Inquiry Learning; an educational agenda for a future era.

Professor Brian Cox ( Chief Science Adviser to the UK Government) doing science on the Jonathon Ross TV Show. Science , according to Cox, is being comfortable with the unknown- a search for questions in answers. Almost the opposite to what current education is all about with the heavy formulaic emphasis on teachers' intentions, criteria and pleasing the teacher through feedback. Conformity rather than creativity.

The future requires developing schools as communities of inquiry.

1 What is inquiry learning?

Inquiry learning is the innate way humans learn from birth unfortunately this 'default' mode is all too often ‘flipped’ by schooling writes Daniel Pink’s in his book 'Drive'.In this respect scientists and artists are people who have not lost their innate inquiry dispositions.

Inquiry ought to be central to learning in the 21stC just as the ‘Three Rs’ were in Industrial Age.The New Zealand Curriculum asks teachers to develop their students as ‘seekers, users, and creators of their own knowledge’ as inquirers, ‘meaning hunters and makers’; constructing their own meanings from experiences.

All Learning Areas emphasize an inquiry a model although there is not a section on inquiry pulling ideas together. The pedagogy section essentially sees learning as a constructive approach with teachers as learning advisers. The Thinking key Competency, in particular, is all about developing an inquiry disposition (‘seekers, users and creators’).

Inquiry education has a long history going back to John Dewey (‘learning through experience’) and was, and still is, in conflict with traditional content transmission teaching which still underpins much of current practice. Until this dilemma is faced inquiry education will not be successful.

I have been a convert to inquiry learning since the 60s and believe that creative teachers (then and now) hold the key to fully developing inquiry learning for the 21stC. Elwyn Richardson (see his book ‘In the Early World’) developed his class as a 'community of scientists and artists busy exploring and expressing their ideas about their local environment’. In Taranaki, in the late 60s and 70s, integrated inquiry based programmes were developed by Howard Wilson (first integrated study in Taranaki) Bill Guild, Robin Clegg and John Cunningham. Similar developments were being actioned throughout New Zealand.

All this was 'torpedoed' by the 'blitzkrieg' of nonsense resulting from the introduction of the technocratic New Zealand Curriculum in the 80s with its strands, levels, incoherent learning objectives and unrealistic assessment demands. Creativity was the last thing looked for by ERO- and still is!

Schools are still recovering from the surveillance culture imposed!

Today we stand at a crossroad – one side the revised 2007 NZC (basically an inquiry document) and on the other the current formulaic ‘best practices’ literacy/ numeracy approaches (with their heavy accountability requirements).On the horizon the reactionary National Standards with the possibly morphing into National Testing.

It is Weta workshop education v a McDonald’s crossroads. It, however, is not one or the other decision but a matter of emphasis. Inquiry supported by literacy and numeracy (as ‘foundations skills) not literacy and numeracy plus inquiry if time allows as at present

It is about how schools spent their time.

2 What Inquiry dispositions do students need?

Our students will have to face up to a very unpredictable future and will no longer have jobs for life. ‘Students will need to know what to do when they do not know what to do’ says Piaget and Costa, or ‘to be comfortable with the unknown’says Prof Brian Cox UK Adviser in Science, or to 'enjoy the challenges of creativity' says Sir Ken Robinson.

'Future-proofing' students is the basis for the NZC Key Competencies, Art Costa’s ‘Habits of Mind’, or Guy Claxton’s ‘learning power’. It is about learning ‘how to learn’.

Dispositions to encourage include:Question asking/ wondering/ curiosity/ openness to ideas/a need to know. An ability to observe closely/ to describe observations (writing and drawing) to answer questions.The ability to learn through senses and emotional interest ( so as to uncover questions).To happily change their minds (their ‘prior ideas’) when challenged by new evidence. To continually deepen their understandings about selected content. And to develop a widening ‘portfolio’ of interests and talents (Sir Ken Robinson)

All this points towards a personalized approach to learning – one valuing the ‘voice’ and learning identity of each student and this is in conflict with current traditional (‘teachers know best’) teaching approaches.

3 The role of literacy and numeracy programmes in the 21st C

Literacy, in particular, plays a key role in Inquiry learning if we want to transfer skills. We need to see reading and writing as thinking. Students need, as stated in the revised curriculum, to be taught how to ‘seek, use (critically) and create their own knowledge’. Unpacking this phrase is the key to inquiry.

To do so literacy needs to be ‘re framed’ to ‘front load’ content and skills to ensure in depth inquiry learning. (All too often literacy and numeracy stand alone and skills taught are not transferred).Inquiry content needs to be used for comprehension and ‘key’ question answering. Research writing needs to be taught so as to go beyond ‘cut and paste’. It is good advice to never set a question that can be answered with one 'click' of google! Teachers need to encourage their students to use their own ‘voice’.This can be recognised by ‘markers’ such as 'I used too think but now…’ Students need to be able to write position papers or reports about their inquiries. Inquiry vocabulary can be introduced in literacy time. Students also need to be taught (using inquiry content) how to use various ICT media. Poems, even handwriting practice, needs to relate to the current inquiry. Modeling science experiments recording in literacy or numeracy time is a valuable idea and introduces students to physical science thinking all too often missing these days. Numeracy time should be used to introduce any practical mathematical skills needed e.g. graphing.Design presentation layout skills (computer wizards) need to be taught and bookwork ought to show qualitative growth throughout the year – to be seen as portfolio of progress.

