Perry Rush -educator

It was great to listen to Perry Rush present to the Westcoast Principals' Conference earlier this month. Perry is not just implementing the New Zealand Curriculum he is well ahead leading teachers into true learning centred education.


The vision for Island Bay school is 'Our Way, Island Bay'.

Perry has a great story to tell and is an inspiration to others who might wish to emulate the spirit of learning that he represents. It is clear that Perry leads by example and that those that work with him have trust in him to take them into an exciting future.

He comes to Island bay following time at Discovery One a innovative independent Christchurch School. A brief conversation with him indicated that Perry has had to work hard to get to where he is now. I first heard of him years ago when he was the teacher of a year 7 and 8 Tawa school based in downtown Wellington.

Perry has taken advantage of the opportunity to develop a local curriculum offered by the New Zealand Curriculum. During his presentation he encouraged principals to follow his example and feel free to develop ideas that suit their community.

He see the New Zealand Curriculum as a visionary document and one that demands real changes from schools. He asked do schools really want be involved in such transformational change?

Island Bay has taken a 'learner centred' approach: 'Our Way, Island Bay,Integrated learning'.

He asked his audience to consider what things tend to be 'fixed' in their school? Often things they assume to be 'fixed' are only 'fixed' because no body has really questioned the assumptions behind how their school is organised. We all too often just assume current ways of working to be appropriate. These, he said, 'are the cultural traditions and mores of a school'. To move into the future we need to uncover and challenge such assumptions so as to consider what it is that can be changed?

The key is to find the time and space to focus on the needs of the learner.

Three issues to consider:

1 What are our beliefs as these determine our actions? And what is the basis of our beliefs and can we articulate them?

2 What is our culture - our educational environment? Culture is critical. The key competencies of the curriculum indicate the kind of behaviours we wish to encourage; how we wish to live and learn together.

3 What is our pedagogy? What are the strategies, approaches and techniques we agree to use?

A school that wishes to change needs to bring in new ideas and also needs to get rid of unnecessary things. But most important of all the teaching team needs to be able to articulate their beliefs.

At Island Bay the staff work to see learning from child's perspective, to appreciate that the students role is to make meaning, and that the teachers role is to support and challenge the learners to deepen their understanding.

Also as part of developing appropriate pedagogy the staff have studied all the available research.

The Best Evidence Synthesis (BES) has reinforced the valuing of diversity, of being responsive to differences, and the need for quality teachers to pose real problems - problems that result in active research. For students, as the NZC states, to be their own active 'seekers, users and creators'.

Graham Nuttal's book pointed out the power of the hidden curriculum; that we all construct our own meaning according to our prior experience; the power of peers on influencing learning and the need for kids to talk to each other about the right stuff. Nuttal's research pointed out to the staff the need for each child to be helped to make their own 'unique pathways'.

From Jane Gilbert ( author of 'The Knowledge Wave') a researcher at the NZCER the idea of the changing shape of knowledge. That knowledge is not seen as a noun ( to store) but as a verb (a doing word). Learning is about 'performativity' - the ability to do something with what you know. The deeper children learn the more they can apply what they know. As well there is the idea that knowledge is 'owned ' by the group - the idea of 'collective intelligence'.

And of course John Hattie's idea of 'expert teachers'.

Back to Island Bay's Culture.

A quote about culture Perry shared was , 'what we care about, what we are willing to spend time on doing, what we celebrate, and what we talk about.'

The practices that underpin Island Bay School are:

The learning is to be integrated
learning is to be conceptual and based around big ideas.
The NZC's Key Competencies are to be connected with Art Costa's habits of mind'.
Based on inquiry learning.

Perry outlined how Island Bay had 'grown' their curriculum.

The first challenge is to figure out the intent of the NZC;what does it mean?

Student learning and not about coverage.
An emphasis on local meaning.
A participatory view of learning.
Excellent 'essence' statements for each Learning Area.

The NZC provides both an opportunity and a challenge as it requires what Perry called a 'seismic shift' and not merely 'tinkering'.

Perry shared Five Change ideas:

1 Engage powerful speakers. Island Bay have used John Edwards, Mary Chamberlain, Jane Gilbert, Kath Murdock and Lane Clark.

2 Link theory to practice. 'Improvisation is the hallmark of a creative teacher'

3 Consult widely with the local community.Island Bay only selected 3 or 4 questions from those suggested by the Ministry.What problems/issues are worth engaging students in? What would make an ideal graduate profile for our learners? What ought to be our core beliefs? And what do the Key Competencies actually mean? Reduce them to five points.

The school felt it needed to 'unsettle' what parents and teachers think and sent out a 'provocative' newsletter based on ideas from Jane Gilbert. Focus groups were held with parents selected randomly ( about 15 in each group?). Each group was asked a key question e.g what do students need to thrive in the 21stC?

4 'Explode' teacher thinking. Teachers visited a range of 'best practices' schools and inquired into 'best practice' in areas of literacy, ICT, pedagogy and developed action plans to undertake inquiry. Action times had to research 'best practices'; attend appropriate professional development of their own choice; be mentored by a recognised expert and finally to provide the school with recommendations.

By this means the staff made their own shift and out of all the thinking emerged the new vision for the school.

5 The school kept 'wall stories' about staff inquiries.These displays made explicit the idea being explored and were a way of deprivatising teacher practice and contributed to the development of a shared pedagogy. This was 'low tech' approach that was achievable by all.

Drawing his presentation together Perry explained the Island Bay School Inquiry approach, a model largely based on the writings of Kath Murdock.

(1)When inquiry topics are decided upon they are linked to a 'host' learning area.
(2) Finding out. For each inquiry the main area are identified from the host Learning Area - the main strands and selected learning objectives are identified.
(3) Sorting Out. Learning tasks are mediated and appropriate key competences are identified but most units incorporate most, if not all, of these competencies.
(4) Going Further. Learning is expressed through a range of Learning Areas as appropriate
(5) Refection. Making connections, and 'now what so what'?


It all comes down , Perry concluded, to developing a curriculum that is living and breathing.

All in all an inspiring and practical presentation.

Thank you Perry.

PS Apologies for any misinterpretations but I think I captured the 'essence' of what Perry said.

It is all about motivation

The New Zealand Curriculum states that 'intellectual curiosity is at the heart' of the thinking competency. For all that it is hard to find a direct reference to the word motivation but it is motivation that is the key to engaging learners. I have always liked Jerome Bruner's quote that 'teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation.' If we want to solve the problem of disengaged students it is toward motivation must turn not the reactionary and simplistic national standards!


While waiting my turn to present at the West Coast Principals Conference held at Franz Joseph I had the opportunity to listen to Otago University educationalist Terry Crooks of NEMP fame.

In all his years in education Terry said he had come to the conclusion that the most important issue in education is motivation.'Motivation', he said, 'is at the heart of learning.' 'Motivation', he added, 'is far more important than the introduction of such things as National Standards ( testing). This coming from an educationalist who has dedicated much of his life to the testing of students achievements was worth hearing.

It is not that students cannot learn it is just that we have spent too much time on focusing on thing we think they should know rather that focusing on what motivates them. Young people are born with an innate drive to learn , to make sense of things, and to inquire about whatever capture their curiosity and imagination.


Terry talked about the centrality of students interests - what they like to learn about and about how teachers can capitalize on this desire to know.

Referring to the effective pedagogy of the New Zealand Curriculum Terry noted that motivation didn't even make it as a heading. Nor, I would add, did inquiry, but both are implicit. He regretted that motivation 'was not highlighted as as an important issue as it is the prime goal of teaching'.

As teachers we need to know what interests them, what they love so as to turn such interests into education growth in knowledge and positive attitudes. 'We need' , Terry said, 'to cherish and support such interests and to build on the enthusiasms kids bring with them'.

And he said 'we need to find ways to complement their interests and find ways to broaden them'. To me this is the prime purpose of education - to amplify the gifts and talents all students bring with them to the classroom. It seems we have made education far too complicated with our focus on 'our' curriculums! We need, as Sir Ken Robinson reminds us, 'to find each learner's medium'. 'What is it that makes individuals', Terry said, 'fall in love with learning'. When learners are totally involved, learning at the optimal level, he said they enter, what some writers have called, 'flow'

For teachers, Terry continued, the challenge is to make appropriate demands on students so as to match tasks to their ability. This aligns well with Vygotskys's 'zone of proximal development' or the personalisation of learning agenda. This are the areas of teacher artistry. If teachers do not match tasks to students competence students adopt the habits of 'learned helplessness' - they learn to give up and become disengaged; this in turn creates the so called 'achievement tail'.

