John Dewey - New thinking 1897!

John Dewey's famous declaration concerning education was first published 1897 and is still as pertinent now as it was then. All school communities ought to declare their beliefs about education and then work towards aligning all their teaching to achieving what they believe in. If they do not determine their own destiny someone else will. Having clear beliefs provides both security and the basis of making all choices - or simply saying no as appropriate. The following are excerpts from Dewey's declaration


Article One: What Education is.

I believe all education...begins almost at birth, and is continually shaping the individual's power, saturating his consciousness, forming his habits, training his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotions.

I believe the only true education comes through stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feelings, and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs.

I believe ... the child's own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education.

It is important to foretell definitely just what civilisation will be in twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgement may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work...It is impossible to reach this sort of adjustment save as constant regard is had to the individual's own powers, tastes, and interests..

Education, therefore, must begin with...insight into the child's capacities, interests, and habits...These powers , interests, and habits must be continually interpreted- we must know what they mean.

Article Two; What the School is.

I believe that the school is primarily a social institution...the school is simply a form of community life.

I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.

I believe that the school must present life - life as real and vital to the child as that which he caries on in the home, in the neighbourhood, or on the playground.

I believe..that school ... should reproduce them in such ways that the child will gradually learn the meaning of them, and be capable of playing his own part in them.

I believe ..it is the business of the school to deepen and extend his sense of the values bound up in his home life.

I believe that most of education fails because it neglects this fundamental principle of the school as a form of community life. It conceives the school as a place where certain information is given, where certain lessons are to be learnt, or where certain habits are to be formed.The value of these is conceived as lying largely in the remote future; the child must do these things for the sake of something else he has to do; they are mere preparation. As a result they do not become part of of the life experience of the child and so are not truly educative.

I believe that the moral education centres upon this conception of the school as a mode of social life, that the best and deepest moral training is precisely that which one gets through having to enter into proper relation with others in a unity of work and thought. The present system, so far as they destroy or neglect this unity, render it difficult or impossible to get genuine, regular moral training.

I believe that the child should be stimulated and controlled in his work through the life of the community.

I believe that under existing conditions too much of the stimulus and control proceeds from the teacher, because of neglect of the idea of the school as a form of social life.

I believe that the teacher's place and work in the school is to interpreted from the same basis. The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to those influences.

I believe that the discipline of the school should proceed from the life of the school as a whole and not directly from the teacher.

I believe that the teacher's business is simply to determine on the basis of larger experience and riper wisdom, how the discipline of life shall come to the child.

Article Three: The Subject Matter of Education.

I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration, correlation, in all his training or growth. The social life gives the unconscious unity and the background of all his efforts and of all his attainments.

I believe that the subject- matter of the school curriculum should mark a gradual differentiation out of the primitive unconscious unity of social life.

I believe we violate the child's nature and render difficulties the best ethical results, by introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies, of reading, writing, geography etc.

I believe, therefore, that the true centre of correlation on the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child's social activities...and ( such subjects should) not precede such experience.

I believe accordingly that the primary basis of education is in the child's powers at work along the same general constructive lines which have brought civilisation into being.

I believe that the only way to make the child conscious of his social herbage is to enable him to perform those fundamental types of activities which makes civilisation what it is.

I believe, therefore, in the so called expressive or constructive activities... it is possible and desirable that the child's introduction into the more formal subjects of the curriculum be through the medium of these activities...because it gives the ability to interpret and control the experience already had. It should be introduced, not as so much new subject matter, but as showing the factors already involved in previous experience and as furnishing tools by which that experience can be more easily and effectively regulated.

Language is is the devise for communication; it is the tool through which one individual comes to share the ideas and feelings of others. When treated simply as a way of getting individual information, or as a means of showing off what one has learned, it loses its social motive and end.

I believe that there is, therefore, no succession of studies in the ideal school curriculum.If education is life, all life has, from the outset, a scientific aspect, and aspect of art and culture, and an aspect of communication. It cannot, therefore, be true that the proper studies for one grade are mere reading and writing...The progress is not in the succession of studies but in the development of new attitudes, and new interests in, experience.

I believe finally , that education must be conceived as a continuing reconstruction of experience; that the process and the goal of eduction are one and the same thing.

I believe to set up any end outside of education, as furnishing its goals and standards, is to deprive the educational process of much of its meaning and tends to make us rely upon false and external stimuli in dealing with the child.

Article Four; The Nature of Method.

I believe that the question of methods is ultimately reducible to the question of the order of development of the child's powers and interests.

Because this is so I believe the following are of supreme importance as determining the spirit in which eduction is carried on:

1 I believe that the active side precedes the passive in the development of the child's nature; that expression comes before conscious impression..

I believe that the neglect of this principle is the cause of a large part of the waste of time and strength in school work.The child is thrown into a passive, receptive, or absorbing attitude.The conditions are such that he is not permitted to follow the law of his nature; the result is friction and waste.

2 I believe that the image is the great instrument of instructions.What a child gets out of any subject presented to him is simply the images which he himself forms with regard to it.

I believe that nine tenths of the energy at present directed toward making the child learn certain things, were spent on seeing to it that the child was forming proper images, the work of instruction would be indefinitely facilitated.

I believe that much of the time and attention now given to the preparation and presentation of lessons might be more wisely and profitably expended in training the child's power of imagery and in seeing to it that he was continually forming definite, vivid,and growing images of the various subject with which he comes in contact in his experience.

3 I believe that interests are the signs and symptoms of growing power. I believe they represent dawning capacities. Accordingly the constant and careful observation of interests is of utmost importance for the educator.

I believe these interests are to be observed as showing the state of development which the child has reached.

I believe they prophesy the stage upon which he is about to enter.

I believe that only through the continual and sympathetic observation of childhood's interests can the adult enter the child's life and see what it is ready for, and upon what material it could work most readily and fruitfully.

The interest is always the sign of some power below; the important thing is to discover this power.

4 I believe that emotions are the reflex of actions.

I believe that if we can only secure the right habits of action and thought, with reference to the good, the true, and the beautiful, the emotions will for the most part take care of themselves.

Article Five: The School and Social Progress.

I believe education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.

I believe that all reforms which rest simply upon the enactment of law ... are transitory and futile.

I believe that education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.

I believe that this conception has due regard for both individualistic and socialistic ideals.

I believe that in the ideal school we have the reconciliation of the individualistic and institutional ideals.

I believe that it is the business of every one interested in education to insist on the school as the primary and most effective interest of social progress and reform in order that society may be awakened to realize what the school stands for, and aroused to the necessity of endowing the educator with sufficient equipment properly to perform his task.

I believe that the art of thus giving shape to human powers and adapting them to social service, is the supreme art; one calling into its service the best of artists; that no insight, sympathy, tact, executive power, to too great for such service.

I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of proper social life.
I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of social order and the securing of the right social growth.


It is time to return to John Dewey's vision now that the politics of self interest and 'market forces' has all but destroyed the social cohesion required to ensure the common good and success for all?

Time for some heresy?

The word heretic simply means having an alternative point of view. Unfortunately new ideas have a way of upsetting those who hold the power or the status quo. To make things more difficult education, being essentially conservative, is always slow to change; schools are slow learners.

According to some writers we are poised on the edge of a new renaissance -a rebirth of creativity beyond our imagination . This post modern world will be an age of ideas and education systems that focus on developing the creative capital of all their citizens will lead the the way.

And, according to others, the world faces problem of sustainability that are beyond current thinking and if we don't develop new mindsets that appreciate the ecological complexity and connectedness of all aspects our lives them then the future of humankind will be placed at risk within decades.

