideshows not only help present the content to the students, but assist in driving the lesson and prompting me as the teacher what my lesson sequence is, instead of having to refer to a lesson plan all the time. The slideshow IS the lesson plan.

    But this does not negate the fact that this is time consuming and considerably impacts on my time. Creating and making two slideshows each week, ensuring that the content is right, the formatting and layout is effective, for two curriculum areas each week can take upwards of two hours.

    And yes; the introduction of AI tools could enhance the use of this time; but I have several reservations about using AI at all, and being the graphic designer I am, I not only find enjoyment in making slideshows and formatting them to be graphically pleasing, but I simply don’t trust that it can format it in a way that follows the template of how I want it to look.

    Beyond that however, making the slideshow myself locks it into my memory on an intrinsic level that allows me to present the slideshow with confidence, knowing what I had planned to come next and knowing what parts get revealed and when, as well as what information or task or instruction comes up next. If I left the slideshow creation up to AI, I would have to then work to learn the slideshow myself, which wouldn’t be as intrinsically memorable as creating it is.

    Conclusion

    The Science of Learning sounds legitimate. Evidence based. Science backed. Popular and has a large base of promoters that celebrate it’s success across every curriculum area.

    But learning is complex. More complex than the implementation methods of The Science of Learning (such as Explicit Teaching) take into account. There are a myriad of factors that impact students in what they find difficult, what they find easy, what they already know, and what they have no experience of. And these are just scraping the surface of the things students are dealing with in their learning.

    Teaching is an Art. It requires creativity, engagement of emotion, relationship, nuance.

    And we mustn’t lose that.

    Further Reading

  • Uncertainty in an Education Reform

    Uncertainty in an Education Reform

    Teachers and Schools are facing an uphill battle; one that is seemingly never ending in the current climate.

    We have a government hell-bent on reforming every aspect of education. Thankfully for them, they inherited the beginnings of a curriculum change from the previous government. However, rather than continuing in the same vain, they chopped it up and replaced it with their own ideology, jumping on the “structured literacy” bandwagon that many schools had begun moving to, invented a phrase “structured maths” to fake legitimacy in the idea and rewrote the curriculum in both areas, somewhat overnight with very little consultation. It comes as no surprise to those who have unpacked the new new curriculum that it was heavily written by AI and this explains the speed in which the revision happened.

    I could spend a whole series of essays outlining the motivation behind these changes, but that is not the objective of writing this.

    No. This article is to outline the plight of the teacher.

    Teachers got told about the changes to the draft curriculum at the end of August of 2024, whilst of course, we were still familiarising ourselves with the ‘old’ draft curriculum. Somewhat hilariously, schools were still receiving professional development from the Ministry of Education around the Mathematicss curriculum when the curriculum changed. During the course of Term 3, teachers were somehow expected to continue teaching from the old curriculum, prepare for reports, carry out assessments, and now review and give feedback about the new draft curriculum.  The shut off for consultation happened and in October 2024 the ‘draft’ was finalised. 

    It was then announced that primary schools would have to begin teaching Reading, Writing and Mathematics from the new curriculum in Term 1 of 2025, giving mere months for the changes to be implemented school-wide. In those months, teachers would be focussed on end of year activities, conducting final assessments, finalising reports, organising end of year activities, organising transition to next years classes, prize givings and senior end of year functions, finishing off the year and farewelling the students leaving. Add in the only ACTUAL break teachers have due to rules around when leave is allowed to be taken, with Christmas and New Year taking priority. If teachers granted themselves two weeks “off”, this would leave a mere 3 weeks before beginning school. Thats three weeks to get your new class organised, synthesise assessment to get an understanding on where your class sits, read notes on the students in your class, arrange desks and implement new or better refined routines, class lists, seating plans, wall displays, and begin to formulate unit plans for the first term.

    Somewhere in all of that, teachers were expected to read and implement a new curriculum for the two biggest subjects in the curriculum. Let’s not forget as well, that not only did the content of the curriculum change, but how it is formatted changed as well. Curriculum Levels are out and ‘Phases’ are in. No longer did we have a curriculum that spanned two years per level, but now every single year had a series of expectations of what was to be taught (despite most schools in the country running composite year classes). On top of this, for the first time in recent history (this century at least!) the curriculum not only outlined WHAT teachers had to teach, but HOW they were to teach it. Whole class, explicit instruction, exposure to many concepts instead of mastery of a few, all methods inspired by the ‘Science’ of Learning ideology that is the latest concoction of pedagogy. If you could ever set up an entire workforce to “learn on the job”, the government had just done it with the entire primary school sector. Teachers were literally teaching from a curriculum that they were still reading and coming to grips with. It is no wonder that teachers were ill equipped for this change, and there was zero confidence in what they were teaching or how they were teaching it, relying heavily on intuition if they had any left, and additional hours spent watching webinars and video clips to try and best follow the curriculum they’d been dealt. 