'To develop enthusiastic learners', Terry said, 'you need build motivation through success with what students regard as significant challenges'. 'Time spent on motivation', he said, ' is time well spent'.

With reference to the New Zealand Curriculum Terry was pleased to see that it takes the long view about achieving learning objectives giving teacher time to focus on presenting engaging learning challenges. Doing fewer things well, as the curriculum states, is good advice.

With regard to his work with the NEMP testing Terry noted that vitally important subjects like science are showing to be of less interest to students. He puts this down to less experimental activity in school science programmes as a result of the the growing emphasis on literacy and numeracy. These areas are taking up too much of the available learning time that would be better used undertaking enjoyable activity based learning.

NEMP research points out the importance of attitudinal data - how students feel about subjects they are learning as feeling are at the centre of further involvement. I would bet that few school target student's feelings and attitudes in their selected school targets? In our current managerial and rational approaches to learning such subjectivity, or soft data, would seem to many to be unimportant?

It is interesting to see what areas of learning NEMP research shows students like - PE, sport, hands on technology. It would seem that to engage students learning needs to be 'hands on', a 'doing' thing ( learning as a verb not a noun). The teacher's emphasis should centre on maintaining motivation not covering the curriculum.

Terry's advice was not to worry about the curriculum so much and get students doing things that make sense to them. Real science. Real maths. Real inquiry. As an example Terry talked about a project children enjoyed in his wife's primary class - a study of possum population in an urban setting. Students set and checked traps, worked alongside experts,recorded data about what they found and this was reported on their findings appropriately. It would have been a great opportunity to integrate information technology in a realistic setting. Terry suggested the need for students to study significant environment and social issues - such things as exploring the health of a stream or variation in plant life( mix of species and their conditions) from the coast to a few hundred metres inland. These are wonderful examples of both real content and process and, as well, as examples of teachers learning alongside their students.

This experiential learning was once a feature of active primary classrooms but all to often , due to the over emphasis on literacy and numeracy, is not as common as it ought to be. Ironically NEMP research show students losing interest in reading and lacking in comprehension skills. Terry gave examples from his wife's teaching where students' reading had improved through working with students in a realistic way.

'Motivation is', he repeated, 'the most important issue in education today'.

'The answer', he believes, 'is to tap into and extend motivations students bring with them'.

'We need', he says, 'to consider what turns individual students on to learning'.

'We need to value the experiences the children bring with them'.

'The big three things we need to do', Terry concluded, 'is to combine motivation, real experience, with the appropriate skills, so as to ensure success. And we need Io give our students time to come to to terms with their learning and to provide them with relevant choices'.

It would seem we have allowed schooling to be removed from the real life concerns and needs of our students.Reconnecting with such personalised learning is the answer to student achievement not by imposing blanket national standards( tests).

A return to such 'learner centred' teaching would make learning more fun for both teachers and students - and in turn both would gain areal 'feeling for' the power of learning.

All good to me.

The process product dilemma

This chart, from earlier days, illustrates the information the learner discovered about the Sioux Indians. It also represents a sense of aesthetic appreciation of Sioux design and doing something really well. Something to be proud of or too great an emphasis on product?


There seems to be view in education these days that the process of learning is more important than worrying about the quality of the learning itself,and particularly the physical products of student learning. Classroom walls in such rooms emphasize that the teacher and students are aware of a wide range of 'thinking processes' that are often grouped under the phrase 'Higher Oder Thinking' or HOTS.

This emphasis on process includes the key competencies of the new curriculum. Content seem of less importance.

That students need to appreciate that the process of learning is educationally significant what they create, or learn, is equally important.

This splitting into process and product is wrong. In the first place there can be no product without some sort of process. The processes used, at whatever level of skill, shapes the quality of the product, or depth of thought that will be realized.

Similarly the product or end in view that we aspire to create shapes the means we employ and provides the criterion against which choices in present are made. What is seen is the manifestation of those processes.It is from those processes that we are able to make certain inferences about processes. It enables judgements to be made and provides opportunity to provide feedback if necessary.

Process and product therefore cannot be dichotomous. They are two sides of the coin. Processes can be improved by attending to the product and products improved by making inferences about the processes. Students respect thoughtful attention to their work because it testifies to them that their teacher are taking them and their work seriously. Achieving worthwhile products, using any media, provides great satisfaction and feelings of competency to the learner. And done really well provides aesthetic satisfaction that comes from personal excellence.

If teachers focus on higher order thinking, or key competencies, as the most important aspect then we will get 'higher order thinking for thin learning'.

Importance of observation.

Skilled student observing fellow student completing an observational drawing of a tree as part of a bush study. Involved in such a 'slow' activity who know what thoughts were running through both their minds?

Drawing is an ideal way to break through habitual ways of thinking. All too often our students see but they do not look. Observational drawing has long been an important means for some teachers to develop deeper consciousness in students - to assist students see through their habitual ways of seeing and to develop new awareness.

Such drawing develops qualities of perception and understanding of whatever is drawn. Drawing can be seen as the mind asking question and the hand drawing answers.It involves a simple strategy - look hard- imagine -and then draw, and continue until the drawing is finished.

German philosopher Goethe had thoughts about studying plants through drawing, 'It takes time.You have to slow down.You see and you follow ever detail - of a leaf for example - in your imagination...you look at a leaf , and you create the shape of the leaf as precisely as possible in your mind. You move around the shape of the leaf in your mind until the leaf becomes an image in your mind.You do this with one leaf, with another leaf, and so on, and suddenly you begin to see dynamic movement.' The mind wonders about how the leaf was created.

Questions will emerge which can lead to intensive study. Thoughts arise that can be shaped into poems. As artists take in what they can see metaphorical thought might come to mind. Imagination can extend images into amazing interpretations.

A few leaves can provide a lot of deep thoughts. Such contemplation, Goethe believed, developed a new ways to see.

For teachers who understand this observation is not a simple task but one that truly develop deeper understanding and sense of wonder.

Until you look you never know what you can't see.

To slow students' looking the first thing is to encourage concentration through focus. To pay attention without judgement. To slow the pace of thought so as to see all there is to see. To think of connections.

Such observation is away to break through our conventional, or conditioned, way of thinking.

Focused observation, and ensuing imagination, may well be the missing 'basics' in our hurried school system.

A powerful study for your students?

Newsreader on TV introducing items about the 7O th Anniversary of World War Two. An aware teacher surely would've take the opportunity to introduce the importance of World War Two to their students? At least for students in year 5 and above. In many classes it would build on the ideas they may have gained from earlier ANZAC studies?

It would be interesting to gather from your students what they already know about World War Two. If this 'prior knowledge' were recorded in same way it could be used later to show students how much they have learnt.

Researching World War Two would make a idea language arts unit.

What are their 'first questions' and the current answers. Use these question to direct student reading and search for information.

Some questions that might emerge are:

Why was it called World War Two? Was there a World War One?
who was fighting who?
Why was New Zealand involved?
How did it start?
Where was it fought?
Who won?
Was it a necessary war? Why?

It would be interesting to gather students' views on war? Such a study would introduce the ideas of sacrifices involved by soldiers and citizens alike.

Who knows where such study would lead. Even if it were just studied as language unit for a few day it would provide food for thought for students. At the completion students could reflect on what they have learnt as well as their own thoughts about wars. If a more extended study students could research various topics in study teams.

As they uncover resources ideas will flow. Many students will have grandparents who can share what they remember from their fathers who may have served in the war.

Kowhais too good to miss!

This is just a reminder for New Zealand teachers to ensure their students develop an awareness and understanding of the kowhai which is in full flower at present -although there seems a lots of individuality variety regarding flowering of kowhai.

What do students know about the kowhai? Are they able to identify a kowahi?

Visit a kowhai tree. While there students could record ideas to develop into a three line poem ( a simple version of a haiku). What are their thoughts about the flowers? the trunks and branches, and finally the petals lying on the ground.