If we want to develop 21stC education systems then we will have no choice but to re-imagine education dramatically. We need to implement some heretical alternative thoughts to transform current systems with their genesis in an industrial age an age well past its use by date. Strangely enough none of the idea being considered are new it is just that few school have put them all together. School are inherently conservative and some schools, secondary ones in particular, seem impervious to change. Those that transform themselves will be leading the way; the others will remain, like dinosaurs, relics of past thinking. Increasingly students, with access to powerful information technology will simply bi-pass schools that do not have the capability to transform themselves. Worldwide students are already disengaging from traditional schooling.

In New Zealand our 'new' curriculum provides an opportunity for schools to take creative steps to transform themselves. Ironically our new government's desire to introduce national testing may divert such positive energy and add to inherent school conservatism just when we need to value school leaders with the courage to be creative.

It would be a shame if the intentions of the new ' curriculum to focus all learning on developing all students as 'confident life long learners' who able to 'seek, use and create their own knowledge' were to be overwhelmed by the political imposition of national standards.

Now for the heresies.

1 The focus from the earliest days should be on recognising and amplifying whatever gifts and talents students bring with them at every level of the system. This is the essence of the desire to personalise learning to replace the current mass industrial age 'one size fits all' emphasis. This emphasis places diversity, creativity and imagination as important as traditional literacy and numeracy.

2 An emphasis on develop every students gifts and talents places 'learnacy' ( keeping alive the desire to learn )as more important than the current over-emphasis on literacy and numeracy. 'Learnacy',a phrase coined by UK educationalist Guy Claxton, is all about ensuring all students retain their inbuilt evolutionary 'learning power'. These future learning dispositions, or capabilities, are defined as 'key competencies' in the 'new ' curriculum.

3 Schools need to be re-imagined as communities of inquiry based on students being actively involved in 'seeking, using and creating their own knowledge'. For this to happen students question, concern and interests need to betake seriously and be used by teachers to create an 'emergent' curriculum. Teachers , of course, would not just rely on student's questions, but would need to introduce studies to broaden an enrich their students. To be successful such studies would need to be 'rich, relevant,and rigorous' and negotiated with the students to ensure engagement and ownership. To develop in depth understanding it would be advisable to do 'fewer things well', in depth, as our 'new' curriculum suggests. Schools need to build on the natural disposition to inquiry students are born with. Inquiry studies will naturally integrate the various learning areas calling on subject discipline as required. This has implications for secondary education. Students need tobeable to intepet and express ther idea baoyut therworls in a range of ways - fron maths to the creative arts and not as framented subjects.

4 Although the inquiry, or learning how to learn process, is vital it is equally important that students are helped to produce the best work they can do. It both process and product. Whatever students produce should value their own 'voice', creativity and individuality. Students should be assessed by what the can do, demonstrate, exhibit, or perform. Teachers should never underestimate the power of an transformational experience - an activity, or situation, that literally changes ones mind in the process.

5 Thee learning philosophy that underpins transformational learning is a constructivist one where children, through experiences, literally change their own minds. This does not leave students to learn for themselves; teachers need to see themselves as 'creative learning coaches' providing diagnostic guidance ,assistance, challenge and feedback as required. The approach, in this respect is a 'co-constructivist' one relying on respectful relationship between learner and teacher.

6 Currently, in primary schooling, literacy and numeracy programmes have all but taken up all the available learning time. There is a need to 're frame' these 'traditional' areas so as to to place the emphasis on 'learnacy' or inquiry. Both these areas are important ways of gaining and expressing meaning and are best 'learnt' in the process of doing something that makes sense to the learners. Literacy and numeracy ought to be seen as a time to develop skills and understandings that students can use during their inquiry studies. Many teachers already do this but the real change is to see the inquiry studies a central and reading and maths as means to an end - 'reading to learn' and to 'be critical' and 'counting to learn' leading to considering 'what counts'.


If we are to place the focus on developing the 'gifts and talents' and 'learning power' of all students for primary schools the challenge will be to 're frame literacy and numeracy', for teachers at the secondary level, it will be developing flexible organisations to allow for integrated learning experiences.

Both just require a change of mind.

Both require teachers to be learners.

As Amelia Earhart, the American aviator said, 'the most effective way is to do it'.

Let's return to creative teaching!

This book was published in 1978.Maybe it is time for teachers to search it out and read it as it provides practical inspiration for creative teaching across the curriculum. It explores ways in which teachers help their students discover themselves and their world through creative expression. I am pleased to say it includes work I assisted with in Taranaki - ideas which still inform my thinking.

The 'new' curriculum asks teachers to help their students 'seek, use, and create their own knowledge'. This is what Arts In New Zealand celebrated over thirty years ago!

Most of those involved have retired, or are no longer with us, but their ideas remain as relevant as ever. A dominant force behind the work in the creative arts was Gordon Tovey National Adviser in Art who placed prime emphasis on that most mysterious of faculties, the imagination and who believed that the 'aesthetics' in education - the reflections of thought in the child's expression, was the source of true meaning. The best publication still available, representing these ideals, is 'In the Early World' written by Elwyn Richardson ( republished NZCER).

Creative activities were seen by teachers involved in the 60s and 70s as the central focal point for learning and integrated studies were a means to realize this. The recent emphasis on inquiry learning continues these ideals but struggle against the literacy and numeracy pressures that eat up almost all available time.

A criticism of earlier education still rings true today (written by Scottish educator R F McKenzie) is 'due to the banishing of senses from education. A child's first visit to a rock pool is a vivid sensuous experience' and once this has been satisfied scientific questions come to mind.

Educational aims are clearly expressed in the publication.

The first is to help all students establish an independent identity through learning experiences.

All children should enjoy learning.Schools should be places where pupils and teachers share the decision making.Pupils should be encouraged to look for meaning in their own way and the curriculum should be related to their needs.Such content will help them in the search for skills and understanding and must be relevant to their level of learning and sensitive to the pupils interests. Any planing must respect their individuality.

The second aim was to help people to perceive their world with sensitivity and discrimination.

This means teachers need to recognise each learners background and help students form their own values relevant to the people, the environment, and the culture that make up the greater community. An emphasis was placed on the child immediate environment but education should constantly expand children's horizons so as to widen their perspectives.

The third aim was to help people to express themselves and to communicate with others, with confidence, sensitivity and precision.

It was felt wrong to expect children to conform to a common pattern ( a lesson that has been lost).

The final goal was help people to understand, evaluate,and contribute to the culture of their own society and to appreciate that of others, past and present.

Respect for others will grow through such understandings.

The aims of art education were:

To help students give visual form to the expression of their ideas.

To help develop and sustain the skills and techniques of visual perception : observing, experiencing, selecting, analysing and interpreting the world around them.

Pupils need to be helped to focus their attention on the smaller, more intimate details of their world. All learning should stem from the natural curiosity of the child. Observation supplies the material on which the imagination can develop. Once pupils have selected matter which interests them, they should be encouraged to interpret it in their own way culminating in a personal and unique way (another lost lesson).

To encourage a wide range of art forms by develop confidence and skill in the handling of techniques and media.

Techniques are the means by which pupils express their perceptions. Students must be given opportunities to experiment and learn the habit of searching for, and selecting ,and then refining their chosen ideas (another lost idea). Included will be an appreciation of the artistic accomplishments of others - 'knowing about' art. Pupils should be encouraged to discuss their own images and their classmates as well as the work of adult artists.

To sustain and encourage visual imagination and inventiveness by accepting personal responses as points of growth. Students need to develop expression, imagination, inventiveness, perception, appreciation and communication.

All students need to feel a sense of achievement. Any evaluation must be at the level of the students aesthetic growth.