4 A basic Inquiry Model –an attitude of mind –a human disposition

We use inquiry in all aspects of our life; it is often called‘enlightened trial and error’. All inquiry models have the same elements (a learning cycle) of a problem to solve or an issue to explore; questions defined; research or activities undertaken; presentation of ideas; and reflection to consider what has been learnt.

The Learning in Science (a co-constructivist model) is good stuff. Problem or issue defined; what are children’s ‘prior ideas’/skills; experiments /research activities; and reflection on new learning.

Each Learning Area provides variations on the inquiry models. Many schools use Kath Murdock’s model: tuning in; finding out; sorting out; going further; now what; reflection. Others use Yoram Horpaz's ‘fertile questions’ approach (Israel) and others Garth Boomer Australia approach: What do we know already?; What do we want to find out about?; Who will do what and when?; How will we know when we have finished?

James Beane ( a USA Middle school educator) outlines a process where at the beginning of the year students are asked to write out concern and things they would like to learn about. Student responses are then developed into the year’s curriculum. This is also called Negotiating the Curriculum. Students’ ideas tend to reflect traditional learning areas

5 What is the role of teacher in the 21stC?

The teacher in an inquiry approach acts as an interactive and diagnostic learning coach ensuring any skills required for quality thinking are in place. Inquiry teachers responds sensitively to students’ questions, ideas and needs to ensure all students can show continual quality improvement (‘personal best’). As Jerome Bruner says, ‘teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation’.

An inquiry based teacher establishes positive relationships of respect with every learner and tailors assistance personally where possible. Such teachers follow Vygotsky advice, ‘What learners can do with help today she/he can do by themselves tomorrow’ Scaffolding.

Inquiry based teachers negotiates with studies, activities and assessment criteria so as to share responsibility with students.They establishes predicable classroom organizations (group timetables) so all students know what to expect and to allow for teacher diagnostic interaction with students who need assistance.

Inquiry teachers ensure the room environment (the main ‘message system) both celebrates student creativity and informs all who visit.


6 The importance of rich, real, rigorous and relevant studies

Most current inquiry is shallow and superficial with students gathering information with no real interrogation and ‘disconnected’ from literacy and numeracy blocks.

To get in depth thinking it is important to do ‘fewer things well’ ( as in the revised NZC) and to ‘dig’ deeply into what is being studied.

Whatever is chosen needs to be explored through as many intelligences as possible and leads to integrated learning. Teachers need to be selective. Each study should result in three or four focused outcomes: research based on 3 or four ‘key’ questions) including ‘prior’ ideas and references; perhaps an observational drawing, descriptive writing or diagrams; and possibly a creative activity. Students should use ICT as appropriate.

Inquiry studies could last up to five weeks. Week one for negotiating questions and activities; week two for rotary group work (some work drafted in literacy time); week three finishing off and extension work; and week four evaluating success of the unit.

Teachers need to see the need to introduce their students to a set of themes to cover during the year (two a term?) based on the strands of the Learning Areas. Some studies could cover several Learning Areas. Some studies might ‘emerge' and become ‘mini units’. All studies and themes need to be seen as a means for individual students to uncover and to develop their talents.

Possible themes:

Environmental studies (term one and four)
Physical science /technology/maths study (term two and three)
(Above two linked to science/maths fairs?)
Local heritage study (term one or four)
Maoritanga study (could combine with above)
One of the creative arts (drama, dance, music) as an intensive study – linked with Arts Festival.
A modern cultural comparison – to develop a ‘feeling for’ other cultures.
An historical comparison - as above (both in term 2 and 3)
An independent study – in Term four as an ‘authentic’ assessment of inquiry skills.

7 What would the evidence be of inquiry learning?

Students exhibit curiosity about whatever captures their attention or imagination ( be ‘seekers, users and creators of the own knowledge’).They would be responsible for much of their own learning able to work independently calling on teacher as required (or if the teacher has seen a need to interact to assist). These skills are the essence of the modern work force.

Evidence would be seen of clearly defined class expectations to allow for independent focused learning. This could be seen by negotiated rotary group task in literacy (language arts), numeracy, and inquiry groups. The latter is rarely seen.

Inquiry based classrooms would reflect a community of scientists (and artists) busy exploring issues of importance to them, equipped with all the key competencies and inquiry and expressive skills to achieve personal excellence.

The current inquiry topic would be integral to the whole day’s programme providing the current study, supplying the energy and inspiration for the day work.