If teachers pick a few flowers students, back in class, can be encouraged to complete observational drawings of a flower. From this questions might emerge for students to research. Teach the 'secret' to drawing is to look carefully , then draw,and continue doping this until finished.

For science (and maths) carefully pull a flower apart to count how many petals their are. Help the students recognise the stamens ( the male part of the flower) and the stamen ( or female part -which grows into the pod). What are proper names for parts of a flower?

What is the scientific name for Kowhai? Why do plants have scientific names?
What other plants are in the same family ( think of plants with similar flowers which grow into pods)

What native bird is often found in the kowahi? What are they doing?

Answers to their research, there drawings and diagrams of the flower, could be developed into a research chart or displayed as part of a wall display.

For maths, other than recording the number of petals and stamens, tie a piece of wool to a flower that has shed all its petals and then record the growth of the pod. Students will be surprised at the speed of the growth of the pod.

If there are last season's pods to be gathered collect them and group then into tens and get group to count the number of seeds in pod ( percentages)

Soak plants in water and try to grow some seedling kowhais.

A great 'mini sudy' -whitebait.

A creative teacher should be aways on the alert for interesting things to introduce to his or her class. What do your students know about whitebait?


The whitebait season is with us once again. What do your children know about whitebait?

It would be great if you could acquire a few whitebait to keep in the class aquarium to study.If not access pictures of whitebait from the Internet of from reference books and make use of for research.

Whitebait make an interesting 'mini study'. Such a study could be part of the literacy programme and an opportunity to introduce research reading and writing to the class. A small research booklet could result and include observational drawing and diagrams.

First ask your students what they know about whitebait ( their 'prior ideas') and from this what questions about whitebait they can think of to research. Teachers could interact with their students to add question children might not think of - or wait because as the study progresses ( and students read up on whitebait) further questions will emerge.

Some questions might be:

Why do they have seasons ( introducing the idea of sustainability)?
What are whitebait? Children will discover there are several native species that collectively are called whitebait.

What is the life cycle of whitebait?

How do you catch them?
How do you cook them?

Some interesting maths could be developed around the cost of whitebait? How much do they cost each. Maybe the teacher could buy 200 grams so as to estimate how many in a kilogram!

Their answers to their questions could be drafted out and good copies placed in their study books or a small display could be mounted on the classroom wall.

In earlier days teachers would have called this a single animal study.There are possibly articles in school journals for students to refer to?

Time for a Transformational vision?

Lovelock writes that the environmental problems facing humankind are of the same seriousness of that facing Great Britain 1939!











It is at the ‘edge’ that all new learning occurs but it is not always a comfortable place to be. New ideas, in any area of life, are by their nature unsettling and to those in power can even be seen as heretical. Mind you, nothing wrong with heresy –all it means is having an alternative point of view.

I think now is the time for a bit of courageous heresy as the current government is determined to impose National Standards in schools no matter the professional opposition and even though NZ currently does well in International literacy and numeracy testing. The government is well aware that National Standards have a wonderful populist appeal, along with crushing boy racers cars and locking people up in prison. Interestingly NZ is currently second internationally to the USA for incarcerating prisoners – and we even have 20% more per head of population in prison than our neighbours the Australians. The government believes there is a connection between literacy, numeracy and imprisonment – this may be true but it is just too simplistic.

The implementation of National Standards will move NZ school away from the creative future that our ‘new New Zealand Curriculum was heading towards and will lead us back into the restrictive ‘Three Rs’ mentality of Victorian times. This reactionary shift, along with bulging prisons, will be the legacy of our current conservative government.

No one is arguing against literacy and numeracy although, if you listen to media commentators and newspaper editors, you would think no one teaches reading and maths these days. If anything the true is the opposite – literacy and numeracy in many schools have all but ‘gobbled up the entire curriculum’.

Thoughtful schools need to argue that literacy and numeracy need to be seen as ‘foundation skills’ necessary to allow all students to realize their gifts and talents and, in the process, their confidence to become ‘lifelong learners’. If schools are to be judged solely by their scores in literacy and numeracy (this is the spectre of ‘league tables’) this will divert teacher’s time and energy and narrow the curriculum. The argument ought to be that the real need for schools is to develop exciting and challenging programmes to tap into and amplify every student’s talents and for this to include literacy and numeracy. To judge achievement solely on reading and maths will be to demean many otherwise creative students. Do parents, if they were well informed, want this? Don’t they want schools to capture their children’s imagination and individual creativity? Have we asked them?

To develop innovative programmes, and to resist the temptation to narrow their curriculum, teachers will need courageous leadership from their principals and their collective organizations.

The alternative to inevitability of narrowing the curriculum is to put faith in the developing of exciting, authentic programmes to tap into and amplify all students’ innate desire to learn. There is no shortage of research to back up such a creative personalized approach to learning. New Zealand has been always well served by creative teachers, past and present, to provide inspiration for schools to follow. Research shows students engaged in such programmes do well on standardized testing. Powerful learners, driven by a need to explore challenging areas of interest in depth, become powerful readers as they ‘see the point’ of learning to read and do maths. In contrast the Ministry apologists, presenting the government’s position as part of their ‘consultation’ process, have little research to back up their hollow words and overseas examples fail to impress. This is simply populist politics determining policy.


To develop creative schools will require intellectual courage (or heresy) by principals and teachers. Without courageous leadership the vision of the ‘new’ New Zealand Curriculum, of developing all students as ‘confident creative life long learners’, is at risk. It is important for all to appreciate that the ‘new’ curriculum does not neglect literacy and numeracy but it does requires such learning to be achieved through meaningful contexts.

I recently read an enlightening paper by Andy Hargreaves called ‘The Fourth Way of Change: Towards an Age of Inspiration and Sustainability 2009’. Hargreaves’ paper is not only just ‘from the edge’ it also provides a ‘helicopter view’ of the past few decades to put things into perspective

His paper outlines the development of the ‘First Way’ – the creativity and freedom of the 60s remembered by some as the ‘golden age of education.’ Success or failure in those days depended on the ‘lottery’ of creative teachers and principals. As economic conditions worsened in the 70 and 80s a ‘market forces’ ideology was imposed on schools based on competition and choice resulting in standardized curriculums with their strands, levels, and the ‘measurable’ objectives, we are now leaving. This ‘Second Way’, with its almost incoherent curriculums, was found wanting in practice and ‘morphed’ into the ‘Third Way’ of the last few years with its more focused ‘targets’ and Ministry formulaic ‘best practice’ contracts. As a result of the ‘second and third ways’ there has been an erosion of professionalism with principals becoming more managers than leaders, and teachers more technicians following prescribed ‘best practices’. Education has been well and truly captured by a corrosive surveillance and accountability culture. Schools have learnt to be complaint rather than creative.

The current government’s National Standards, with their requirements to pass on data to the Ministry, is throwback to this controlling agenda of the ‘Third Way’. Schools, it would seem, have exchanged a ‘nanny state’ for an ‘Orwellian ‘big brother’ environment. The relentless emphasis on standardized testing in literacy and numeracy is an agenda which taps into the uniformed general public’s desire to return to the nostalgia of past certainties.

Hargreaves ‘Fourth Way’ is a ‘view from the edge’. He is calling for schools to be more innovative and creative. To succeed, he writes, will require the articulation of an inspiring and moral and sustainable purpose for education rather than a narrow literacy and numeracy one. To achieve this, Hargreaves believes, it is necessary to have a ‘Great Public Debate’ about the future of education in, say, 2020. This transformational approach, rather than compliance to the governments top down imposed standards, is the future schools and their communities should fight for. Hargreaves suggests the need for networks of like-minded schools, and the development of partnerships with parents and students, to work together and to share ideas; tapping the expertise that lies within school communities.


I am with Hargreaves. We need to develop a new coalition between the wider community and the schools. Education needs to be seen as the responsibity of all – not just to be determined by the short term vision of politicians and for the ‘achievement tail’ to be solved by schools alone.