    Before you knew it, the next lot of curriculum changes were being pushed into draft, and suddenly the ball continued rolling, as well as expanding the existing new curriculum to include Years 7 – 10, completely confusing the entire procedure. Furthermore, with the expansion of the English and Maths curriculum for Year 0-10 came with it amendments and changes to the existing curriculum that Year 0-6 had already been teaching from! So now teachers had a new, new curriculum to unpack; but now they had to figure out what the changes were and make the changes themselves to what they had been teaching. 

    Why would teachers invest their energy in getting to know a curriculum and implement it if there is a high likelihood it is just going to change on them as soon as they do?

    The uncertainty of this very thing leaves teachers in no man’s land.

    Then there’s the uncertainty around the messaging schools receive from the Minister and the Ministry of Education.

    When ‘Structured Maths’ was dreamt up on the coattails of ‘Structured Literacy’, the Minister announced four providers that schools could choose from to implement this new venture. 

    Certain programmes schools were using were discarded and millions upon millions of dollars went into providing workbooks and teacher guides and online subscriptions around the country. Schools didn’t want to miss out on the funding for these resources, and had to decide fairly quickly as to which provider they were going to go with.

    However, looking into it, this was never mandated. The language used was never legally binding, instead this was announced at the same time as Minister Stanford gazetted the implementation of the new Maths Curriculum for Term 1 2025. It was stated that the Ministry would provide supplementary, Ministry-funded classroom workbooks, sourced from four suppliers. So you can see how it would appear that use of the resources was mandated, when in actuality, it was not. They were merely provided to support the mandate that was made regarding the curriculum.

    This has lead many principals to now check with any of the changes being made (mostly to protect themselves, their staff and their schools from unnecessary changes given the sheer volume of changes there have been) whether the change has been gazetted (mandated) or is it merely a suggestion or recommendation by the Ministry?

    The mere fact that this due diligence needs to be done over Ministry announcements just goes to show the complete distrust, lack of faith and complete uncertainty that exists throughout the sector.

    The Minister announced in Term 2 of 2026 that she has pushed back the roll out of the other curriculum areas, to give teachers the time that they have been asking for.

    Unfortunately, this does nothing except delay the inevitable. It doesn’t give teachers more time to study the curriculum and get their heads around it. Why would any teacher do that when the track record would suggest that they’re just as likely to change it between now and then. So instead, just as with the current changes that have already been implemented, teachers will simply have to continue to learn on the job, teach on the fly, given they complete uncertainty and zero faith they can have in the curriculum changes. 

    The uncertainty that exists is stress inducing. It’s additional workload and time-based pressure that could all be alleviated with proper implementation plans that aren’t being rushed through. Carefully implemented plans that work with the sector would go a long way in actually making a difference. However, the whole process has been forced and rushed, and an insurmountable about of pressure out on schools and teachers to just get on and do it.

    Solution Focussed

    A more considered approach is required.

    Measured steps need to be taken instead of rushing widespread changes.

    The changes in curriculum implementation I want to see are as follows:

    Draft curriculum released in its entirety for all to see. 

    Appropriate avenues of feedback provided and actively engaged with the sector – not just giving deadlines for feedback that are adverse to what else teachers are required to do.

    Once a draft is finalised, provide the sector with the finalised version. It should be legalised that this then needs to be in printed form. (One of the reasons I believe they are so prolific with changes is that it doesn’t cost anything much to update content on a website, which is currently all they have to do to change the curriculum. By having to print it, the Ministry will be less likely to make changes, given the cost that it would take)

    Once the curriculum is finalised, give the sector a year to begin exploring the curriculum and implement it during that year if they’re comfortable with it, and only mandate teaching from it in the following year.

    That would provide a clear, and certain plan for schools and teachers to work to. It provides fair and legitimate time for implementation and confidence can return to the sector because of the lack of uncertainty. 