In inquiry based rooms students’ bookwork, and work on display, or in electronic portfolios, should show students ‘voice, their thoughts arguments, justified opinions, new knowledge, even unanswered questions should be seen.

Most of all in an inquiry room students ought to be able to undertake an independent study using key questions, ‘prior’ ideas, research proposals and research/experiments/ data, including an evaluation of their learning and possible future actions.

The room environment would reflect the current inquiry from key questions to completed research, work displayed reflecting student ‘voice’ and individuality.

8 To conclude.

A 21stC education needs to be based on ensuring all students retain (and expand) their innate inquiry dispositions ( the key competencies).

The need to develop the gifts and talents of all students is the challenge of 21st education through in depth understandings/ exhibitions/performances.

To develop inquiry based classrooms ‘literacy (and to a lesser degree numeracy) need to be refamed to develop in-depth comprehension of content is vital. Literacy and numeracy need to be seen as vital ‘foundation skills' to develop all students as ‘confident life long learners' able to 'seek, use and create their own knowledge.’

I know of no school that has as yet achieved a truly inquiry based programme but several are working towards it.

Teachers' minds 'colonised' by formulaic teaching? We need a creative alternative.

A Battlefield for the Minds of our Students


There is a battle being fought for the minds of our future citizens between those who see education as a means to achieve narrow political or economic ends versus those who see education as developing the full potential, or gifts and talents, of all students.

The current government’s desire to introduce reactionary national standards into primary schools has polarized the situation but clarified the issue for teachers.

The politicians view teachers as both the problem and the solution to introducing their National Standards. In contrast the teachers, while appreciating their importance, see the problematic ‘achievement tail’ as the result of difficult home circumstances and wider social issues.

On one side stand the conservatives with their minds firmly fixed on solutions with their genesis in the industrial era; an era of efficiency, control, of measuring a narrow set of targets and standardisation. These conservatives who push this populist point of view are tapping into the insecurity of parents and their need for reassurance in these difficult times.

On the other side but less secure in their vision, stand educators who see the need for a new mindset for a new age; these visionaries see the traditional school structures and culture as part of the problem, unable to develop the full potential of all students.

Ironically the Ministry of Education is seemingly pushing both points of view. The reactionary standards agenda on one hand and, in opposition, the revised New Zealand Curriculum with its vision of ensuring all students leaving school as ‘confident life long learners’ with the competencies in place to thrive in an uncertain and ambiguous world. There is no doubt where the Minister and her Ministry stands – for standards solutions from the past. They can’t have it both ways.

As result of these confusing agendas teachers find themselves in an educational ‘no mans land’ facing both the past and the future, uncertain of which direction to face. The excitement sparked by the revised New Zealand Curriculum has been clouded by the confusion created by the political standards agenda. Schools are being pressurised by the Ministry to follow the government’s stance, placing their personal integrity and professionalism at real risk. Hardly the best position for schools to be in to ensure their students are equipped to face up to the very real challenges the future holds, challenges that will require citizens with confidence and creativity.

From my recent experience in schools most teachers seem trapped in no mans land -and, worse still, many teachers seem unaware of the battle going on. These teachers have been colonised by the formulaic 'best prectice' teaching approach being peddled by contracted literacy and numeracy advisers. It can only get worse when the Minister appoints her squads of literacy and numeracy shock troops backed by ERO.


There is a need need for creativity and imagination; an alternative vision.A vision premised on the importance of the arts and of creativity generally. Such a vision is not new it just need to be followed by schools. The revised New Zealand Curriculum provides such a guideline and foresees students as ‘seekers, users and creators of their own knowledge’. This curriculum, if implemented, provides the means to escape from ‘no mans land’.

To realise such a vision requires the replacement of the current failing ‘machine metaphor’ with a creative ‘living system metaphor.’ A living metaphor would encourage those involved to act and learn, as the very young, or artists or scientists. For teachers who like tidiness and efficiency this creative vision would provide a problem because it is very difficult to measure progress in a continually evolving learning situation.The current drive in New Zealand to gain instant results, through standards, is simplistic and will inevitably encourage a surveillance culture and a risk-averse mentality.

To escape from ‘no mans land’ teachers need to find a way out of the mechanistic status quo and to reach for that unknown future. If we are to realise, what some perceptive futurists call, a Second Renaissance or Age of Creativity we urgently require our students to develop new competencies, allowing them to thrive in uncertain times.

Until the situation is resolved creative teachers find themselves locked in a power struggle for the shape of the future minds of our students. There is plenty of ingenuity or creativity to call on but far too much teacher energy is being wasted by those in authority (including principals) who want to keep things exactly as the way they are.

Positive learning attitudes come from students completing work of personal excellence in the arts and the sciences – or indeed in any area of purposeful endeavor. When students are engrossed in such activities they often lose any sense of time and this is the power of engagement, of fully living. One has to wonder why, when and where, the emotional intensity and curiosity to learn of the very young is lost.