Hargreaves sees creative teachers as the ‘ultimate arbiters of change’ and the key to his ‘Fourth Way’. ‘The classroom door’, he writes, should be seen as a ‘golden gateway’ rather than a ‘drawbridge’. Our new curriculum is such a ‘golden gateway’ but will only be realized if teachers have the courage to stay with it. Unfortunately the imposition of the National Standards has the potential to encourage the opposite – for teachers and schools to ‘pull the drawbridge’ up for their own survival and, in the process, narrowing the ‘rich’ educational opportunities our students deserve.

The ‘Fourth Way’, based on teachers and their communities creating teaching and learning programmes, offers a creative alternative and a real opportunity for the expression of professional leadership. This is in direct in contrast to the demeaning current depressing scenario of compliance.

Such a transformational vision is definitely a powerful view from ‘the edge’ but, as Einstein wrote, ‘Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.’

Are school leaders, and their communities, up to the challenge?

Two great books

Two books worth having on the teachers shelf.One for principals and teachers- the other for teachers and principals.

'Teaching the Best Practice Way' by Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar ( Stenhouse Publishing 2005)is a very practical book and it's approach very much in line with the New Zealand Curriculum. The authors present seven basic teaching structures that make classrooms more active, experiential, collaborative, democratic , and cognitive.Each chapter begins by describing one key method and follows up with practical classroom examples from early childhood to high school.

The key methods they explain are not new and creative teachers will recognise them all. This book is and updated version and in this edition the authors have placed Reading as Thinking first believing that it is the key to achieving integrated learning. 'Reframing' reading to contribute to inquiry learning is a vital emphasis - introducing content, exploring 'prior' ideas and teaching information and research skills.

Other chapters cover Representing to Learn - ways of expressing what students have discovered; Small Group Activities; Classroom Workshop model; the need for Authentic Experiences; Reflective Assessment and finally Integrative Units.

All together a very practical book for teachers who want to place inquiry central to their programmes.

The second book 'Powerful Learning' by Linda Darling Hammond and others ( published Jossey Bass 08) explores the research about what we know about teaching for understanding. It covers much the same territory as the book above ( project based learning, interdisciplinary learning, performance based assessment and co-operative learning) but focuses on the importance of an inquiry approach in three major subject areas - reading and literacy, mathematics, and science.

This book, while it also has practical examples to share, focuses on the research backing up active inquiry approaches. It begins with describing the principles of effective teaching:

1 The need to value students' prior knowledge.
2 the need to help students organise and use knowledge ( the NZ Curriculum's 'seek, use and create knowledge')
3 And that students learn best if understand how they learn and how to how to manage their own learning ( this align to the 'key competencies of the NZC).

The first chapter extensively describes the research about how to teach for inquiry learning to support 21stC skills. It covers range of well known inquiry approaches.

The second chapter describes in detail the kind of literacy teaching that supports inquiry learning that lead to in depth understanding. The chapters on mathematics and science likewise. The final chapter focuses on research about how to create schools to teach for understanding.


Both the books are an antidote for much of the shallow inquiry teaching seen in our schools. All too often classrooms seems to feature walls covered with various thinking skill processes and models.Some call this 'Higher Order Thinking'(HOT). All too often , however, it is all process and no in-depth content understanding.'Higher Order Thinking for thin learning'.

Real inquiry must be based on students being involved in exploring real content which naturally requires an inquiry process ( inquiry competencies are the shadow of real learning).

Involving information literacy and active mathematics and science into the equation is vital if schools are to become true communities of inquiry.

Very few schools are.

These are two book that would put some serious learning into inquiry pr grammes.

Oruaiti - the genesis of creative teaching.

I am off next week to present to the North Auckland Principal's Conference and it seems appropriate to give thought about the innovative creative teaching that emerged out of a small Northland rural school Oruaiti. The school's principal was Elwyn Richardson New Zealand's premier pioneer creative teacher.


I will be within a short car drive from Oruaiti school next week. It is an opportunity for me to reflect on the writings of 1950s pioneer creative teacher and principal Elwyn Richardson. Elwyn's ideas have been a life long inspiration to me and are exactly what New Zealand teachers need to give thought to if they want to value creative teaching.

In the forward to Elwyn’s publication 'In The Early World' John Melser writes that the book, ‘gives a vivid picture of a school full of vitality in the pursuit of values deeply rooted in the children’s lives and capable of serving them lifelong’. ‘Oruaiti School’, Melser continues, ‘functioned as a community of artists and scientists who turned a frank and searching gaze on all that came within their gambit. Curiosity and emotional force led them to explore the natural world and the world of their feelings…..Studies and activities grew out of what preceded them. New techniques were discovered and skills practiced as each achievement set new standards.’

From such environmental inquiries Elwyn’s students learnt answers, Melser writes, to the question ‘who am I? They gained respect for their and others achievements, taking great pride in their craftsmanship or artistry.’ It was a form of disciplined personalized learning set in a ‘community of artists and scientists.’ Elwyn’s work was based on an awareness of the natural world involving careful scientific observation and a demand for personal and excellence of their ideas in whatever medium used.

Elwyn’s role in achieving personal and artistic excellence was a delicate and encouraging one, always humbly ready to learn from the children. Elwyn has written elsewhere that ‘the children were his teachers as much as he was theirs’. The results were certainly not the standardization of product that one sees today; the result of over teaching. Believing in high standards to Elwyn each new creative product mattered as much as the process.

Elwyn, along with all the other creative teachers I have had the privilege of working with, responded to all children’s efforts and achievements with sincere interest and pride. His book is a testament to his love of children’s ideas and imagery and, the respect he gave their work, respect that was returned in kind to Elwyn. Elwyn gave his students Melser writes, ‘an opportunity to reach their full heights as artists, as craftsmen, as scientists, and as students’ in a ‘community of mutual respect’.

As mentioned It is this vision of creative teaching that has inspired me and one reinforced by the all the creative teachers I have seen over the years.

His ideas are to be found in his inspirational book ‘In the Early World’ first published by the NZCER in 1964 (reprinted 1994).

Heresy:learning doesn't have to centre around the curriculum.

One of the best 'emerging' lessons I have seen happened when one of the year one students showed his teacher his orange which was just beginning to decay with mould.This set off an interest in such things and for a while the classroom looked like it was the centre for rotting fruits and vegetables. A spectacular pumpkin took centre place. Students did regular drawing of the orange to follow the process.Digital cameras would have been useful.

Our new curriculum says that 'intellectual curiosity' is the source of all learning. If this is the case then the role of the teacher is, as Jerome Bruner wrote, to practice the 'canny art of intellectual temptation.'

Children are born with a disposition to learn. In the early year they are the closest thing to a pure scientist we have. Unfortunately only a few adults manage to leave formal schooling with this passionate sense of curiosity intact - individuals who are happy to work at the edge of their competence, pushing themselves into unknown areas that have captured their attention. For too many students, such a passion to know, has been blunted or ignored by teachers busy with their curriculum plans. And, all to often, such questioning students are a plain nuisance - their teachers claiming they do not 'pay attention' ( to them) .After all who wants kids to keep asking questions all day?

Well I do. I believe it is possible, if schools really were learning centred, to develop a powerful curriculum that arises, or emerges, out of students curiosity and, all the more so, if teacher set out to develop environments to capture students' attention.

It boils down to a lack of trust in our students or perhaps a feeling that as adults we ( as defined by distant experts) know what is best for them to learn.

I am not saying that I believe children would simply learn by themselves. I take Bruner's idea of 'intellectual temptation' seriously and believe teachers should develop learning situation to encourage their students to explore all the learning areas, or disciplines, and in the process 'learn how to learn'. I envisage (and have seen) classrooms full of displays, artifacts, and technology that few children could resist the temptation of involving themselves. The traditional skills of literacy and numeracy would still be vital to ensure all studnts are able to, as it says in the curriculum, 'seek, use and create their own knowledge'.

An intuitive teacher can easily encourage students, through by the provision of such temptations, to involve themselves. Then, by coming alongside the students, discover their questions, prior ideas and current explanations ( theories). In such classrooms any number of exploration might be taking place, some by individuals but more often by groups of students. Interests are contagious and students do like working together.

The teachers role would be to ensure students develop the habit of learning in depth by 'doing fewer things well'. By this means a depth of understanding would be gained as well as an appreciation of the social and personal competencies required to work together. Students would need to be helped with time and resource management so as to share the equipment and other resources.