  • Valuing Teachers: Teacher Salaries Compared

    A pay deal offered to teachers would put some among the country’s top earners.

    Teachers are stuck in a stand-off with the Government over its latest pay offer.

    What’s been offered – and rejected – looks something like this.

    Primary teachers with a degree, or advanced diploma, would have their base salaries increase to a range of $52,429 to $82,992, from $47,980 to $71,891 currently. Primary teachers with teaching qualifications and a specialist subject degree would get a bit more — $54,186 to $85,481.

    A beginner secondary teacher’s base salary would increase from $51,200 to $55,948 if they were to start teaching in 2021.

    More than 10,000 primary teachers, or about a third, get more than the top of the base scale (currently $71,891) because they receive extra payments in recognition of management or leadership responsibilities.

    The latest rejected offer would put a primary teacher with one unit for extra responsibilities at $89,481 a year by 2021.

     Almost 60 per cent, or 12,000 secondary teachers, are paid above the top of their base scale.

     

    Full Article: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113366626/valuing-teachers-does-pay-deal-stack-up

  • Why didn’t teachers strike under National? They were fighting to save education itself.

    Earlier this week a trade unionist wrote for The Spinoff about the rise of public service strike action under the Labour government. Today former Green Party education spokesperson Catherine Delahunty shares her perspective.

    I have heard more than a few complaints that teachers did not strike under National, so why are they doing it now? As education spokesperson for the Green Party for nearly nine years, I spent many hours with teachers and their unions, examining legislation which undermined the quality public education system. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that over the last nine years the teaching profession was punchdrunk by a sustained political assault on their mission. Hence the exodus, and the struggle to replace the workforce. The recent teachers strikes are a last-ditch effort from a profession with legitimate expectations of fundamental change, relief and reward.

    At the very beginning of the Key government we went straight into urgency to debate their National Standards legislation. This was a disastrous policy which attacked the core principles of teaching and immediately teachers and their unions were forced into battle. Some schools resisted it, and many protested, but the policy of measuring and comparing primary students and schools via league tables became the norm. The damage was done. Remember: National Standards was never debated or discussed with schools and was passed into law under urgency.

    Then came Education Minister Hekia Parata’s attempt to increase class size, on the grounds that size doesn’t matter. This was resisted by parents as well as teachers, who knew that larger classes would mean teachers had less time with each child. The combined effort of both groups led to a humiliating back down by the minister, but the fight took up a lot of energy. In the middle of these debacles the Christchurch earthquakes struck and schools became hubs for communities and for children in shock. The government took the opportunity to impose a reform on Christchurch schools which went way beyond closing or repairing the damaged schools and a battle for survival took place, characterised by official mismanagement and insensitivity towards a traumatised school network.

    But this was just the beginning of the relentless changes and ideologically driven “reforms”. The charter schools championed by ACT and National were provided with resources other schools could only dream of and a range of experiments of highly variable value were begun. Military school and privatisation at public expense were put in the same basket as tangata whenua efforts for educational self determination, while 90% of Māori students remained in underfunded local English-medium schools. Teachers’ major focus was privatisation rather than wages and conditions.

    This all happened while house prices in Auckland went nuts and teacher aides did not get centralised wage funding. Early childhood education was a privatised mess and franchises created baby barns with government encouragement, while Kohanga Reo and Playcentre struggled.

    At the Education and Science Select Committee some seemingly random government bills kept turning up but they all facilitated reduced student and teacher representation in the tertiary sector, school boards being able to run several schools, the replacement of the Teachers Council by a new less representative body, the Teachers Code of Ethics becoming the Code of Conduct… on it went. This all took place in a global context of educational “reform” known as the GERM (Global Education Reform Movement), which led to a rewrite of the Education Act and an Update Bill to incorporate the COOL (Communities of Online Learning) concept – basically a digital replacement of the teacher.

    The actual rewrites were without vision and did not reflect many student or teacher ideas or a common purpose that lifted the debate. They generated deep concern from people like the Children’s Commissioner and the Ombudsman from a children’s voice and rights perspective. Meanwhile the learning support system continued to be broken and teachers were leaving the profession in despair.

    Read original article

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  • Sufferage: The Sideways Movement

    This year we celebrate 125 years since the Women’s Suffrage movement. In New Zealand, Kate Sheppard lead the charge to get women the vote.