All good stuff -and much of it lost in our conformist based learning intentions classrooms of today.

The individuality of both teachers ands students is central to the idea of a language arts or integrated programme . Every teacher has their own style and all classrooms reflect the personalities of their students. Standardized 'best practice' classrooms are not a possibility in such an artistic philosophy. How teachers assist is as ever a dilemma - too much and creativity is inhibited(as seen today) and too little and artistic growth may be lost. Teaching in such an environment is itself an artistic endeavour.

Interested teachers are advised to dip into the book to find idea that in a range of media to suit their circumstances. The book is full of anecdotal examples and the illustration themselves are worth a look.

It is certainly not a book just about art teaching, it is an example of a creative approach to teaching that extends to all areas of the curriculum. Art is seen as a form of creative problem solving and extends into technology, design, outdoor education, scientific and cultural explorations. It is all about an experience based curriculum along the lines expressed by John Dewey last century!

Integrated programmes ( now coming back into favour) have long been part of primary school teaching since the late 60s and the book includes several examples.

In Taranaki it was in the 70s that we developed our version of an 'integrated language arts /environmental approach' based on the the need to:

Provide a balanced programme where all subjects share an equal place (as against the current domination of literacy and numeracy).

Allow all learning to stem from the natural curiosity of the pupils, the personal worlds of students, and from direct learning experiences largely based on the immediate environment. Personal research and personal writing were features of rooms.

Encourage skills relevant to the learner - including skills of focus, concentration, craftsmanship, imaginative thinking and independent inquiry. Favourite phrases were the need to 'slow the pace of work' and 'to do fewer things well'.

Encourage pupils to become independent thinkers responsible for their own decisions to help them cope with a future society that will be constantly changing.


Stimulate pupils to produce work of high quality, giving satisfaction, pride in craftsmanship and personal success. A particular emphasis was creating the classroom as places both to celebrate student creativity and to inform classroom visitors.

Those who can remember the times represented in the 'Art In Schools' book will find today's 'new' curriculum a little 'back to the future'.

I certainly do.

Hopefully we now know enough to do it in a more lasting way today?

Our amazing brain

An enlightening book written by by the 'owner' of one of the most remarkable brains on the planet - Daniel Trammet. A brilliant book about how we think, learn, remember and create. And a good read as well.

Daniel dedicates his book to the beauty found in every mind.


Our brains hum with the work of making meaning weaving together thousands of threads of information into all means of thoughts, memories and ideas.

As teachers our job is to capitalize on on this natural desire to learn. If we can do this no one need fail.

Daniel writes that each child's birth is a Big Bang - the dawning of tiny yet extremely complex cerebral cosmos. And that all brains are unique. Daniel ought to know as a 'prodigious savant' with one of the most intelligent brains on the planet.

Every brain is amazing and Daniel believes that anyone with the passion and dedication can master, or succeed, in any field or subject. Genius is not due to some quirk in the brain, he says, but requires qualities such as perseverance, imagination, intuition and even love.

It seems our role as adults is not so much to teach but to create the conditions for all sorts of innate talents to grow. Imagine a school system based on this premise.

Such a system would be a truly creative one providing a range of experiences for student's brains to make their own meaning from. The role of the teacher is in such an environment, according to Jerome Bruner, 'is the canny art of intellectual temptation'.

To believe our brains are equipped for self learning that automatically build up a model of the world over time, through the senses, would change our conception of being a teacher. Brains reuse past information to help it learn something new - it is all about seeing patterns and connections. Receiving relevant feedback help students avoid pitfalls and help them focus on good choices.

And finding, or expecting, pleasure in a task help our brains remember and learn and encourages persistence. And practice obviously help our ability to perform if seen as relevant. Expertise comes from continuous process of structured diligent study

Ultimately, Daniel writes, it what we learn, more than how, that determines the shape of our lives and even the kind of people we become. For this reason , he says, how we use our minds remains a personal choice we each have to make. After all , what brains help give us, more than anything else, is our own uniqueness and the myriad tastes and talents that emerge from it. It is part of the adventure of becoming ourselves.

Few schools follow such a creative personalised approach. This, maybe , is why so many students fail - or rather the schools fail them. Students, Daniel says, are bent to the expectations of others. As an autistic /aspergers student he ought to know.

Daniel struggled during his school years because his style of imaginative and idiosyncratic thinking did not suit a 'one size fits all' schooling. His is a typical story for many wasted minds brimming with talent but starved of opportunities to exercise it. Luckily he found other ways to feed his gifts and in the process learnt to trust his minds ability to do wonderful things.

Daniel gives standardized and intelligence tests a short shrift but is supportive of the multiple intelligences of Howard Gardner. He quotes schools using Gardner's idea where there was ' a culture of hard work, respect, and caring' , schools that, ' engaged students through constrained but meaningful choices, and a sharp focus on enabling students to produce high quality work.'

The recognition of student talent is vital as a talent pushes a person in a particular direction.Daniel believes everyone is born with certain talents which need to be recognised and nurtured.

Daniel's particular talent lie in the field of mathematics for which he feels a great joy towards. He believes, although his ability is exceptional, that we all have within us from birth mathematical abilities that only need the right conditions to develop. Daniel compares this with the facility young children have to intuitively develop language given the right conditions.That so many people dislike mathematics goes to show what misguided teaching can do.

To recognise and develop this innate 'hard wired' number sense might do much to solve current numeracy problems.Even very young babies have been shown to have intuitive counting skills or a 'number instinct'.

When it comes to creativity a sense of connectivity between all form of learning is critical. This is not obviously helped by fragmented subject teaching. All forms of creativity comes from making novel connections and is best realised in a nurturing environment ( family or school or the wider culture) that values such imaginative thinking. 'Creativity' Daniel writes, ' is not about following rules to reach a result, but rather bending or even braking the rules to create something truly original'. It is hyper connectivity that Daniel describes as, ' a kind of beautiful swirling chaos that draws on information from all over the brain to arrive at results that are truly breathtaking'.

To be creative is to be 'open to new information, new ideas' but that you , 'have to carefully edit and choose ideas...otherwise you'll get swamped'. A dash of autism may well be valuable Daniel comments as those withs aspergers have the ability to intensely focus on a topic showing great powers of persistence and an enormous curiosity and compulsion to make sense of their world.

Very early childhood is a unique period of creative opportunity which needs to be valued if we are to protect each learners creativity.

Our minds depend on information, every idea, image , story, helps shape our memory and our perceptions - in real sense, Daniel writes- data determines our destiny by creating our 'worldview'.

Conversely information overload can damage our minds as can having too little - both extremes dampen down careful reflective thinking and our ability to make meaningful connections between disparate facts.

Information is meaningless unless it can be made sense of and to do this requires an internal system of thought and ideas that can provide the context to relate it to other information we have already learnt.

Creating a creative worldview in our minds starts with a healthy curiosity about yourself and the lives, and the world, around you. Daniel advises us to never stop asking questions; to find joy in learning; to exercise our innate desire to discover truth about our existence; and to use our imagination as much as possible. Perhaps the most important thing, he says, is to treat each new piece of information as a potential piece in a puzzle and avoid simplistic solutions. Acquiring information is not the same as learning or thinking Daniel reminds us. Information only makes sense when it builds reflection and understanding and contributes to something greater.

Good thinking takes effort , or as Carl Sagan says the 'fine art of baloney detection'. Daniel quotes Sagan by saying science is about both the 'openness to all ideas, no matter how bizarre...a propensity to wonder...but at the same time .. the most vigorous and uncompromising scepticism because the vast majority of ideas are simply wrong'.