This integrated project based, or inquiry learning, approach provides relevance, reality and rigor to learning too often missing in our schools. To be done well the 'artistry' and sensitivity of the teacher is central. Such teachers need to value the questions, ideas, research and creations of their students.

It is the students' questions ( helped by a bit of Bruner's 'canny intellectual temptation') that provide the real curriculum.

All this is entirely possible but only if the right conditions are in place. Trusting students can only succeed if teachers are also trusted. There are a number of educationalists, from John Dewey to James Beane, who write supporting such an approach but more importantly it has been successful with creative teachers over the decades.

This is not an easy way of teaching but it is creative and fun and echoes the natural way students learn. Any success would need be judged not only by what teachers and students create together but most of all by the attitudes towards learning, and each other,shown by the students. A walk around such a classroom ( or better still a whole school) would soon indicate the success or other wise of such an approach.

I would bet on it.

Developing a creative mindset

After a visit to a patch of bush year 3/4 students re-imagined, with teacher help, ideas to develop into paintings. No one painting looked alike even though they all had the same theme - paint a big tree with vines, nikau palms, tree ferns etc. The teacher concerned focused on ensuring all students developed their own interpretations.

All students can be helped to develop their imagination, or creativity, if their teachers think it is important.

There are strategies teachers can use to help develop such creativity.

Creative people, by nature, do not aways leap into the first or most obvious solution; they look around the problem and explore less immediate possibilities. This comes easier for some children but all students can improve their creativity with assistance. Students should be encouraged not to just accept the ordinary answer but to look for something new. They should be encouraged to experiment before committing to action. In the area of art being exposed to adult artists that express the same idea in different ways broadens students outlooks. School journals provide images to refer to. It is important for students to appreciate their art should express their individuality.

Teachers who take too seriously success criteria unfortunately limit such creativity. Van Gogh would find it difficult to survive in some classrooms.

As an example, as a part of an ecological study of a piece of bush, students might undertake a major painting task.

After the bush visit, students can be asked to remember sensory details and then to sketch what they saw. They can first be encouraged to think about the large trees seen ( they may even have digital photos, or drawing done on site, to refer to). They can be encouraged think about the bark patterns, the shapes of climbing and perching plants and then to consider the spaces in between - the tree ferns and nikaus palms, and finally the plants growing on the floor of the forest. All these ideas can be sketched out on a small piece of paper as a draft.

From such a draft an outline for a painting can be drawn out lightly, later to be painted - starting with the large tree and adding details until finished.

Finished pieces of art, as a result of such a process, are the result of observation taken during the visit and remembered back in class and imaginative interpretations. Vivid memories are the basis of future imagination.


When displayed the resulting works of art ought to be as different as the children themselves.If they all look the same then imagination may have been sacrificed for quality.

What do students learn if all their work looks the same!

Teaching and the creative process

To create a clay dinosaur the young artist (age 9)had to have some idea of what she wanted to make before she started and then have the skills to shape the idea in clay and finally to glaze the model.In this last process the young artist had the help of an adult potter who knew about glazes and resulting colours. The result, when it emerged from the kiln, was a moment of real excitement - a transformational experience.

Creativity is a word often heard in classrooms but, all too often, what is called creative is often derivative or , through over teaching, the results for all students much the same. Quality maybe but not creativity.

Creativity is all about making choices and the results should reflect the 'voice' or individuality of the students whether a piece of writing, art, or scientific report.

And although there are steps to be taken most of the important decision are made intuitively as the artist becomes engrossed in the 'flow' of the process.

This is best seen in the process of painting. A conventional artist knows what they want to paint before they start and hold to their original intention until finished. By holding onto preconceived notions, without responding, the painting will lack a sense of creativity.

This is the case with much of the art ones sees in school where teacher work from pre-planned intention or defined criteria.

Original artists , with equal technical skills, start with a deeply felt needs but they are prepared to modify their goal as the painting unfolds in response to the unexpected colours and shapes emerging.The finished work may not even resemble the original intention.

Such an artist is responsive to their inner feelings and know intuitively what they want as the painting 'emerges'.

The appreciation of the importance of making choices, while involved in the process is, in is any area of learning, vitally important if we really value developing students with creative mindsets.

Creative people start with an often vague idea of what they want to accomplish and are prepared to discover as they go along using feedback gained in the process to suggest new developments. To work like this a person must have knowledge of the area involved and the confidence to be able to cope with open ended situations by choosing or discarding the right elements.

Creative leaders and teachers work in the same way.Unfortunately this is all too often in conflict of those who 'manage' schools or who teach in school systems that hold on to the limiting desire to measure a narrow range of standards. Teachers, who teach in such uncreative situations, will resort to 'painting by numbers' or 'teaching to the tests'.

The role for teachers, or leaders, who understand the creative process, is to create the conditions to encourage ideas to 'emerge'.Teachers can help people with idea generation, particularly those who have lost the confidence, to take responsibility for their own actions.


As the process unfolds , by means of 'learning conversations', teachers can help their students focus on the important things but aways only as much as is needed to keep the 'flow' going. Even encouraging people just to make a start and then to keep what works is valuable. Appreciating the creative process is a messy one is important for both learners and teachers as is the need to encourage the perseverance and 'stickability' to keep going.

Students should be helped to assess their work as it progresses and teachers can introduce idea they 'could' ( not should) think about.

When the creative process is understood all students can develop creativity and classrooms should celebrate and reflect the diversity of ideas and styles of the students.

If anything is done really well, to the point that the results 'surprise' the students, then this feeling of success can literally transform the attitudes of the students themselves.

A view from the edge

Stephanie Pace Marshall



We live in an increasingly uncertain world and it is during such times that successful individuals need to have the confidence to try thing even if they don’t know what to do. It is this attitude of mind that will get them into the future.

Unfortunately our schools, particularly our secondary schools, were developed with old industrial aged minds and unless they change dramatically such schools will not be able to cope with the needs of their increasingly diverse students. A fragmented mass one size fits all system cannot transform itself in a personalized learning community without upsetting the status quo. Tinkering will not do. The growing number of disengaged students will force change on schools whether they like it or not.

Developing confident creative life long learner is the essence of our ‘new’ New Zealand Curriculum. I say 'new' because there is really little that is really new in it – it is just that those who wrote the curriculum have thankfully caught up with the game. Schools need to be relevant and meaningful to all students not just the academic.

The challenge is well expressed by gifted American teacher and space shuttle astronaut Stephanie Pace Marshal who has said, ‘The liberation of genius and goodness of all children, the creation of new minds, and creating learning communities that invite and challenge the wonder and awe of the human spirit’ Addressing her fellow teachers she asks. ‘Is this the work you want to do?’

If so we have a long way to go.

Uncertainty about the future ought to encourage in us courageous thinking. ‘The future is uncertain’, writes Physicist Ilya Prigogine, ‘but this uncertainty I sat the very heart of human creativity’. The previous governments New Zealand Curriculum, while admittedly not new, was an important official step in the right direction seeing, as it does all students as ‘seekers, users and creators of their own knowledge’. It is a curriculum which places ‘intellectual curiosity at the heart of all learning’.

This ambitious 212stCentury curriculum, with its emphasis on learning how to learn competencies infused in relevant learning contexts could set the scene for developing the talented citizens our country needs to survive in uncertain times.

Instead all is being put at risk by a reactionary imposition by a populist government determined to introduce testing basic standards, the introduction of which has narrowed the curriculum in other countries. This obsession with winning the achievement stakes will create an environment, according to creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson, where ‘teachers pore over variances in achievement with intensity and value of voodoo chiefs staring at bones’ and distract teachers from providing real, but less easily measured, desire to learn.

Recently the UK Cambridge Review of Primary education presented a damming indictment of primary education, stating that an overemphasis on testing the skills of reading, writing and maths is compromising student’s natural curiosity, imagination and love of learning. ‘Basic skills’ now take up over 50% of all learning time, a situation that would be common in NZ schools even without testing! The report is critical of the politicisation of basic skills in a way that is detrimental to more rewarding learning. This subversion of learning has been distorted by their equivalent of the Education Review Office. (Ofsted).