Teachers who have succeeded in developing such powerful learners have encouraged their students to slow the pace of their work, to do fewer things well (in depth) and in the process have helped students savour and appreciate each learning experience for its own sake. When such a level of involvement is achieved the work and the worker become as one, lost in satisfaction of real learning.

There are many educators who can lead us out of ‘no mans land’ we are in. Many names come to mind: Elliot Eisner, Sir Ken Robinson, Guy Claxton, Maxine Greene, John Dewey, Howard Gardner, Art Costa, Linda Darling-Hammond, William Glasser, Daniel Pink and Carol Dweck are names that come to mind.

In New Zealand many teachers still cling tenaciously to a holistic teaching model that developed in the 60s and 70s. This approach was led by Dr Beeby, the then Director of Education, and spread by the Art Advisers of the day. Along with creative teachers and schools, past and present, these ideas provide a true alternative to the current highly rationalised and standardised approach that schools currently suffer under. A return to a creative and personalised education is the agenda I enthusiastically support along with people like Kelvin Smythe, Mac Stevenson and Perry Rush and his friends. And lots of others I hope.

We are are asking teachers to makes choices and judgments about their schools' future rather than meekly complying, or ‘going along to get along’ with Ministy requirements. Who wants to live in perpetual ‘no mans land’?

Finally we will have no choice. As Sir Ken Robinson reminds us, ‘changes are sweeping the world that have no historical precedents…no other period in human history could match the present one in the sheer scale, speed and global complexity the changes and changes we face’.

It will not be an easy journey and when the seas seem far too treacherous and the stars too distant to face we should remember Robert Browning’s observation that a “man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for”’


Up until now the current structures of education have all but destroyed this capacity to imagine by attempts to standardise and measure learning. Terrance Deal, the business philosopher, has written poetically that, ‘teachers need, above all, to dream and dance and to impart their joy of learning to young people. Unless they do schools will never get better'.

We need to take Sir Ken Robinson’s advice and connect with our student’s talents and passions and develop ‘a new appreciation of the importance of nurturing human talent. Robinson visualises future schools where every person is inspired to grow creatively.

The source of school failure

From the Sydney Morning Herald Today










One in five Melbourne four-year-olds have difficulty using or understanding language, a new study has found, putting them at risk of long-term learning difficulties.

The study of 1900 children, published today in the journal Pediatrics, found that social disadvantage played a major role in the language outcomes of four-year-olds - despite having little effect at age two.

Lead researcher Professor Sheena Reilly said her team found large variation in language at two, with some children not yet speaking and others saying hundreds of words.The average vocabulary was 280 words, but one child in the study was using more than 600 words.

She said the different outcomes at two were largely explained by genetics - with girls doing better than boys, and those with a family history of speech or reading problems more likely to have problems.

'When we looked at things like socio-economic status, mothers' education and vocabulary, they didn't seem to explain what was happening in those young kids,'' she said.

'When we got to four, biology was still really important but social disadvantage suddenly became really important as well. So these two things balanced together are obviously explaining much of the outcomes at four.'

Professor Reilly, of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and Melbourne University, said it was possible that disadvantage had a cumulative effect on children's language outcomes over time.

'So it was always there, but you really start to see this diverging gap between the kids who are and are not disadvantaged as they get older, and the richness of language becomes really important,' she said. 'If you're not exposed to [rich language], you're really missing out.'

Professor Reilly said some children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and whose genetics also predisposed them to language difficulties, suffered a 'double whammy'.

For four-year-olds who still have difficulties, Professor Reilly said, the study suggested that enriching language in the homes of disadvantaged children could help improve outcomes.

'In some children it might be as simple as talking to them a bit more and turning off the TV, reading books, or playing interactive games that encourage the child to use language and give them an opportunity to listen,' she said.

'Language skills are foundation skills and if they are starting school … not as prepared as the rest of the children, they're not going to be able to take off. Our fear is that this gap will get even bigger.'


Seems like common sense to me.

What all children need are rich sensory experiences in the company of caring adults. 'Before the word comes the experience'.

We need to bring back those neglected language experience programmes. We need to help chidren explore their immediate enviroment and express what they see. We also need to value their own experiences as the basis of early reading and writing.

Such ideas would be a better solution than the false promise of jolly phonics!

And, if we could develop this richness of experience from an early age, we wouldn't need the reactionary populist simplistic standards so loved by politicians and conservative parents.

Standardisation or creativity; McDonalds or Weta Workshops?

Anybody who spends time in a classroom soon appreciates that children do not arrive in standardised packages. They have similarities and differences and, as they grow, diversity should be part of the process.That is unless we want them all to be the same. Weta workshops employ a wide range of individuals many of whom may well have not done well in academic learning.Workers at McDonalds, in contrast, are trained in clone like precision. Lucky for McDonalds there are no below average potatoes to worry about.

Canadian educationalist contributed the following to an Education Today Magazine. If time visit his website

The term “standards” is particularly topical in New Zealand and thrown around very loosely everywhere else especially by the right-wing press as some panacea for everything it perceives is wrong with schools and teachers.