It is this delicate balance - between an openness to the beauty and wonder of novel ideas and ways of seeing and understanding our world, and a capacity to pause, to analyse, to question, and quite often, to doubt- that is at the heart of thinking well. By keeping our feet on the ground we have the best view of the stars above us.

Daniel's book is an argument for valuing individuals with different minds and to value the extraordinary abilities of everyone.

For schools the message is to develop an awareness of the wide variability of their students talents and energies. The future requires every person to be helped make the best use of their minds possible so all are in position be able to 'imagine a better and brighter tomorrow.'

This is certainly not the case at present.

A vision of Schooling

The thoughts following have been selected from a paper written by Phil Cullen a highly respected Australian educator and former Director of Primary Education Queensland 1975- 1988. He is critical of the direction education has taken and believes in a system that has faith in the creativity of teachers. He is very concerned about such imposition as national testing. His thoughts resonate with those of Kelvin Smythe and hopefully myself. Maybe it is time for back to the future? See Phil Cullen's full paper on his website.

In his forward to his vision for schooling Phil Cullen writes that he is a 'has been' and that 'nobody takes much notice of has beens'. He says 'he loves primary schools and truly appreciates their importance'.

He asks us to enjoy his thoughts and writes 'I just wanted to do it, so I did'. He doesn't expect anyone to take notice but we would be wise to listen to his wisdom. It is in short supply in our own technocratic Ministry.

I have certainly taken notice.

Phil Cullen is one of those people who has great faith in the power of primary schooling and has great faith for teachers who spend long, unbroken, learning charged hours with young children.He shares with Abraham Lincoln that the fate of humanity is in their hands.

He also shares with others, including myself, a vision that portrays schools as exciting learning places where pupils will not just be happy to attend, but will be anxious to do so.

Phil worries that throughout the western world education has been placed in the hands of 'know it alls' with university degrees and with little practical experience. And all too often primary education is placed in the hands of people whose lack of knowledge of primary teaching is staggering.

The time has come for the world of primary education to be returned the their owners rather than the 'top down, some-one-else should know what to do' position. Certainly in NZ our lack of achievement indicates that little has improved since the 1980s; the Emperor has been shown to have no clothes!

Phil Cullen believes that children love learning, it is natural, and 'unless their lust for learning has been fractured they go for it'.

When curriculum are 'delivered' from those on high who know 'there is always the ever-present hope', Cullen writes, 'that the curriculum offerings do not interfere with, or spoil, pupils natural love for learning'.

The imposed NZ curriculum of the 90s have done just this.

Those who compose the syllabus suggestions need to know what they are doing so teachers can convert them into realistic programmes. Such writers need to have been done there and and done that in the classroom, Cullen writes.

It is obvious that this has not been the case since the 1990s in NZ as we have struggled to adapt an international standardized curriculum in our schools. Thankfully it has been discovered, somewhat belatedly, that the emperor has had no clothes. Unfortunately our 'new' curriculum is now being put at risk by the imposition of national testing before it even gets off the ground. Cullen regards blanket national testing, limited to easy things to measure, as an intrusion that appeals to politician and others who like to quantify progress

The classroom , Cullen writes, is the engine room of a country's future and no matter what is written it is when the teacher and the pupils get together that is what matter. Such testing is disrespectful of teachers, wasteful of school time, costly, and destroys the 'curriculum spirit'. 'learning' he says, 'is ongoing, developmental and joyful'.

'Schools are places that are especially constructed for deliberate teacher-pupil learning exchanges.A country's greatness is judged by the way it treats its children.If quality schooling isn't its first priority what is, he asks'? And continues, 'It's the quality of the interaction between teacher and pupil that ensures real learning progress.'

Cullen sees the pedagogical gap between primary and secondary education clearly but asks of both system that they contribute , by the end of schooling, that all pupils will leave wanting to contribute to be 'keen learners with idiosyncratic learning styles'. Cullen likes the word 'learnacy' coined by Guy Claxton. 'It is vogue word', he says, emphasizing, 'that there is one 'acy' word that says it all.Literacy and numeracy are part of its domain.It encompasses them and almost every other aspect of human endeavour.'

Claxton, Cullen notes, suggests there is a gap between the way we learn in school and the way we learn in the outside world and that children are hungry for the three Rs - responsibility, respect, and reality and that these can only be achieved through the three Cs - choice, challenge and collaboration. Claxton believes, and Cullen agrees ,that all children should retain their birthright to learn.

Claxton's idea of learnacy, or 'learning power', are very much in line with the key competencies of the NZ Curriculum.The word learnacy suggests that the object of schooling is to develop each pupils idiosyncratic learning styles to the nth degree.

This is obviously not the case at present in New Zealand where the 'once size fits all' mentality still persists and this conformity will only be amplified by national testing.

There is no need for any distinction between process and content as both, Cullen believes, 'can live happily together and it is essential that they do so'. Acquiring basic content is part of the process of achieving high levels of 'learnacy.

Learnacy must however predominate in the teaching acts and that pupils accumulate more basic knowledge while this 'feeling' is predominates. 'The more creative teachers', Cullen writes, 'have achieved outstanding results just by their determination to help each child earn thing better.'

This is a far cry, says Cullen, from the 'efficiency hawks' that see learning as test results a process that 'removes all sparkle and joy from the learning process'.

Cullen is an advocate for valuing the uniqueness of every learner and believes that each child determines the appropriateness of each learning experience for her or himself and no attempt at standardization will seriously alter the differences between them.

The modern primary classroom, Cullen writes, is one of the most complex social institutions on earth and those in authority must keep in mind the eccentricities of students individual needs. This has not been in the minds of those who have pretended to know better the past decades!

Imposed curriculums have put at risk the demanding and mentality challenging one to one exchanges between teacher and learner that learning requires. When pupils feel they are learning what they want to learn, 'the world', Cullen writes, 'is their oyster'.

The creative primary approach to teaching has had a long history and one Cullen's own history gives him the perspective to appreciate. The system before self managing schools (in NZ 1986) had advantages we have lost, none the least advisers and enlightened inspectors who were able to share a wide variety of teacher's wonderful ideas.

It is time, Cullen believes, for a rethink to reflect on what we it is we have lost. We need, he believes, to ensure that those in the bureaucracies are people who have had the hands on experience to know what they are doing. This is not the case at present.

In the past we valued those who knew what the operations of a school was like, people who had run a range of schools during their careers ; they had been there and done that. The old school inspectors were of this ilk, they had a close connection with curriculum development and creative teachers. As Cullen writes, ' they flew with pollen on the wings for they could recognise a good idea and were able to spread its use'. In New Zealand this sharing was assisted by advisers selected for their enthusiasm and not ther ability to 'deliver' a contract.

All this came to an end in Queensland 'about the 1990s when managerial eggheads , whose knowledge of business and corporate structures was regarded as profound moved in.' Managerial new talk' and corporate language took the place of 'school talk'. According to Cullen it was an 'unadulterated debacle' but for those involved in there was no choice - or so it seemed at the time.

The general state of affairs has remained drastic and is likely to deteriorate further. The trouble is, says Cullen, the 'the power folk think the problem lies within the schools, instead of what they have done to them. Again they are starting at the wrong end.' National testing and performance pay will only make things worse.

Both in Australia and New Zealand there is a leadership vacuum in schools to provide alternatives; educational voices ought to be influencing those in power.

As the business world's financial system crumbles it is time for a real rethink and what better place to start than education. It we want to create a sustainable country and to ensure all students leave our schools as 'confident, connected , life long learners' it is obvious that our present system will not do.

We need to tap into the wisdom and experience of those who really know how to create the conditions to inspire creative teaching if we are to move away from the present day business models and managerial experts who tend to structure things from the top .