    “Speaking for a new generation, she argued, ‘We are tired of having a “sphere” doled out to us, and of being told that anything outside that sphere is “unwomanly”.’

    Sheppard travelled the country, writing to newspapers, holding public meetings and lobbying members of Parliament. Opposition was fierce. As Wellington resident Henry Wright wrote, women were ‘recommended to go home, look after their children, cook their husbands’ dinners, empty the slops, and generally attend to the domestic affairs for which Nature designed them’; they should give up ‘meddling in masculine concerns of which they are profoundly ignorant’.

    In 1893 Kate Sheppard and her fellow suffragists gathered the signatures of nearly 32,000 women to demonstrate the groundswell of support for their cause. A 270-m-long petition – then the largest ever presented to Parliament – was unrolled across the chamber of the House with dramatic effect. Despite the opposition of Premier Richard Seddon, the Electoral Act 1893 was passed by both houses of Parliament and became law on 19 September. The news took New Zealand by storm and inspired suffrage movements all over the world.”

    – NZ History

    But how far have we actually come. I’m not talking about a bunch of young women holding their own comedy special on TV3 and making it out that they still have it bad or celebrating their womanhood.

    I’m talking about two unions representing jobs that are mainly made up of women that both decided to go on strike this year. In August, NZEI members voted to strike amid their pay negotiations. 75% of Primary school teachers are female (2017, Education Counts). A month earlier, the Nurses also went on strike. 95% of Nurses are female (2015, NZNO) I’m talking about both these professions, predominantly female, feeling like they are under-valued and over-worked in New Zealand society today.

    I’m not for a second suggesting that they are under-valued because they are traditionally and predominantly female based professions. I’m just saying, it is a very interesting point of time in our history, and it might pay to reflect and review where we are as a country a little bit further than pretty smiles and celebrations on the news channels and hyped up comedy galas featuring female comedians.

  • The Teacher Crisis as it is.

    Recently there has been a lot in the media about teachers pay, and current issues in education. This was somewhat heightened by the August strike – the first primary teachers have been on since 1994.

    But why? What’s it all about?

    It boils down to one issue.

    Workload.

    You see; many think (and has been reported on) that it is about pay. To some degree, it has to be about pay. It’s illegal to strike otherwise. But the underlying issue comes down to other factors.

    I wouldn’t hesitate to say that there isn’t a single teacher in the country who is in the job for the money. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, the job as it currently stands is tough, stressful and does not match the pay. Secondly, most of us have tertiary level and post-grad qualifications and would waltz into other jobs, be it within education, or further afield.

    No. We do it for love. We do it because it’s what we love. It might be what we’re good at. It might even be what you’d say a calling.

    But it’s not the pay.

    But here’s the kicker. The current work conditions are untenable. There are rising needs across the country, lower ability students, learning difficulties, additional needs, more behavioural issues than ever before. An epidemic if you will.

    Add to this, there are teachers leaving in droves, and class sizes are going up. This brings more workload, less teaching time, more administration time, more reports, more parents to meet, and more stress.

    Classes are being split across the country as relievers become harder and harder to come by. Sick teachers feel they have to come into school to teach.

    Add to this current problems in larger city centres where schools can’t get enough teachers for their classes due to travel or property costs.

    So, how do we fix this?

    Well; what has to happen just to keep the current workforce, is to make it a manageable job and career. Classes of over 30 aren’t going to help this, and so classes need to be no more than 25; preferably closer to 20 than anything else. This will make the job more manageable in terms of time; time with students, time to teach, time to test, and time on admin (reports, meetings and the like). Students will finally get the time and attention they need rather than being lost in the crowd of 30+ others, of which the only way to get attention sometimes is by being the loudest, or by creating trouble and being “out of line”. Students with additional needs often require more support than just what the teachers can currently give them. It was pleasing to see the announcement from Tracy Martin this week some suggested changes to this, including specialist SENCO teachers in each school and screening for learning difficulties such as dyslexia (which has been a long time coming!) Both of these initiatives will assist teachers with dealing with the multitudes of additional needs in their classes, and alleviate some but not all of the workload.

    The only way to decrease class sizes is by increasing the number of teachers in each school. Suddenly we not only have to try and retain the current workforce, but we have to recruit or entice ex-teachers back to the job. While some are called to the profession, there is one obvious way to bring more people into this career path.

    Show publicly that the profession is valued.

    How you do that is up to others in power, but it has been suggested that a salary increase might be one way in which to do this.