Educationalist Roland Barth has written that , ‘many of our schools seem en route to becoming a hybrid of a nineteenth century factory, a twentieth century minimal security penal colony ,and a twentieth century education testing service’. No wonder we are having problems with behaviour and truancy.

Real learning, or creativity, according to Sir Ken Robinson, is about tapping into the natural grain of young people’s dispositions. He warns us that ‘mining our student’s heads’ to achieve higher literacy and numeracy scores means we neglect other, just as important, qualities and talents. ‘Creativity is just as important as literacy and numeracy’, he writes. And thinking expert, Guy Claxton, echoes Sir Ken by saying ‘learnacy is just as important as literacy and numeracy’ He writes, in his powerful book, ‘What’s the Point of School’, that we ought to be focusing on developing the ‘learning power’ of all students.

Negative school experiences, even for the so called successful, Robinson writes, ‘stamps us with deep impressions of ourselves’ impressions that can be ‘negative and hard to remove’. ‘This success or failure’, he writes, ‘can affect our image of ourselves for life’ and he reminds us that some of the most brilliant successful people, in all walks of life, failed education. Unfortunately many school failures never recover!

‘Re-engaging’ learners, or keeping them ‘engaged’, requires more than a focus on literacy and numeracy, it require new thinking. Futurist Dan Pink writes that the future will ‘require that the current domination of the left brained technocratic information age needs to give way to right brained qualities of inventiveness, empathy and making new meaning’; all implicit in out ‘new’ curriculum.

Even Canadian consultant Michael Fullan, one of the originators of the failed UK testing and ‘league tables’ , has had second thoughts believing now that it now is important to ‘broaden and widen’ definitions of literacy and numeracy. His ‘widening and deepening’ look like our key competencies! But he still conservatively sticks to placing the emphasis on them rather than seeing such important areas ‘reframed’ so as to focus on, and contribute to, inquiry learning. This is the advice of highly respected educator, Linda Darling-Hammond, in her latest book ‘Powerful Learning’. This is a book all principals (and politicians) should read. She is one of President Obama’s advisers.

My advice ‘from the edge’ is for teachers and schools to stand firm on the implementation of the ‘new’ New Zealand Curriculums and to fight hard against the imposition of the flailed political agenda of national testing and the possibility of demeaning ‘league tables’ of any sort.

The Cambridge review’s solution is to introduce a new curriculum which sounds very much like our own ‘new’ one. The review message is a wake up call to NZ schools to protect the creative opportunities the NZC provides from the interference of politicians.

We do need to ensure every student leaves our school system ‘confident creative life long learners’. Unpacking this rhetoric is the real challenge for schools the success of which will solve many of the problems currently created by trying to fit students into a ‘one size fits all’ system. As the saying goes ‘if the only game in town is poker, and there are some very good chess players, then the chess players will be handicapped’.

We need to work hard to personalize our schools so as to provide unique pathways for every learner so as to value the learning identities, cultures, the gifts, and ‘voices’ of all our students.

It is worth reminding ourselves that all young people are born with an evolutionary disposition to learn and to keep this desire alive is the challenge for us all. We need to recognize and amplify every learners extraordinary natural capacities; we need to observe them to see what area of strengths they have and then to build on them Real creativity, writes Sir Ken Robinson, ‘comes from finding your medium, from being in your element’ and that ‘discovering this right medium is often a tidal moment in the creative life of the individual.’

Teaching is about creating the conditions for all students to realize their potential; for all students to have the opportunity to be their own ‘seekers, users, and creators of their own knowledge’. ‘The dream begins ‘ said Dan Rather, ‘with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called the truth.’

To achieve the right conditions will require courageous leadership and faith in the creative potential of teachers. Teachers who if given the right conditions will do the best for all their students

Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of such a vision. Not even politicians!

National's 'populist' Standards

John Key a master at populist and rear vision thinking: imposing National Standards – is this the best we can do in the 21stC?


An image that sticks in my mind before last years election was the then Leader of the opposition Mr Key driving in a car looking over his shoulder and saying, ‘vote for me and I will ensure all students leave literate and numerate’.

It now seems an appropriate metaphor for the proposed reactionary backward looking literacy and numeracy standards his government plans to impose.

As part of John Key’s ‘crusade’ ‘national standards will be set in literacy and numeracy; every primary and intermediate student will be assessed regularly against National Standards; and every…school will report to parents in plain English.’ Proposed requirements suggest report to parents, to the BOT and reports to the Ministry. The first are common practice, the report to the Ministry is problematic.

On the surface national testing sounds appealing. Shouldn’t all schools be measured regularly to see how well they are delivering programmes in literacy and numeracy? And ought not parents to be informed so they can see how well their children are doing and how their children (or school) stacks up against others? On the surface it seems like a good idea.

Before the politicians rush in to sort out teachers and schools it would be advisable to think about the consequences of such simplistic ideas. National testing is an idea from the past and has had a long history full of unintended consequences. Teaching and learning is far too complex to be assessed by such simplistic measures. As Margaret Wheatley has written in her book, ‘Leadership and the New Science’, it not the targets you hit that count, it is the ones you miss because you were to busy focusing on the ones you have been told to aim for.

In the UK students are regularly tested from an early age and the schools results are published in what are called ‘league tables’ creating ‘winner and loser’ schools. These lists do not even take into account the socio economic environment that the schools are sited in; hardly a ‘level playing field!’

None the less achievement scores in literacy and numeracy did rise in the UK but over time scores have levelled out and now are tracking down. UK educationalist Guy Claxton has written in his inspiring book, ‘What’s the Point of School,’ that other surveys have shown that students have lost interest in the areas targeted– no doubt because of all the pressures. Claxton, and others such as Sir Robert Winston, are reporting a disturbing rise of anxiety in English students. Claxton writes that a side product of measurable improved achievement results is also killing the joy of teaching.

In the USA test results place so much pressure on principals to see their schools succeed that they pass this pressure right on to their teachers – and teachers in turn to their students. Scotland, being a little more perceptive, has wisely avoided the ‘league table’ concept. We should at least achieve a similar position in New Zealand if common sense prevails.

In the USA, as part of George Bush’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ (NCLB) testing programmes, there has been a distortion of the educative process as stressed teachers narrow their teaching and ‘teach to the tests’. As a result in both the UK and the USA enlightened teaching is being replaced by imposed expectations and as a result, in both countries, there is less emphasis on the creative arts, cultural studies, and environmental and social issues let alone the need to focus on identified future capabilities (our ‘key competencies’) that all students will need to thrive in such uncertain times.

This distortion of education, as we enter the 21stC, is too big a price for any society to pay and is hardly ethical or moral for students whose gifts and talents lie in other areas.

As we enter a new age, some are calling the ‘Second Renaissance’ or ‘The Age of Creativity’, it is vital that schools are not diverted from their real tasks of developing the gifts and talents of all their students – including the ‘foundation skills’ of literacy and numeracy. That school are currently not achieving worthwhile learning for all students (we still have 20% of our students who leave without any school qualification) developing the gifts of all students ought to be the focus for a visionary new government.

As we leave the now failing Industrial Age it is ironic that the new government, which prides itself on individuality, freedom and enterprise, is about to impose initiatives with their genesis in a Victorian Age that will restrict the spontaneity, creativity of both teachers and students.

Contrary to the opinion that our politicians have spread, that our schools are not currently focusing on literacy and numeracy, the opposite is true. An English commentator has written that in the UK ‘literacy and numeracy have all but gobbled up the entire curriculum’. Imposing National Standards will create a similar situation in NZ.

Perceptive educationalist Kelvin Smythe has written that New Zealand school are too dominated by testing, ‘schools are already assessed up to the gunwales…the last think they need is more pressure from the Review Office for even more assessment….some of the tests schools are encouraged to use are overblown, providing lots of data and little information.’ Kelvin Squire, previously a president of the NZPPF has written, ‘I’ve travelled all over the world with the Principal’s Federation and I have seen it doesn’t work’. Rather bravely he continues, ‘I’d resist national testing, do civil disobedience, if I had to!’