Phil Cullen says , 'I am alarmed by what is happening at present, especially when I see the wonderful work that classrooms teachers are doing. They need proper support. Unless there is a return to purposeful administration and a revitalisation of each classroom, I remain fearful for the future'.


I am with Phil Cullen.

As it was said in New Zealand in 1986 'good people poor system' .Unfortunately what replaced the previous system has failed to live up to it's 'market forces' promises.

Their must be a better way.

Waikato Principals' Conference

Taupiri the mountain; Waikato the river.

Last week I was invited to present at the Waikato Principals' 2009 Conference.

It is important for leaders to keep alert to ideas on the horizon but it more important to return to school and to put some of them into action. It seems too many Waikato Principals didn't bother to attend. What does this tell us?

Such conferences provide an opportunity for both affirmation and challenge.

Whatever, on return, rhetoric needs to be translated into action.

Dr Stuart Middleton started the ball roiling by stating that education is a 'social promise' of a future for all students and then provided data to show that this promise was far from being realized. He wondered if current schools 'balkanised' structures were counter to the goals of the NZC. He showed that at a very young age student make a decision to take the high road leading to school success or the low road of school failure.

What we are doing isn't working. 'If schools are the answer', he asked, 'what was the question'? Currently there are approximately 20000 young people who leave with little to show for their time and who take up neither work nor training! This, he said, is hugely damaging to themselves and to society.

Education is a 'tough nut to crack' and many curriculum initiatives suffer from 'death by embrace.' School also suffer from having the faulty expectation that all students need to be seen as normal - 'one size fits all'. School are dedicated to 'riding dead horses when it is better they get off and try something new'.

What would it mean , said Stuart, if all students were to leave 'confident, connected, life long learners'? We need to think hard about the purpose of learning in the 21stC.

Leaders he concluded:

1 Need to challenge the process
2 Inspire a worthwhile vision.
3 Enable other to act
4 Model the way
5 Encourage the heart

Next up was Professor Geoff Southworth retired director of the UK Leadership Centre.

He told the story of a professor who visited a successful school and when asked what he thought of it just said 'very interesting'. When pressed for further comment he said he would have to return to the University to work out if it would work in theory!

Professor Southworth said there is strong agreement on a few things.

leadership matters; 'learning centred' leadership.

Perception matters - it is 110% the issue!

It is how principals respond that matters. The core tasks of a principal are: the need to build a compelling vision to set a strong sense of direction ( where and why); to develop people; to keep adjusting to circumstances; to manage teaching and learning; and to have a set of positive personal qualities -'unwarranted' optimism, an improvement orientation, and to ensure all involved gain 'meaning, recognition, and a life'.

Another thing that matters is that the 'quality of the school cannot exceed the quality of its teachers'. Unfortunately, he commented, many schools get distracted from their 'core business' of ensuring student learning.

Successful principals generate and sustain discussions about teaching and learning and do not leave anything to chance. They continually share, spread and move positive ideas around making it clear what the school stands for.

Successful principals distribute leadership ; 'the Lone Ranger is dead'.In some cases the 'best teacher' is the best leader.

The question , he asked,was how do we use our 'principal influence' get a whole school approach? Effective leaders work hard on indirect leadership qualities: they 'walk the talk'; they use gentle persuasion relentlessly; and they model, monitor and become involve in dialogue.

Modeling is vital. As Albert Schweitzer said 'Example is not the main thing , it is the only thing'. What three things do the staff know you are paying attention to? Two things Southworth said : 'he has never found a teacher who has nothing to say about the Principal and when they talk it is not about what they say it is about what they do! The modeling and monitoring is all about pedagogy.

The task of learning centred dialogue is to improve the quality of teaching in the school. Three high quality teacher in row can raise student performance dramatically and, conversely, three low quality teachers in a row depress learning. Monitoring is required to identify teachers' pedagogical strengths and developmental needs so as to improve their repertoire of teaching strategies.

Questions to ask are;

1 How is teachers craft knowledge shared?
2 How might this be strengthened?
3 What are the obstacles in the way?
4 Which of these can you do something about and will you.

Sharing this craft knowledge is 'professional capital' of your school. Such knowledge needs to be described, analysed, reflected on, and articulated.

Such 'learning conversations' are the 'heart of the constructivist approach. 'The key is, through articulation, to make thinking visible'.

The second day started with Dr Kevin Knight who leads a private teacher training organisation. He asked, 'what is the state of teacher training in NZ' and answered his own question with 'not flash'.

The trouble is that current teacher training operates on a 'one size fits all mentality' when what it needs is 'differentiating'.

Dr Knight believes there is a leadership vacuum in New Zealand about what the purpose of teaching is all about. As for the Teaching Standards they are are unhelpful and lack any real detail. The new 'draft' Standards are only marginally better. Schools need to define their own indicators.

As for teacher appraisals they are , he believes, 'cop out' appraisals. They only work if there are clear images of teaching and learning.

Teacher appraisals should centre on the fundamental purpose of school - to cause learning. We need systems that tell how good teachers are. Dr Knight's organisation has developed an appraisal system that ensures all student teachers acquire the necessary learning; no one graduates until a suitable level of competence is gained.

Each dimension of teaching has five descriptors each with five further definitions. Professional development focuses on identified areas of need.

Dr Knight had also developed a differentiated professional appraisal system with six levels of competence.

1 Survival Level - where controlling students is an issue. For such teachers this is where assistance needs to be focused.
2 Environmental Level - 'loose' teaching.
3 Learning - where it 'feels good' and students are on task.
4 Advanced - where teachers can articulate literacy and numeracy but do not apply this to other areas.
5 Leadership Level - this is beyond literacy and numeracy.This is the 'total package'.

To get teachers to change you have to know what to change.

1 Step one is to articulate a vision.
2 Live and monitor the vision
3 Principals have to create time to make it happen.
4 Specific targets identified for coaching/ training.

The second to last speaker, Professor Bronwyn Cowie, reported on the finding from 'early adopters' of the NZC. 'It is what happens when teachers and students meet'. Often there is gap between the 'official' , the 'planned', the 'taught', and what is 'learnt'.

Professors Cowies findings were 'all good stuff'. Implementing the NZC takes time and requires schools take necessary risks which will require leadership courage.

'Change is a complex, non linear, frequently arbitrary and highly political' she said quoting Fullan. All change involves creative tension between independence and autonomy. It will involve making mistakes. The key element is to ask what do we think about learning and what do we think about teaching?

The challenge is to 'connect' vision to practice.

Questions to ask are: Does the curriculum fit with us? And how do we fit with the curriculum?

Schools are currently 're visioning' their schools.It is important in this process to learn to say no and, the professor said, it will require 'hard conversations in safe places'.

I was the last speaker and I didn't take notes!!

It always amazes me how a group of speakers , without collaborating, end up all contributing, or better still, developing in the process, a common theme.

It was well worthwhile attending. Those principals who didn't take the opportunity missed out on some valuable insights.

Creative Education.

Not all learning is able to be measured and graphed to prove achievement. This simplistic scientific approach has all but killed, or ignored, the innate creativity of many of our students, creating unnecessary problems of 'disengagement' or 'behaviour' in the process. To study a bridge there are a range of 'frameworks' available to explore and interpret such an experience -many well beyond measurement of learning. First of all you have to find the time to introduce students to such an experience.


Elliot Eisner is a highly respected educator who champions the role of the arts and creativity in education.

What follows are some of his ideas presented at a John Dewey Memorial Address; ideas that have greatly influenced my own beliefs about teaching and learning.