On the surface there is nothing wrong with articulating expectations for students.

There is a substantial research base for suggesting that effective teachers hold high expectations for all learners. Indeed one could argue to not have high expectations for all learners is inhumane.

But as anyone who has spent five minutes in a classroom will know, the parents keep sending the ‘wrong’ kids. They don’t come to us in nice little homogeneous packages ready and keen to learn whatever it is we have to offer and for whom common immutable standards are appropriate or even possible. Children differ in every way we humans can differ and yet politicians and some academics expect common outcomes.

I’m surprised that the New Zealand government with its nations long history of democratic education, its attention to minority children, and its very enlightened and progressive 2007 curriculum is prepared to risk all this in the mistaken belief that defining standards will magically eliminate underachievement in its schools.

Without rehashing the for or against arguments, the very vagueness and spin that people put on the term standards is what is of concern, because in most countries that have gone the standards route ‘standards’ have become standardized - standardized curriculum, standardized, tests, standardized teaching which contrary to American rhetoric, results in many children being ‘left behind’.

The pattern is quite universal - declare a crisis, impose standards in a big hurry to avoid debate, then impose measures to ensure compliance with the standards, declare the results of the measures unsatisfactory, blame the teachers and the schools for poor performance, label critics whiners and wimps for using poverty and endemic unemployment as crutches for their own failures.

For schools and teachers it is a ‘catch-22’. If schools refuse to play the game and resist, they are branded as malcontents and worse, or if they work hard and raise levels of student achievement, especially on standardized tests, then the critics will declare that the tests are too easy and schools are still failing. The trick is I suspect, to resist at the right time.

Once the standards-standardization train gets rolling it is impossible to resist. For New Zealand, the train hasn’t quite left the station, and working with and using standards in conjunction with an enlightened curriculum to optimize learning is still possible. At the moment, a reasonable case can be made that well developed and thought out standards as defined in terms expectations for learning can enrich the curriculum. As long as time to reach the standards is a variable, standards can work.

But once the tests come and the meaning becomes more punitive and adversarial and all children are to arrive at the same place at the same time in their learning then my advice is to fight like hell for the sake of your kids and state-supported education.

Just look at the educational ‘train-wrecks’ in the U.S. and U.K.

Sadly for those who see standards as a ‘quick and easy’ way to reform education the route to quality education remains the same - develop a well-educated, well-paid, dedicated teaching cadre, promote leaders who are leaders of learning, and ensure equitable educational opportunities for all.

Not very sexy I’m afraid but tried and true.

Time for some real inquiry

How many yellow flower per square metre? How many white flowers? Run a line across and counts numbers of flowers touched ( a line transect). Great maths. What are these flowers? Look , draw and research. Simple stuff but fun. While you are at it lie down in the lawn and write what you feel -maybe a three line poem. Get kids to explore through their senses. All too simple I guess.Could be all over in an hour or so.

The world is full of things to explore, to inquire into, or to wonder about.How come so few teachers seem to understand this simple idea. If you look around your school ( or your classroom) at this time of year you ought to see rooms full of inquiries - particularly exploring the environment. My experience, however, is that you won't see much. Just lots of literacy and numeracy and little else. Even the art is formulaic. Boy have we lost the plot over the years. So much for all this 'best practice' and an obsession with testing. Might as well go the whole hog and get into National Standards.

Term four , with the weather improving, is time to get out and about and to explore the immediate environment. And in term four all the students should have in place all the literacy ( language expressive arts), observational skills ( basis of art and science) numeracy and science skills to work independently. I, of course, realize that this is not the case! Hope I am wrong!

Here are some suggestions:

What plants grow along side the roadside, the fence line or in a waste area. Choose one to study. You don't need to know the names of the plants.Just number or invent names for them.Or take digital photos with macro lens setting. As the study progresses children will learn a few of the common and scientific names. Study one plants in depth during literacy time and later children can choose one to study for themselves. Develop some criteria to use to study e.g shape of leaves? height? spread? how common? describe flowers or seeds etc? Is it a weed -what is a weed?

Study a common flower as a class to 'scaffold' how students could study plant of their own choice in their own garden. Once again children could gain real knowledge as the study progresses. For art, after looking at some real flowers ( observational drawing), invent some magic flowers in a vase. Write a few thought poems. Forget this genre nonsense!

What plants grow in your school lawn?

Study the monarch and swan plant.

What do children know about common vegetables.Display some vegetable .Draw them. Cross sections of some plants are interesting. Research the history of common vegetables and where they originated from.

Study a tree of note in the school grounds.

What are the common birds in the school grounds?

Once you start looking the ideas are endless -and then there are pieces of bush, swamp, and seashore to study.

Why bore kids with teacher planned lessons - there is a world of difference to explore 'just outside the window'.

A small inquiry study - and some big issues.