In Australia the same political agenda is being followed. According to past Director General of Queensland Phil Cullen this measurement obsessed mentality is destroying the true purpose of education. He quotes Alfie Kohn, one of Americas most outspoken critic of testing, who writes, ‘ a plague has been sweeping through schools wiping out the most innovative instruction and beating down some of the best teachers…ironically this has been released in the name of improving schools invoking such terms as tougher standards.. this heavy handed, top down, test driven version of school reform…is turning schools into test prep centres, effectively closing off intellectual inquiry and undermining enthusiasm for learning..this is a political movement that must be opposed.’

Lester Flockton, in the NZPPF Magazine November 09, writes that ‘it is unfair to expect that schools alone should be accountable for the educational malaise….schools are good but they cannot overcome deep deficits’. Kelvin Squire has also written ‘it is all too easy to fix blame on schools and then only to offer populist solutions’.Lester Flockton has written, ‘that national standards get it right when they include a well balanced and interrelated set of abilities and dispositions including those which are not reality, or appropriately measurable by tests .e.g. enjoyment and engagement in reading.’ And he writes they ‘must cause no harm’.

There is no doubt that the concept of National Standards is a major break from current practice and there is also no doubt that, if imposed, they will cause unintended consequences to the detriment of teacher creativity. An unnecessary tension will be created between imposed expectations and creative education that will dramatically affect the schools ability to provide a rich and full curriculum. If test results were to be passed on to the Ministry this would result in teachers teaching to the tests. What we don’t want is for the ‘assessment tail to wag the dog’!

The solving of the so called ‘achievement tail’ will need more than imposed tests by a ‘big brother’ state. We all need to face up to the challenge of this ‘achievement tail’ (along with rising prison and crime rates and environmental issues). Challenges created by past misguided political decisions will only be solved when social inequality, the growing ‘rich poor gap’, is faced up to

Strongly missing from the debate by the present government is any mention of the new New Zealand Curriculum, a curriculum seen by such people as Canadian Educator Dean Fink, as leading the world. It would be a shame if the real advantages of this curriculum were to be sidelined by the standards debate.

The New Zealand Curriculum is an exciting curriculum for the future –and one that pays due respect for literacy and numeracy. If there is a need for assessment then our future citizens will need to be assessed for their full range of talents, their attitudes towards learning, and their ability to self assess, self monitor, and self regulate themselves. Any assessment ought to be broad enough to ensure students become ‘confident life- long learner’ and ‘seekers, users and creators of their own knowledge' that our new curriculum asks of schools.

To ensure that the creative spirit of this curriculum is not overpowered by narrow literacy and numeracy testing will require courageous principals able to have the confidence to create the conditions to protect creative teachers from misguided policies. Even today even excellent principals exhibit what some call ‘anticipatory dread’ at the thought of an upcoming ERO visit. National Standards will increase the demeaning pressure of this escalating technocratic audit culture by adding new levels of ambiguity and confusion about how to interpret expectations. Solving such messy challenges, such as aligning different sources of evidence to make a ‘best fit’ with National Standards in sensible ways, ought not to be the focus of school leaders; this would be waste of their valuable time and energy. Who will want to be a principal as they turn into accountants? What’s the bet that, as confusion mounts, that contracts will be given to develop uniform tests able to compare school with school? This will be the beginning of the end of the creative teaching and school innovation that New Zealand educators have been long recognised for worldwide.


If we had appropriate authentic tests (tasks) then it would be advisable to teach towards them, but with narrow tests focusing on literacy and numeracy this survival strategy would be suicidal. Powerful forms of assessment should focus on ‘whole’ learning tasks – performances of writing, reading, ability to research, and demonstrations, exhibitions and presentations. Such a multiple approach to assessment provides a ‘better picture’ of the whole child and provides wide ranging evidence to share with parents and the Review Office. This is what innovative school and creative teachers are already doing. Assessment expert Paul Williams tells us that, ‘successful learning occurs when learners have ownership of their learning; when they understand the goals they are aiming for; when crucially, they are motivated and have the skills to achieve success’. This research is duplicated by John Hattie who has written that learning is dependent on positive learner teacher relationships and that the prescription for student learning is clear, ‘dollops of feedback, specific and changing goals , and a constant attention to asking how am in going?’.

These well researched approaches to assessment and purposeful teaching seems to have bi-passed our politicians who obviously have their own agendas to back their simplistic and populist proposals.

Creativity and diversity in our schools, not mediocre conformity, will be the mark of a successful creative 21stC country.



One thing is clear. National Standards are more about politics than learning. They have more to do with fixing blame than creating solutions. They will do little to serve the interests of the students who ought to expect more of us. The real revolution will not come about by collecting and analyzing more data. We already have tons of data thanks to our computers that we don’t use very well now.


Schools will only improve when they are designed to engage the humans inside them – schools that focus on nourishing and amplifying the abundant innate creativity of our students. The proposed National Standards, and the inevitable bureaucratic systems that will be created, will only divert the valuable energy to achieve this.

If we want to be a creative country we need to ensure all the talents and gifts of all our students are realised. If we want our future citizens to be able to use their creativity and imagination, to solve problems that are beyond current thinking, then we really have no choice. It is unfortunate that envisioning such a creative education system seems beyond our current leadership who find their answers looking backwards into the past when they ought instead to have the ‘future in their bones’.

Maybe it is time for some civil disobedience? As Albert Einstein wrote, ‘Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.’ He also wrote, ’Imagination is more important than knowledge. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, require creative imagination and marks real advance in science.’

Last words from a NZ teacher now living in Victoria.

‘We are right into national testing over here. There is now national testing of all year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students. It used to be only in the other states. We were told we were lagging behind these other states. We also have online testing in numeracy and maths with the results going to the Department. Our reports are also put directly into the Department. This is done three times a year. Accountability is everything, dont worry about the teaching. We are told that it does not matter where the student’s starts our job is to get then up to the national average and they are trying to bring in performance pay as well.’

So much for the ‘nanny state’ of the previous Labour Government - bring on ‘big brother’!

‘With all the best intentions in the world we are stealing the kid’s future’. Alvin Toffler

Checking out your class, or school, for quality learning.

Is your classroom a quality learning environment where students are able to 'seek, use and create their own knowledge' as it states in the 'new' New Zealand Curriculum?

Here are some questions to focus on.


1 Are your students self managing able to set and achieve their own goals, or plans, and able to show continual quality improvement in all they do ( in Japan this incremental growth is called 'kaizen').

2 Do you 'negotiate' ( to ensure 'ownership') with the students what is expected in any learning task and demonstrate these expectations by 'focused teaching', 'scaffolding' ( giving temporary help), modelling, demonstrating or 'thinking aloud'?

3 Do you make use of literacy time to teach 'seeking , using and creating' skills needed to work independently when involved in inquiry learning. Some call this idea of developing prior understanding, or skills, 'front loading', or 're framing' literacy and numeracy, to service inquiry learning.)

4 Do students appreciate that creativity and quality are more important than quantity; to appreciate the need to 'do fewer things well' and where to improve on their 'personal best' is internalized?

5 A a teacher have you defined, with students, how to design and present their research and language work and does the students' book work show continual improvement ('kaizen'') both in presentation and quality of ideas? Some schools have 're-invented' students' books as a form of 'portfolio' to send home to demonstrate growth to parents during the year.

6 As a teacher to you see the need to cover fewer topics in depth so as to ensure depth understanding rather than trying cover too many things superficially?

7 Are you as a teacher, and are your students, aware of the strategies involved in any activity and are students able to articulate what it is they are doing and why?

8 Can you , and your students, articulate the basic inquiry model being used to underpin all learning in the class ( or school)?

9 Can you, and your students, articulate the 'key competencies' ( or future learning capabilities) that all students need to internalize to become 'confident life long learners'?

10 Do you 'negotiate with' your students the criteria for assessment of any task so they can self assess their own learning and are able to set new goals. ( It is important to ensure that individual creativity is one of the criteria to avoid standardization)

11 Is there evidence that classrooms are well organised ( by tasks for language, maths and inquiry tasks defined on whiteboards or blackboards) to allow both teacher interaction ( to provide guidance and feedback) and for students to be able to work and interact independently.

12 Do the room environment displays reflect creative quality achievement across the curriculum and do these displays both celebrate and inform students finished work by using: headings, key questions, processes and evaluations as necessary. Is there evidence of both student's 'prior' and 'post' ideas?