Eliot Eisner is a critic of the primacy of current narrow view of literacy and numeracy that dominates learning today and argues for a more generous view of literacy, one that goes beyond verbal and numerical skills.

Eisner's more generous view is all about the power to encode and decode meaning through any forms humans use to represent what they know and how they know; a view that reflects the many faces of intelligence.

Our job as teachers, he writes, is to help all our student's extract meaning from their experiences.He believes we have neglected the senses as a means for students to extract ideas from their environment and to make sense of their personal felt experiences.

Unfortunately this creative approach does not lend itself to the current pre-occupation with objective measurement which has been a limiting factor the past decades.What has been ignored is the power of transformational experiences ; the emotional power that comes from being involved doing something really well. Valuing the quality involvement of any experience for its own sake has been missing.Ignoring the 'personal stirrings and strivings of self discovery...the involvement of learning with personal emotion and meaning' means missing out on what really changes individuals.

This is the creative learning Eisner wants us to return to. 'Currently achievement rather than inquiry has been triumphant'. Our current distraction of measuring learning has diminished the mind rather than expanding it.We, he writes, have been limited by an overly cognitive view of the mind. We need, he says,and eduction grounded in a view of how human extract meaning from their experience.

Today in our primary classrooms selected important subjects take up the 'prime time'. A wider view of learning is required to integrate inquiry and creative expression into literacy and numeracy and in turn to feed into the afternoon inquiry expressive arts programmes.

Sensory and emotional learning is part of all subjects - how people feel about their learning effects what they come to learn. Each sensory system provides its own unique contribution and cannot be left to chance as it currently is now.

For example a class studying bridges is a theme that can appreciated through poetry, interpreted through science, maths, technology and engineering, and recorded and expressed through the various visual arts and photography. Each way of interpreting the bridge provides different 'framework' to understand and express ideas.It involves all the senses, attracts curiosity, and motivates various forms of expression.


This is, Eisner writes, how we are programmed to learn from birth. We learn through experiences that cannot be fragmented to suit teacher's thinking. Language does not exhaust the possibilities of expression. The ability to explore the multiplicity of any environmental experience is what teachers should be aiming for. Even a simple topic like Autumn , or an Anzac Study, have a multiplicity of ways available to interpret.

What we interpret depends on the 'nets we cast' but all forms of expression are private until they are shared. A wide range of means of expression are available - sounds and music, words, number, dance and the like. And every form of expression is open to endless variety, all requiring personal decision making and skills. Our 'nets' determine the kinds of 'fish', or meanings, we catch and our skills the extent we can express what we want to say. To complicate matters the process of realizing one's ideas in any medium evolve through the editing process in ways that are not predicable.

The education Eisner is talking about is afar cry from the current determinist intentional teaching, or 'best practices' that comply with pre-conceived expectations and criteria; learning where the teachers control processes and determine and measure appropriate answers.

Eisner is arguing for a wider conception of learning well beyond the current narrowly conceived literacy and numeracy focuses. Teachers, he believes, need to free themselves from this technocratic and traditional view of teaching as it excludes too many creative individuals.

To be able to write, Eisner says, 'the writer must have something to write about. To have something write about the writer must be able to "read" the environment. The writer starts with vision but ends up with words.The reader begins with words and ends up with the vision'.

We need, he continues, to create learning environments that invite students to explore their experiences in whatever ways that make sense to them and in ways they can share with others. Surely this is the essence of personalised learning?

The eduction Eisner is encouraging teachers to think about would create an environment which would realize the full potential of all students to be actualized.

Such an education would have the potential to 're-engage' learners and to solve the current 'disengaged' learners and behavioral problems.

In the meantime our current government is trying to solve current problems by more of the same by returning to the false potential of standardized testing. This is Einstein's definition of insanity.

When you add Eisner's ideas to those of Howard Gardner ( we are all intelligent in a range of ways) and Sir Ken Robinson ( creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy) how is it that we want to return to past failed initiatives?

However, for me, the 'best evidence' of the power of Eisner's ideas are the creative teachers, past and present, that have shown, through their example, that it is all possible.

It is to such creative teachers we need to look to develop a truly creative education system able to 'invite' all students to develop whatever gifts and talents they might have.

Let's reach for the stars!

I have a few excellent quotes which are worth sharing.

The first from Stephanie Pace Marshall an American educator and space astronaut. She knows all about the courage to reach for the stars. She writes about creating 'new minds' for an ever evolving future.

'The liberation of genius and goodness of all children, the creation of new minds, and learning communities that invite and challenge the wonder and awe of the human spirit'.
'Is this,' she asks of her fellow teachers, 'the work you want to do?'

Continuing this evolutionary line Leonard I Sweet writes:

'The future is not something we enter.The future is something we create.'

And Physicist Ilya Prigogine who says:

'The future is uncertain, but this very uncertainty is at the heart of human creativity.'

American educator Glickman encourages us to reach for the stars and gives us a warning about the trap of rationality:

'Today, measuring the accomplishments of students, teachers, and schools by standardised test scores and handing out rewards and punishments for reaching or failing to reach sate and federal standards has become commonplace.

In such a climate, we typically err too much on the side of avoiding failure by relying on externally approved "Research based" programmes, teaching methods, and assessments...

What we lose in the bargain is imagination. Failure cannot go unchallenged, but what we have today is our own failure to imagine new possibilities and the worth of what has already worked well. There is no tragedy in reaching for the stars and falling short; the greatest tragedy is never reaching at all.'

Canadian educator Dean Fink writes 'we have to shake off the shackles of conformity and compliance and imagine, create, do something.'

As John F Kennedy said in the 60s:

'Some men see things as the are and ask why? I dream of things that never were and ask why not?

It was George Bernard Shaw who said 'that all progress depends on unreasonable men' ( and woman).

In the current environment of crisis it is time for new thinking and what better place to start than in schools that have the challenge to educate 'new minds for a new millennium'.


As Lucy said to Charlie Brown 'you cant solve new maths with an old maths mind! Or was that Einstein? He said you can't solve present problems with the minds that created them in in the first place.

Now is the time to be 'unreasonable' because we sure are in fine mess?

As Stephanie Pace Marshall asks, is developing such future minds 'the work you want to do'

Early warning for NZ!

This was just a simple drawing of a pine cone but in the process an ominous figure emerged. Are there things we can learn from mistakes made in the UK? It seems we are doomed to follow their political lead when we should be focusing on the true purposes of education. At present our 'new' curriculum has given us an opportunity to be creative but talk of national standards are on the horizon - idea proposed by simplistic politicians and appealing populist minds.

A recent Guardian article gives us early warning! Thanks to those of you who sent it to me.


A Cambridge Review of Education has just been published after three years research. It presents a damming view of the UK primary curriculum which it suggests has failed generations of children. The review suggests a blueprint for a radical new kind of schooling.

The review blueprint looks remarkably like our 'new' New Zealand Curriculum. Our 'new' curriculum, thankfully, replaced one which bears a remarkable similarity to the UK one which was developed prior to our own 'old' one.

What is wrong with their curriculum?

There is an over emphasis on the skills of reading, writing and maths at the expense of other subjects.This, the review says, limits children's enjoyment of school and risks severely compromising their natural curiosity, imagination and love of learning.

The testing they have introduced, complete with 'league tables', has encouraged schools to focus on short term learning ( school survival?) at the expense of children's long term development. The most conspicuous causalities are arts and the humanities. Learning that requires time for talking, problem solving and exploring ideas is sacrificed, for what review calls, a 'memorization recall' style of learning.

Is this where our new Government is to take us?