    And so, in a very round about way we can see that the strike wasn’t just about pay, but also very much more about workload and working conditions in schools that current teachers are facing, and what needs to happen to not only to maintain the numbers in their ranks, but also to be an viable and more importantly, an attractive option and career path for the future.

  • Teacher Strike – 15 August 2018

  • Parents want teachers parenting

    Care provider. Call centre operator. Kitchen hand. Negotiator. Detective. Judge. Medic. Counsellor. Social worker. Psychologist. Personal trainer. Caretaker. Cleaner. Don’t get me started on the numerous things that teachers have to do each and every day. That’s even before they have to teach a class full of students some Maths, English, Science, Technology, Music, Art, Dance, Drama, Social Science, and Languages.

    Original article: New Zealand schools need to teach more life skills.

    Kiwi parents want more life skills taught in school, a new survey shows.

    From cyber safety to sex education and manners, two-thirds of parents believed it was the responsibility of teachers to impart lessons traditionally handled at home, according to a survey of 500 New Zealand families.

    Ethnicity played a role in what parents regarded as important in a public education, with Asian parents more likely to want schools to handle the teaching of life skills.

    Parents perceived schools’ responsibilities increased in secondary school.

    But Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) junior vice president Melanie Webber said that while teachers were role models, it would be difficult to fit more life skills into the curriculum.

    The study by the Australian Scholarships Group (ASG) and Melbourne’s Monash University found a “social shift” away from valuing scholastic success towards a more holistic education, ASG chief executive John Velegrinis said.

    “There are increasingly blurred lines as to where (teacher responsibility begins and ends as parents’ perceptions of their traditional roles and responsibilities change.”

    Asian amilies viewed education more traditionally and set higher standards for their children’s academic success than Pākehā parents.

    About 92 per cent believed a degree would help their child achieve their ambitions and 38 per cent did not think their child could be distracted from learning.

    Just 18 per cent of Pākehā families felt that way about distractions and only 66 per cent said they set “high standards” for their child’s education or agreed a degree was important to their success.

    Asian families overwhelmingly supported schools teaching more about social skills and public behaviour (91 and 88 per cent respectively), with about 42 per cent of Pākehā parents on board.

    Christchurch mother Michele Fantham said she wanted daughters Bella, 10, and Neve, 6, to be taught social skills and financial literacy at their school, Fernside.

    “I think the curriculum is pretty cram-packed full of lots of things the school or Ministry (of Education) think are really important that are just not going to benefit them in the real world.”

    She was concerned technology impacted children’s ability to “use manners and communicate properly”. She was among a third of Kiwi parents who believed teaching cyber safety was a school’s responsibility.

    Read more.

    Source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/97798269/new-zealand-schools-need-to-teach-more-life-skills-parents-say

     

  • Our world is changing, but what about our schools? | SchoolNews

    Original article: https://www.schoolnews.co.nz/2017/08/our-world-is-changing-but-what-about-our-schools/

    When we think about the purpose of education and the relevance of what we are teaching, what are our answers?

    Why do teachers need to upskill, reinvigorate their teaching and ignite new passions towards their teaching practice?

    The traditional learning style in the classroom will become less and less relevant to the lives of our students, and to the needs they have going forward into an uncertain future. Today the most up to date information, access to knowledge, research and innovation can be found online, by anyone, all of the time. We need to embrace this change in the way we access information and knowledge. We need to use new and emerging technologies to empower our students, our learning and ourselves.

    Understanding how to use digital technologies in the classroom in a relevant and integrated approach is essential if we are to equip the young people of New Zealand with the skills they need to live, work and thrive in the world. It is critical that teachers and students alike can navigate and learn in a digital landscape and be a part of the technological world. With the aid of current and emerging digital technologies we have the power to transform our teaching and learning. To stay abreast of the changes in education and the world we need to commit to new ways of learning, new practices and new pedagogies.

    Pressures on principals and school leaders to raise achievement, and the focus on priority learners, has often meant blanket approach to the professional learning and development for educators, and delivered curriculum-based to all teachers in the school or department.

    With the Government’s recent announcement to make the curriculum more digitally oriented, schools and teachers now have more opportunities to choose what they want to learn about and how they would like to upskill.

    Read more here.

    Source: https://www.schoolnews.co.nz/2017/08/our-world-is-changing-but-what-about-our-schools/