Teachers should always be on the alert for inquiry challenges for their students. Teaching,as Jerome Bruner says, 'is the canny art of intellectual temptation'. At this time of the years, if inquiry learning has been central to learning, students ought by now to have in place all the skills to be able to do so. This presumes that the literacy time has been made full use of to develop the NZC 'seeking, using and creating skills'. Inqury skills ought to have been introduced (and 'scaffolded') by teachers during the year. The best assessment of learning is not all the tests teachers currenty give students , often out of context, but to get students to choose and complete an independent study of their own choice.

I bet few kids can! the ability to inquire is the point of real life learning!

November is the time to take a close look at a flax plant as they are now in full flower. Most schools have a few plants in their school grounds; some even are close to flax plants growing in their natural habitat.

What do your students know about flax bushes? Do they know anything of the plant itself as a species? How many have flax in their home gardens? Do they know any thing about its place in Maori culture? Do they know anything about the place of flax in early European commerce?

If not what about a mini inquiry unit - possibly a chance to introduce some real inquiry skills before the class is given a choice of studies for a final 'authentic' assessment.

If you want some help here is a link to assist you.
And another.

While I talking about 'real' inquiry it was enlightening to read Kelvin Smythe's recent comments about developing a 'feeling for' approach to learning. He comments that most 'so called' inquiry learning is more 'finding out' about rather than developing a 'feeling for' inquiry - or if studying other cultures the people themselves.

He writes:

There is another way to the curriculum, ironically, it is our way, our holistic way, which had its antecedence in the late ‘30s, its burgeoning in the ‘40s through the ‘60s, and its embedded influence in classroom practice and decision-making until the ‘80s when New Zealand education became dominated by the managerialist and quantitative philosophy imported from America, and by such accompanying metaphors as accountability, external reviews, stakeholders, provider capture, assessment, national standards, achievement objectives, skills, and education as a science.

This other way still retains influence in many of our practices and in the hearts and minds of those who have directly experienced it and who are dismayed that education has lost its soul to a system designed by politicians, education bureaucrats and quantitative academics for ease of political and bureaucratic control.

The feeling for approach to social studies.... was one of those curriculum practices influenced by the holistic philosophy and was to become a reasonably significant expression of it, before, too, it was eclipsed by the managerialist and quantitative philosophy of the ‘80s. It was an approach to social studies which had as its purpose the developing of a feeling for the people being studied by gaining a considerable amount of information about those people in an interesting way, to powerful affective effect – which is a key characteristic of the holistic.

Those interesting ways encompassed such characteristics as using real contexts, divergent and imaginative thinking, and genuine problem solving. All this organised by a dynamic main aim which permitted considerable teaching and learning manoeuvre, supported by a few aims, with achievement objectives eschewed as objectives, but embraced as criteria for observational criteria – another key characteristic of the holistic.

As well as the main aim to tie the feeling for approach to social studies together was the idea of teaching as an art in which the teacher with a feeling for the feeling for made decisions that made it all work for children.

The feeling for basis to the curriculum is based on the affective through cognitive challenge, on children gaining knowledge and understandings that combine to have significant affective effect. The holistic nature of the feeling for basis to the curriculum is based on the integration of the affective, cognitive, and skill through an overarching main aim. This main aim is so designed to provide both considerable teaching and learning freedom and definite teaching and learning coherence. Skills being given attention to the extent they are used for gaining and using knowledge.

The label ‘feeling for’ is used because it points, in the first instance, directly to the child, not some abstract programme quality. It means considerably more than children expressing interest or enthusiasm for their learning; it is about an affective response being established that is so stable and powerful as to invoke the transformational and, on occasion, to achieve it.

The way a feeling for is established, and the nature and focus of that feeling for, will, of course, vary from curriculum area to curriculum area:

1. In social studies the focus will be on getting close to the people and human situations being considered.

2. In science, often using real-life contexts, on the spirit and adventure of finding out about the natural, physical world, and the wider universe.

3. In the arts, on sincerity of observation, effectiveness of expression, and exploration and discovery (the arts can often be presented to children as something to be done rather than something to be resolved).

4. In writing, according to purpose, writing with sincerity and clarity (expressive), with persuasiveness and clarity (argument), with logic and clarity (expository) – ‘clarity’ encompassing everything from style, to sentence and paragraph structure, to grammar, to spelling, to presentation.

5. In reading, on developing an abiding love for the act of reading (yes, the ‘I can read’ emphasis of our holistic reading philosophy had it right).

6. In maths, often using real-life contexts, on the spirit and adventure of finding out about the use of patterns and relationships in quantities, space, and time (it comes as a revelation to children that maths can about ideas, not just ‘facts’, therefore disputable).

7. In technology, often using real-life contexts, on abilities that are deeply significant to them (I am referring to practical life abilities as against systems theories – for instance, on healthy cooking in the home rather than food processing in a factory).

8. In health, often using real-life contexts, on health matters as problematic

For those who are sick of the current managerial approach to learning read his full article. And get some real insight into what lies behind National Standards.