The belief behind this narrow approach to schooling ( not learning) is that it is not possible for schools to focus on basic skills as well as covering full range of subjects. The review's lead author, Robin Alexander, of Cambridge University, believes this is faulty thinking and cites evidence that schools that blend literacy and numeracy into the wider teaching often get the best results. They are achieving this not withstanding the 'obstacle' of the current curriculum ( the one that looks like our 'old' one).


Our 'new' curriculum now gives such creative teachers 'permission' to be 'risk takers' but so far not may have left the security of past 'best practices'.


This longstanding belief in the primacy of the so called 'basics' has been made worse by national literacy and numeracy strategies and the publishing of results.

Even though in New Zealand, so far, we have avoided the failed concept of national testing literacy and numeracy have come to dominate nearly 50% of the classroom time that is occurring in the UK. UK national testing did at first improve achievement levels but are now trending down and, at the same time, students enjoyment and attitudes towards reading and maths are also falling.

It seems obvious that the politicisation of basic skills is simply the new governments scare agenda to improve so called standards. If implemented their agencies will 'micromanage' schools and this suggestion, ironically, by a party that believes in freedom and dislikes bureaucrats and regulations.

If we get national testing then the creative potential of the New Zealand Curriculum will not be realized.

The Cambridge Review is suggesting the introduction of a curriculum that aligns well with our 'new' curriculum. It want twelve aims for each pupil.They are: 'well being, engagement, empowerment, autonomy, encouraging respect and reciprocity, promoting interdependence, citizenship, celebrating culture, exploring, fostering skills, exciting imagination and enacting dialogue' and continues, 'their learning should should cover eight domains, including art and creativity, language, oracy and literacy, and science and technology to replace the current narrower subject areas'. Their current subject statements were what we had in New Zealand up until 2007. All the above aligns well with New Zealand's Curriculum's vision of 'confident life long learners', able to 'seek, use and create their own knowledge' and, in the process, develop the 'key competences' required for continual learning.

Currently, it seems, we are leading the world - but for how long?

The Review's suggestion is for their national curriculum to cover only 70% of lessons and for the other 30% left to schools to decide.Our 'new' curriculum has gone well past this suggestion by encouraging school to develop curriculum to suit the needs of their students opening the way for personalised learning.

The Review wants to shift the responsibility for designing how children learn back from their government and its agencies back to schools. If were to introduce national in New Zealand testing it would stifle such responsibility and flexibility.

The review states that, as an antidote to the current 'utilitarian and philistine' and self centred age, there is a need to make an economic case for creativity in eduction but even more importantly it concludes that it is fundamental to children's happiness and well being, as well as raising job prospects in the future.

Certainly in New Zealand our best chance of survival is in realizing the gifts and talents of all students in school and in creating an environment where such gifts can be turned to individual and communal success.

The Review is timely for us in New Zealand for if we aren't careful we could lose the opportunity for creativity before we even had the chance to give it a go.

'Colonise' the Curriculum says Kelvin Smythe

Few people give curriculums the 'once over' like Kelvin Smythe. Kelvin has a had a long career in education and has aways been a champion of innovative 'holistic' New Zealand teachers. Kelvin has long suggested that teachers ought to 'colonise' Curriculum documents to fit their own philosophies and I agree. If you want to read Kelvin in full go to his site. In the meantime I am going to 'colonise' Kelvin's writing!

Kelvin is determined that education ought to attend to the heart as well as to the mind. Recent curriculums have ignored the affective , or feeling aspects, of learning and, as a result, a lot has been lost. Kelvin believes that powerful learning experiences 'transform' how students think/feel about issues. This of course is too hard for the technocrats to measure!

It is this affective aspect of learning that Kelvin wants to protect from hierarchical pressure and academic experts.

The answer, Kelvin advises, is for teachers to 'colonise' the official curriculum and to take in messages they feel comfortable with and to treat the rest with benign neglect.

All in all, Kelvin believes, the 'new' curriculum is a rather 'genial ' one. A document that allows teachers the flexibility to shape it to suit the needs and interests of their students. Even its brevity is an advantage.

Kelvin makes the point that the emphasis on the key competencies does not mean that the curriculum is any less concerned with knowledge. Kelvin recommends that the Learning Areas statements should be given a prominent place. Without real content learning is at risk - the 'key competences' are both and end and a means.

The 'new' curriculum encourages integration of learning areas which, although a good thing, can if done badly, undermine curriculum validity.

Kevin is excited by a statement that , in regard to coverage, that 'the teacher may decide to cover less but cover in greater depth'. And that 'each schools curriculum should allow teachers the scope to make interpretations in response to particular needs, interests, and talents of individuals and groups of students in their classes'. Another statement Kelvin liked was the one that says the new curriculum is a 'framework rather than a detailed plan...schools have considerable flexibility when determining the detail'. And also that teachers should select achievement objectives to 'fit the learning needs of their students'.

The matter of school evaluation is a concern to Kelvin which is in contrast the documents 'genial setting'. Along with the elegant statements about assessment for learning comes the following that has the potential to damage good primary teaching.

Teaching and learning 'expectations', the curriculum says about achievement objectives , 'should be stated in ways that help teachers, students and parent recognise, measure, discuss, and chart progress'. In this one statement, Kelvin writes, 'is encapsulated the withering of imagination, creativity, intuition, the divergent, the aesthetic, the immanent, and the affective'.

This one statement, Kelvin writes is , 'the enemy of our holistic education tradition'. It represents the 'triumph of the technicists, the atomists, the bureaucrats, the contemporary Gradgrinds, the measurers, the controllers' This is about organising learning so it can be measured.

Kevin asks is this the kind of education we want for our grandchildren.

It is as if two different Ministry teams developed two irreconcilable stances. In technicist times measurement always trumps the affective, Kelvin writes.

Teachers should feature the curriculum's elegant statements that 'the primary purpose of assessment is to improve student's learning and teachers teaching.' And that 'analysis and and interpretation often takes place in the mind of the teacher, who then uses the insights gained to shape their actions as they continue to work with their students'.

In the the contradiction lies between the two approaches lies the curriculum's fundamental flaw.

A look at some of the learning objectives as that are developed up the 'levels' will show mindless word games in an attempt to show progressions.

Kelvin seems happy with most of the Learning Area statements particularly the Arts and Science. They are well worth reading.

A concern of Kevin's is that the competencies could become 'areas of bureaucratic contestation'. His suggestion is to 'integrate the competencies into the everyday functioning of the school and classroom...without losing sight of the key elements of the competencies'. The review Office will no doubt want to see evidence of their implementation!

His overall suggestion for the competencies is that unit plans for curriculum units include criteria derived from the competencies, and when a child does something significant a note be made.Another suggestion is to to develop a key statement to represent each competency.

Kelvin's real issue is about the pressures being placed on schools that result in less time being given to ' the aesthetic, affective, the imaginative, the creative, the intuitive, the feelings for, and so on.' This sort of imaginative teaching needs time and space to alow children to be divergent.

The creative 'holistic' approach is an alternative ,Kelvin writes, to the WALTS now in vogue. He suggests broadening the WALTS to encourage students divergent and imaginative responses.Currently an overuse of WALTS is developing a standardized mechanistic approach to learning.

Kelvin has some concerns about inquiry learning which I do not fully understand. Maybe it is that all too often inquiry learning neglects in depth understanding; the valuing of process, or competencies, over content.If so then I am in agreement. A study without real understanding is a study at risk.

The learning structure Kelvin recommends is: 'Introduction; Developing Understanding; Expressing Understanding; and Conclusion. The key stage though is Developing Understanding - this is the stage which teachers and children should stay until a strong affective response is evident. This is about engaging students emotions, their curiosity, and to allowing their divergent imaginative thinking to emerge.

