. Modern Learning Environments ( MLEs ) are they so new? John Key seems to think so!

I recently watched on TV the Prime Minister John Key, the Mistress of Education Hekia Parata and their entourage  open the new Modern Learning Environment School ( a MLE) .

The New Zealand Herald headlined the visit as ‘Ultra-modern school way of the future’ and the Prime Minister was quoted as saying the school was a ‘window into the future’ and ‘what all New Zealand schools will eventually look like’.

‘It’s probably vastly different from what many people will have experienced in their own education but it is the modern face of the future, and it’s what will the hallmark of Christchurch as we build 21 of these schools as a result of the rebuild of Christchurch’, Key continued.  

Bubbling with enthusiasm Key continued ‘It’s a brilliant school. While not learning at desks, children work hard at work on cushions, small pods of chairs, or lying on the floor.’

Working in teams is ‘best evidence’ teaching Key was heard to say.

It would be fair to say both Key and Parata were falling over themselves to share such good news in Christchurch and about primary education.  And  the principal, was equally excited, as he should be because he has waited for a number of years for the government get behind the school. Earthquakes change environments in more way than the obvious.

Who wouldn't be excited?

Solar panels on roof - zero energy

The Herald article and the news video seem to be more impressed with children working on cushions, or lying on the floor and such wonderful things as solar panels on the roof, making it the first zero-energy school in New Zealand, ultra-fast broadband, its own radio station, and large open classrooms – without any desks, rather than the exciting pedagogy I know the school has developed.

I haven’t seen the new school but have had the opportunity to visit ultra-modern schools in the Auckland area. My impressions of the schools I have visited are that they remind me of  technological futuristic factories and, in some ways, not really relating to real flesh and blood

A UK open plan school

children. Even the landscaping has been planned by ‘experts’ who like mass planting of natives that are forced to conform to their futuristic roles - amenity planting. Not really gardens – or even natural native gardens.

When entering such schools the office/admin area is more like a command centre. When being shown around the principals (maybe we need a new name) talk endlessly about how the architect has provided areas with colours to match activities, how teams of teachers work with students (maybe we need a new name for them), all about the imbedded ICT and the lack of desks.  

I usually note how little space there is to display students’ work but am usually informed such work will be kept in student electronic portfolios.  It sound petty but I am not usually very impressed with the children’s work I usually see although I note displays of De Bono’s thinking hats, Gardner’s multipleintelligence,  a range of inquiry learning models and ‘best practice’  WALTS ( we are learning to) and success criteria. To be honest these later observations apply to most schools I visit – or I used to visit. Conformist, clone like, formulaic – the result of so called ‘best practice’ teaching.

When visiting these ‘new’ schools I always ask for information about school vision, values and most importantly the teaching beliefs that underpin the schools learning.  One newly appointed

Modern school UK

principal handed me out a document that had no alignment with the potential of the high tech environment she was to lead.

When I used to visit schools as an independent adviser I focused on the quality of the thinking behind the work on display (or selected downloads from the computers). I looked hard to recognise the individuality or ‘voice’ of the students and increasingly found it hard to find.

 Even the art, once the height of individual creativity, has suffered from an overdose of ‘success criteria’ and associated feedback. The same applies to students’ language. As for inquiry learning, which ought to be central in any 21stC learning, it is all too often more process than real in depth understanding. 

Two areas that do stand out during visits are literacy and numeracy. With their genesis in the 19thC this emphasis is further distorted by the reactionary imposition of National Standards. I obviously am not against literacy and numeracy but believe they need to be reframed as foundation skills in the service of inquiry learning. In some schools they seem to have captured the whole day; ‘ the evil twins’ (one UK commentator has said) ‘that have all but gobbled up the entire curriculum.’

Recent decades have seen an increasing emphasis on standardisation of student learning,  as seen through an unhealthy focus on National Standards, the use of ability grouping and an importance of comparative assessment– all left overs from a past age.

 I am left wondering real understanding of the enthusiastic politicians who talk about such open schools being the way of the future? 

 It seems they know nothing about the open education movement of the 70s when schools were designed as open plans with teams of teachers sharing large numbers of students? In such schools teachers were encouraged to throw out their desks and replace them with geometric

Open plan school 1960s UK

shaped tables and cushions. The big innovation of the time were listening posts and overhead projectors

So what is so new?

It is important to appreciate that it is not the technology, or even the buildings, but the pedagogy that counts.

With learner centred pedagogy (which is hardly new) the new digital tools have the potential to make learning more efficient and effective. Pedagogy used by pioneer creative teachers fit well with new technology but without pedagogy it is all ‘bells and whistles’ and shallow learning. 


Teacher plus ICT

Such things as integrated projects based on authentic problems/projects, the need to dig deeply into learning by doing fewer things well, interest based learning, powerful celebratory displays, integrating learning with the local community and environment, valuing the creative arts, learning from/through failure and performance assessments are not new ( nor all that common).

Such pedagogy can equally be applied in self-contained classrooms with minimum technology – but by adding purpose built schools and digital technology so much more can be achieved.

One area missed in the above list is the importance of positive relationships between the learners and their teacher and, in an open plan environment, learners and their teachers and, vitally, between the teachers themselves.

This last point was downfall of the open plan movement of the 70s – along with schools that didn’t have a clear set of teaching beliefs to align practice. Successful units usually were led by a strong educational team leader.

Interestingly in the 70s there were two schools of thought about open plan education. The Department of Education (now the Ministry of Education) and their architects’ favoured large

Modern school 

purpose built spaces influenced by North American designs. Critics often called this model ‘open prairies’. A  more successful teacher leddesign, with links to developments in the UK, featured a more human scale a ‘nookand cranny’ model. I favoured the later model. One brilliant example I was aware of was created from five relocatable classrooms. Todays modern schools  buildings continue to reflect a techno-factory metaphor while teachers try to implement a more intimate family /whanau teaching/learning one.

So while the Prime Minister might see  such schools as the future, the essence of their design is not new and the seeds of their success still lie with the pedagogical skills of the teachers, the strength of teacher relationships, and strong educational leadership.

 It is necessary for politicians to understand how important it is that teachers work well together sharing their individual strengths. In an open environment it is the human capital provided by a strong professional community that is the most important element. This should not be side-tracked by an unhealthy competitive emphasis on national standards in the process sacrificing other important learning dispositions.

Open education 1926 USA

The unsuccessful open plan schools of the 70s replaced the walls, closed the dividers, returned the desks and retreated to the type of education they were planned to replace..

Ms Parata and Mr Key – if they are   really enthusiastic about 21stC education, ought to ensure teachers get the professional development to implement the 2007 New Zealand

sidelined curriculum

Curriculum. This curriculum is premised on the belief all students leave school as ‘lifelong learners’ able to ‘seek, use and create their own knowledge’. We need a personalised talent based education system in contrast to the government’s standardisation policy which assesses and sorts the worth of students on limiting criteria.

And, in this excitement about new schools, the real cause of student lack of achievement lays outside the doors of the school – in the growing inequality and poverty - sadly one of the real growth areas in New Zealand.