I am not so sure how many teachers and schools are currently introducing integrated or holistic studies to their children.

Most schools I visit seem to place all their focus on literacy and numeracy- and the National Standards will continue this distorted emphasis.

Literacy and numeracy ought to be seen for what they are - vital 'foundation skills' necessary to ensure students are able to continue 'seeking, using and creating their own knowledge'; inquiry learning.

Let's have some real creativity!

Too many teachers and principals have become sidetracked by data collection and compliance requirements - some even believe in them. All this has created a surveillance risk averse culture, all about conformity, compromise and being controlled and is nothing to do with creativity. Too many principals have become unwittingly part of the problem.

Lets be honest, there never was that much creativity in our schools. They have aways been more conservative than innovative and this includes many so called child-centred primary teachers. Creativity is seen when students and teacher diversity is appreciated, experiential learning valued, and where students complete powerful personal 'products' following up their own ideas in: in depth research, poetic writing, the creative arts - including these days information technology. The 'default mode' for most primary teachers is literacy and numeracy first and others areas in the time remaining. Over the years I have worked with some truly creative teachers ( and far fewer principals ) and it their ideas I share. Nothing of any real creativity has come from recent 'delivery' orientated contracted advisers yet, in past days, such advisers were the key to creative thinking. Must be time for me to go!

Sir Ken Robinson is to give a keynote at a conference in Palmerston North late next January. He should be inspirational. As I am also to give a keynote I will be present to hear him. But I am betting that, after all is said, little will be done. The ground is just not right for creativity to catch on - hopefully I am wrong. Maybe Sir Ken will be the catalyst we need to escape current formulaic teaching?

True creativity involves an element of tension as it is always not clear as to what will be finally achieved. Decisions and choices have to made along the way , often without full understanding, which grows and evolves in the process. This is in contrast with the current, so called scientific management model which insists on predetermined goals, intentions and 'what are (we) learning today'( WALT). True science is about being comfortable about the unknown and is an area involving creativity - being both open and skeptical.

Sir Ken Robinson has written that we have a problem as worrying as the ecological strip mining of our environmental resources. There is, he writes, a crisis of the mind - we are strip mining children's brains in our focus on delivering literacy and numeracy. In this obsessive process teachers are unaware of the talents not being looked for. As a result too many students simply end up by enduring school and too many never find out what they are good at - even the so called successful achievers; few end up loving learning. The future depends on encouraging and developing the talents of all children. Until we do we will aways have an 'achievement tail'; kids who see no point in school without a home culture to support them to persist.

Most people, according to creativity expert Robert Fritz, can't cope with creativity because they want quick answers and don't like living in the realm of not knowing, the very essence of science and creativity. Such people, he says, are intolerant of these moments of confusion not appreciating that it is such confusions that are the best learning moments of all. In such times creative people (artists or scientists) discover original ideas and where people go beyond usual ways of solving problems; when Fritz says, 'creativity gets into gear'.

Fritz writes that we are frightened of discrepancies and our instincts are to solve problems and end the tension of not knowing. Creativity accepts not knowing , happy to try out unusual ideas even if they 'feel' uncomfortable. Being creative means accepting such 'feelings'

Fritz writes that many creative people are happy to leave the problem for a while, to sleep on the problem, and, as a result, new ideas often emerge. Creativity needs time. Leaving the problem unresolved provides the tension for ideas to be generated.

This perception of creativity is different from what teachers often call creativity where children are encouraged to 'be creative' and to accept whatever is given. Fritz's definition is deeper and slower not just fun and messing around. Fritz is about focusing the mind on the problem not just freeing the mind and picking from the best ideas to solve the problem on the spot. True creative people think deeply about the problem they are trying to solve without rushing in to solving it. This Fritz writes is problem solving but it is not necessarily creative.

The mind is a sucker for quick answers and theories even if little real understanding is gained. Fritz quotes Sherlock Holmes who, when asked by his poor hapless Watson, if he suspected anyone, said, "Yes. Myself.Of coming to an answer prematurely".

So let's have more creativity ( unknowability) and less data collection and premature superficial thinking. And let's help our students develop their talents - in whatever area that attracts them.

This is what marks out the few creative teachers I like ( mostly liked) to work with. Too many teachers ( and most principals) are just too busy trying to solve imposed compliance problems to understand let alone risk creativity.

Authentic Assessment.

Students in school I loved to visit have found a wasps nest in the school grounds. After local expertise was used to destroy the nest, and with the teachers help, the students set about to study wasps and how they organise themselves. They sorted out their questions , worked out what they already knew and involved themselves in , as the revised curriculum says, 'seeking, using and creating their own knowledge'. They took the nest a part , drew what they saw, completed drawing of the various stages in the wasps life cycle and read all about wasp 'culture' to answer their questions in their own words. All their research work was presented using charts each one representing individual children's thoughts and drawings. They also painted what they felt interesting,and wrote their creative thoughts.

The quality of their presentations were really impressive having been taught how to layout their work artistically.