13 Is there any evidence of agreed school, class or school communal behavioural values?

14 Do you monitor your teaching against agreed school beliefs ( or such a set of questions as these) as an integral part of self appraisal and can you show new ideas you are trialling or that you have introduced to improve your teaching?

15 Are you able to articulate the school vision, values and teaching beliefs and can the students, and their parents, do so in their own words?.

If the answers are positive for most of the above then the class is true creative learning community?

If it applies to all classrooms the school is a learning community.

Reflection on my teaching beliefs

Reflection of Mamaku fern frond in a lake.

Recently I read an article by educationalist Andy Hargreaves who wrote about 'Four Ways' of educational change since the 1960s. His thoughts reflected many of the thoughts about educational changes that have concerned me over the years. It is obvious that what 'officially counts' in education is driven by forces beyond the classroom. The creativity of the 60s that 'emerged' out of decade of security following the Second World War, is a good example and was when my education journey, or story , began. The creative education arising out of this era is Hargreaves 'First Way'.

This is worth thinking about for there are many, including myself, that believe we are now entering a new age of creativity - some even call it a 'second Renaissance'. If this is so then many of our current organisations, with their genesis in an industrial age, will need dramatic transformation, as will, more importantly our mindsets. We will need new minds for a new millennium.

We will need to create networks of creative schools so as to to be in the forefront of such exciting changes. To achieve this schools, and their communities, need to stop and think about what is required of education in such exciting and very unpredictable times. Traditional education just won't do.

Back to my beliefs.

Ensuring all students leave formal schools 'creative confident life long learners' able to seek, use and create their own knowledge', as stated in our 'new' New Zealand Curriculum, is number one for me. Currently there are many students who leave less than confident and creative, and far from equipped to thrive, or contribute, to a new creative era. Developing the gifts and talents of all students ought to be the focus of education.

Creative teachers, led by creative leaders, in concert with the wider community, are the key to future education writes Hargreaves. We have long way to go. The past decades, the 60 and 70s excluded, have not been an easy time for creative teachers. They have been decades of standardised curriculums, accountablity, and compliance requirements and make up Hargreaves 'Second and Third Ways'.

Creating schools as creative learning communities ( 'communities of inquiry') is the future 'Fourth Way'. Such learning communities need to based around students, at all levels, exploring authentic learning challenges, integrating the 'foundation skills' of literacy and numeracy into inquiry learning, learning 'how to learn' attitudes and skills ( or 'key competencies'), and, in the process, digging deeply into all the appropriate learning areas or disciplines. Such an education will demand new roles for students as inquirers, teachers as learning 'coaches' or advisers and principals as leaders who are skilled in establishing the conditions to allow this. Very few schools work in such creative holistic ways.

Such communities ought to be examples of democracy in practice where everyone involved 'voice' is valued and listened to. Democratic school simply do not currently exist! It is time to apply the democratic ideals espoused by John Dewey over a century ago!

My more specific beliefs add greater definition to the possibility of developing creative learning.

To achieve all students as confident learners, with positive learning identities, we need to place our emphasis in valuing their interests, their questions, their ideas( theories), their cultures and their immediate environment. With such an approach a relevant curriculum will 'emerge' ; one that will lead into the need to explore traditional disciplines. This would turn traditional preplanned prescribed curriculums on their ear.

Really valuing each students 'voice' and 'choice' will obviously be important. Creative classrooms ( the whole school environment) should celebrate students' creativity, their writing, their art and their research . To achieve such 'personalisation' of learning ( the agenda for the new century) we will have to leave behind out current orientation towards the 'standardised' learning more suited to an a failing industrial age. In too many school the students 'voice' is silent

A source for much of students learning, other than that arising out of student's interests and concerns, needs to centred exploring their immediate natural, man made, and historical environment. It will be important to develop in students a strong sense of place by developing an awareness and appreciation of their environment. As a part of this environmental education it will be necessary to value educating learners sensory awareness and their ability to interpret and express what is experienced creativity through a range of 'frameworks' or intelligences ( Howard Gardner).

Underpinning such learning is a 'co -constructivist' approach where 'teachers' and learners work side by side to develop in depth understandings in whatever area is being studied. It is an approach often called 'Inquiry Learning' or 'negotiating the curriculum' and is often a messy process at the beginning of any study. This is essentially a creative process of discovering as you learn. For teachers who see learning as transmission from teacher to learner such teaching is a real challenge.

New ways of teaching will need new ways of assessing. Simply stated the best way to assess what students can do is for them to demonstrate what they have learnt by means: of listening to them, by examples of their work on display, portfolios, performances and exhibitions, including innovative use of ICT. Such assessment offers a challenge to the traditional ideas of standardised testing. While it will always be important to value the students processes of learning ('key competencies') it is equally valuable for students to produce work of real excellence and quality. When student produce work beyond their current expectations ( and often also their teachers) these are important transformational moments for the learner and are almost impossible to measure. These are moments of personal pride resulting in attitudinal change and often providing motivation for life long learning.

Reflecting on such beliefs it is obvious that many of them are already in place in many classrooms although few schools come to mind. With the exception of ICT most of the ideas were in place in classrooms in the 1960s. The past politicized changes of the past decades, resulting in a surveillance accountability culture, has imposed a compliance mentality on our schools and has not been kind to creative education

The new 'creative era' asks of us to have the courage to bring creative teaching to the fore once again.It will require schools to work with others by creating networks to share expertise and ideas; and to work with parents and communities to ensure all develop an unformed understanding of the value of such approaches for their individual children, their communities and the nation. All students leaving school as confidant learners is a more positive ideal than presently 20% of students leaving disengaged and alienated!

We need to develop the creativity of the 60s again but this time to do it better. This was the essence of Hargreaves 'Fourth Way'.

Lets start the reflection, school community by school community, and begin the 'Great Debate'!

What do we all need to be life long learners?

We are all born with an innate need to learn so as to make sense of, and learn from, our experiences. The question is why do so many students lose this natural disposition?

While the government is determined to introduce national standards in literacy and numeracy the bigger question is to ask is, 'why so many students are currently failing in our schools'? To load it all on to a perceived lack of standards in literacy and numeracy is just to simplistic.

The danger is while schools place their focus on the implications of national testing they may lose focus on what education is all about. The government is placing far too much on our schools to solve problems more often caused beyond the gates of the school. Worse still national standards simply haven't worked in countries they have been introduced - instead they have distorted the educational process and narrowed the curriculum in the process.

If we want all our students to succeed and to become the 'confident life long learners' desired by our 'new' New Zealand Curriculum then we have to look deeper than literacy and numeracy, as important as they obviously are.

We need to ask what kind of world our students will be entering. One thing is certain it will no be a predictable one and their 'passport' to the future will need to contain fully developed gifts and talents along with the dispositions to learn from whatever experience they will have to face ( in the language of the 'new' curriculum be equipped with 'key competencies'). Our current education system marginalizes student's creativity and talents and this will be worsened with national standards.

For students to remain positive towards learning our classrooms learning communities need to provide students with the following vital elements.

Students need to be given choice about what it is they are to learn. Classrooms should feature their sense of curiosity, their confidence to ask questions and celebrate their ideas. From their choices and decision making they will learn the importance of taking responsibility and to appreciate consequences of their actions.

The second element to value is students sense of identity and 'voice'. All students need to feel they matter. Students bring to the class great diversity of experiences talents and cultures to share with other students. All students need to feel a sense of belonging ; of being accepted for who they are and that they have ideas of value to contribute.

Thirdly students in classroom need to feel a growing sense of competence or 'learning power'. Competence is gained when students are given the time and help to do things as well as they can. When students 'surprise' themselves and achieve beyond what they have previously done, positive learning attitudes develop. To achieve this requires students 'digging deeply' into their learning, persevering, making use of whatever skills are required and in the process appreciating the need to do do 'fewer things well'.

Finally students need to have fun- to experience the joy of learning. True learning experiences are transformational - they change who we are in the process.

If teachers can provide the above in their classrooms students will want to learn. They will need to use literacy and numeracy to solve their problems and also to enjoy them for their own sake. Students will become ,as our 'new' curriculum asks of teachers, seekers, users and creators of their own knowledge'.

'Engaging' students would not be a problem in such classrooms - there would be no such thing as failure.