Mary Chamberlain: Schools point the way for life of learning

COMMENT


Cormac O'Duffy's Perspectives article suggesting that New Zealand's school curriculum was so lacking in content that it might well have no clothes was intriguing.

If the curriculum were clothed in prescriptions and canons, would the clothes protect it? Keep it warm and comfortable? Constrain its movement and growth? Ensure that all of our increasingly diverse students had all the clothes they needed for a lifetime? Would a one-size curriculum really fit all?

Our well-being in all respects comes from our people. Our national well-being is related to how well each of us participates in and contributes to our society. Most education researchers believe it's no longer possible to teach children everything they need for a lifetime because knowledge is growing too fast and our lives are too long. Knowing how to learn and knowing how to apply what is learned are critical.

It is essential the educational opportunities provided for our children help them to develop clearly defined competencies that can be demonstrated in performances reflecting what they know, what they can do with what they know and their confidence and motivation.

Our curriculum sets a direction for learning that emphasises the knowledge and skills needed for lifelong learning. These include literacy and numeracy, social, self-management and problem-solving skills, plus critical thinking, attitudes and values and conceptual understandings in traditional subject areas.

Mr O'Duffy believes that only sex education is mandated as part of the school curriculum. This is incorrect. All students in state and state-integrated schools must study English, mathematics, science, social studies, technology, health and physical education and the arts throughout years one to 10.

Through curriculum statement national guidelines, schools consider what matters most as they design responsive programmes to motivate and engage their students.

Schools no longer worry about students being able to name all the kings and queens of England or the presidents of the United States when teaching social studies, for example. Instead, teachers engage students in learning about our society and teach students the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will enable them to participate in society as informed, confident, and responsible citizens. It is no accident that students love their schools.

Whenever narrowly prescribed one-size-fits-all curriculums are proposed, they evoke images of baked-bean factory schools turning out standardised products. Our children need to understand what they are learning rather than memorise facts, and they need to think critically and creatively to contribute to the well-being of themselves, others, society and the economy.

We are fortunate our teachers can develop lessons that connect with the children they are teaching. They can engage and motivate their students; they are professionals, not technicians who simply follow paint-by-numbers prescriptions.

Documenting prescriptions in ever more technocratic frameworks and manuals does not strongly influence student achievement. There are a raft of studies showing what makes the most difference to student achievement is the quality of the teaching and the support they get from home.

The results we are getting internationally clearly show that New Zealand is headed in the right direction. There are still challenges facing us. As Mr O'Duffy states, we do have a gap between the highest and lowest achievers and this gap is too big. The Ministry of Education, schools and teachers are putting huge efforts into decreasing these gaps and there are clear signs that new teaching approaches in literacy are making a significant difference.

And despite our world-leading schools, the ministry is not sitting on its laurels. A stocktake of curriculum development over the past decade has just been completed and the ministry is inviting principals, teachers and parents to be part of a project to help to renew the curriculum.

The project, which will modify the curriculum to reflect the changes of the past decade and anticipate those of the near future, aims to clarify and refine outcomes; focus on quality teaching, strengthen school ownership of curriculum and support communication and strengthen partnerships with parents and communities.

Our curriculum is designed to engage students at all levels, and regular reviews ensure it moves forward in keeping with a rapidly changing world. The ministry expects to release an official draft curriculum next year, with the final curriculum to be published in 2006.

* Mary Chamberlain, the Ministry of Education's manager of curriculum teaching and learning, is responding to Cormac O'Duffy's view that children are suffering from a curriculum that is too radically child-centred, practically based and politically correct.