'Teaching', Kelvin writes,'is about providing an environment that increases the likelihood of children being involved in powerful transformative experiences; by definition that means that the affective must be a central part of the process.' This he continues, is not about 'airy fairy' teaching but based on real detail, information and reality.

Kelvins aim, in his presentation, was to encourage teachers to be confident in the ways they approach the new curriculum; to see it as a mixture of pluses and minuses, and to continue to 'colonise' it.

He wants teachers to see the curriculum as a 'genial one that in many respects actively encourages you to shape it to your purposes'. He wants teachers to recognise the many holistic and liberal ideas in the document that will encourage enlightened practice.

He also wants to warn teachers about the destructive ideas being set up for measurement, and that the affective and imaginative are being squeezed out of classrooms by pressures resulting from the crowded curriculum. It is important, he believes, that the competencies need to be integrated into everyday classroom functioning.

How the Review Office reacts will be a vital factor in the development of the liberal possibilities of the curriculum.

Most of all Kelvin wants to remind teachers that they are inheritors of an a holistic approach to teaching and learning - one where the cognitive and the affective interact; the mind and the heart. An approach that values the power of transformational experiences.

This is the knowledge that primary teachers need to contemplate and value rather than that of the technocrats, bureaucrats and academic experts.

And I agree.

Developing a co-constructivist unit of study

A foyer display - Hokowhitu School. Hokowhitu is a school that values in all learners their sense of wonder. A school that values their students thoughts and is keen to develop their school as an inquiry community.

Below is a plan for a school to develop a unit of work which values students' ideas and thoughts and then challenges them to 'change their minds' though interactive activities.

Before starting the unit the staff need to clarify their idea of 'constructivist' and inquiry learning.

1 Select a unit of work either individually or as a team. If a team each team member will develop their own interpretation of the unit.


2 Plan to complete the unit in 4 to 5 weeks.Junior classes may need less time.

3 Plan to achieve 3 or four major outcomes for the unit. The thought is to do 'fewer things well'. Possibly research findings based on 'key' questions ( research writing), a piece of creative writing,and a piece of art etc.


4 Conclude the unit with a parent open time ( from 2 to 2.50) to share student's work. A good idea is to have 'class walk around' by teachers before the parent open time.

5 The unit is to based on a 'co-constructivist' or 'interactive' approach where teachers gather students' questions, their prior ideas, and then undertake research and experiments etc to challenge students' views; and then to present/ display what they have learnt.

6 The interactive model is in essence an inquiry learning model

7 Consider using four group rotational model ( similar to the one used in the literacy block). Each session to start with few minutes to outline expectations and to finish with a reflective 'wrap up ' session. If such a model is used one group each day to be used to undertake an experiment, or in-depth discussion with the teacher, while others complete work they can do independently, or have drafted out in literacy time.

8 For the above group rotation to work the literacy (and possibly numeracy) times need to be 're-framed' so as to develop skills to be applied in the inquiry time. The literacy block needs to teach information and design literacy, and include experiments and activities to develop science writing etc. All the 'seeking, using, and creating' competencies need to be in place to ensure all students have the 'self managing' skills to stay on task during inquiry group work.

Negotiated group task need to be defined on the blackboard/whiteboard so all students are aware of daily expectations. The group programme will 'break down' as students complete tasks. Students then have the task to finish any work - or do extra tasks.

9 Such a process, as outlined above, will become more effective as both teachers and students gain confidence and skill.

10 The unit concludes with a display, or exhibition ,of the ideas the students have developed. Display will have a heading ( written as a provocation) 'key' question, 'prior ideas', processes used, finished work, any art or language and also including students assessment.

The key to successful inquiry learning depends on the information skills taught in the literacy ( and numeracy) block. Skills will need to be developed as needed if they are to be relevant or transferred. A quick read of students finished work will indicate success or otherwise.

It also not only important to teach a range of information literacy skills but it is also important, during this time, to steep students in facts, literature, and visuals about topic to provide material for students to wonder about. Once it is in students memories ( however interpreted) it becomes available for spontaneous recall later. Or, stated differently, the more students see, read, hear, or experience about a topic the more likely they will be able to ask better questions and to use that information independently. This of course is assisted by teaching information literacy skills.

Valuing students' 'voice'.

Entering this classroom a visitor cannot but be impressed by the celebration of students 'voice' or ideas. The young teacher, in a low decile school, has created an environment based on aesthetics and creativity. Her shadow study, a small thing in itself, has been made the most of.

'Children and scientists have much in common. Both are interested in a wide range of things and both are interested in, and attempt to, to make sense of, how and why things behave as they do'.

'Unless we know what children think and why they think the way they do we have little chance of making any impact with our teaching' write the authors of 'Learning In Science' ( Osborne and Freyberg).

Student centred classroom ought to reflect students questions, theories, 'prior ideas', points of views, and ideas they have modified as a result of learning more.

All too often this is not the case. Worse still teachers' intentions and language gets in the way. As well there is simply too much time spend on literacy and numeracy that also gets in the way of tapping into students' curiosity. Even the, hardly 'new', emphasis on key competencies may divert teachers away from the valuing of student's ideas.

Teaching ought to be about reflecting students diverse idea and helping them clarify and extend their thoughts. It ought to be about providing students feelings of satisfaction and power which comes from being able to do something.

Students are perfectly capable of making meanings for themselves. the teachers role is to value their 'prior ideas' and then to help them clarify and deepen their understandings. Disconcertingly students view are sometimes hard to change - this is the dilemma of the traditional teacher.

Students have idea to express ( and to be challenged) about an infinite range of experiences.

How do plants grow? What are seeds? What are Flowers for? What are fruits or vegetables?

How are animals, like cats, dogs or goldfish, suited to live their lives? What things are alive? What is an animal? Are we animals?

Why do we need food? Where some food good or bad for you? Why do things taste differently?

Why do some things dissolve, melt, freeze and why?

What is air? How does smell get from a air freshener to our noses? What is wind? Where does it come from? Why do kites , or birds fly?

Why is water important? Where does it all come from, or go to? Why does it freeze or melt? What does soap do? How are bubbles made? Why do some things sink or float? Why do boats float? Where do waves come from -what makes the waves?

What is electricity? What is a battery? How does it get into our homes?

Where does all out toilet water go to? Where does all the storm water go to? What is rain? Where does it comes from, or go to? Why do puddles dry up in the sun?

How do we keep warm? How do we keep things warm? What is a thermometer

What is light? Can it go around corners? How are shadows made? Why do they change during the day?

How do musical instruments make sounds?What is vibration? How do we hear?

Why do things fall down and not up? Is the world round or flat? How do you know? Why do season change? What is the sun, the moon, or the stars.

What is wood, rocks, soil , dirt?

Why do we get sick? Why do medicines work? What is inside our bodies? Why do we have blood, veins, bones , hearts? Why do we get old and die?

A great idea would be to ask students, of any age, what are the question and concerns they have? From such an activity an 'authentic' curriculum would emerge' that teachers and students could explore ( co-create new knowledge) together.

Looking at the above list it is hard to know if they are science, language, literacy, numeracy, philosophy, technology, social sciences, or art. To solve them would involve all disciplines.

We need to consider how to integrate literacy and numeracy into such an 'emerging' and creative curriculum.

Students could be asked to think of ways to explore their ideas and ways to express them. In this process 'learning how to learn' ('key competencies') would naturally be involved.

This is true learning - all about 'changing ones mind'.

It is what ought to happen in our schools. It is how we learn in life - or at least the very young or those who get through our system to become scientists.

Imagine a school based on exploring students curiosity.

Imagine the exciting role of the teacher!

Schools have a lot to learn about learning