This is what learning is all about. Shame it is not so common these days. These students easily applied what skills they had gained to undertake individually chosen studies which the teacher used to assess progress and to determine what extra help was required.


It seems strange to use the term authentic assessment. It implies that much of the assessment used in schools is inauthentic. Which, of course, I believe it is.

If I wanted to see how well students can apply what they have been taught is to ask them to undertake an independent study with no help from the teachers -except for the normal bit of advice as required.

This form of assessment would tell me all about the children's attitudes, independence, research reading skills, writing skills, design and presentation skills and their ability to present their ideas making use of their own 'voice' or individuality. To me this would be more valuable that all the current 'evidence based' data collecting teaching that consumes teachers today.

It would also tell me how good the teaching had been prior to the task - this is why the best time for such a challenge is in Term Four, after all the skills had been 'scaffolded' into place. Students need to be able to transfer what they have learnt , by exhibiting, demonstrating, or applying. Any other sort of assessment may result in paper achievement only.

Most of such an authentic assessment task would demonstrate if students had learnt the lesson of doing something well rather than the more common, and faster, 'cutting and pasting' approach.

By term four students should have internalised the criteria for completing such a study but teachers could clarify, or renegotiate, them before the task.

Suitability of the study chosen.
Quality of the key questions.
Indication of their prior knowledge.
Quality of observation and written descriptions as required.
Depth of understanding seen through written research
Use of diagrams and focused illustrations
Quality of s design and presentation.

Teachers who enter their students into science or maths fairs will be aware of such criteria. Students need to have understood that assessment will focus on depth of their understanding - quality of thought not quantity.

Be interesting to see how students would handle such a task. I have my doubts many students could achieve what some of us used to use as our main form of assessing our teaching?

I certainly see little evidence of real student authentic research.

Such a task could begin as early as year three -even earlier.

Jamie Oliver - educator!

Jamie Oliver, the enthusiastic TV chef is a man on a mission. He is on a crusade to encourage young people to eat healthy food. After trying to improve UK school dinners he is now in the heart of the US, the centre of fast foods eating, trying to encourage schools to provide healthy school dinners.


I just happened to switch on to watching Jamie Oliver last night and it was an enlightening experience.
Jamie had evidently upset a town in Virginia but suggesting that the local were eating unhealthily. I think he must have inferred that they were eating the wrong foods and putting their lives,and the lives of their children, at risk.All to do with obesity. Pretty brave for a pom ,and a cockney at that, telling the Americans how to eat!

In the programme Jamie was working in an elementary school for a week to see if he could tempt the students with some healthy food.

I enjoyed the programme for two reasons.One was an opportunity to look into elementary classrooms and, of course, the food eating experiment. As for the classrooms over the years I have visited thousand of rooms and feel I am a pretty good judge of what makes a child-centred learning environment. All I can say that if NZ is determined to follow the American idea of standardized testing and standards it wasn't a good advertisement for inspiring education. Any New Zealand junior classroom would look like paradise in comparison but maybe I am biased. Standardised teaching and little to see of students 'voice' and authentic inquiry work. All bland like their school meals.

But that wasn't what the programme was all about.

Jamie's first effort to provide his idea of healthy food was a giant flop. All the young students lined up to empty most of his food into the bin.

Jamie was stunned. Evidently the UK primary kids had enjoyed the variety he offered.

Jamie's next move was to work with some young six year olds to show them how a chicken can be cut into various parts and then he , with a kitchen whiz, minced up all the body , bones, and skin ( also a few other ingredients) and then made the results into chicken nuggets. All the way through he emphasized that what he was using was all the left over bits. The kids were impressed with Jamie's lesson ( he was using a big knife to cut up the chicken) but when he cooked up the off cuts as patties he asked the children if they would like to eat them. To his surprise ,and disappointment, they all were enthusiastic about the opportunity. Evidently a similar experiment in the UK turned the kids off such processed food!

Undaunted he decided to see how much the children new about common vegetables. He brought into a junior room a collection of supermarket fresh vegetables. I guess he was after their 'prior knowledge'. Well the results surprised him as it did myself. I am aware modern children seem to have lost touch about the realities of where their food comes from but the young Americans had no idea at all .Couldn't recognise tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflower -any of the vegetables Jamie showed them.

When the young students were shown pictures of common fast foods they all knew every possible offering! Real experts in this area.

At the end of the week, as the result of the teacher setting up a display of vegetables, the children when 'tested' by Jamie, could recognise them all.

Another big experiment involved parents and their children. Using a big tarpaulin he put in a weeks worth of chocolate milk, all the school processed food, and all the fat involved- this shocked the parents who expressed a change of heart about school meals. Real education.

With his last attempt to provide healthy school meals Jamie provided another school meal and this time he had more success gaining permission from the school principal and the superintendent to continue with the experiment - but he had to keep an eye on expenses!

Obesity is a real problem worldwide and Jamie is working against a populist tide.
Jamie also worked with one family that all seemed to have serious weight problems. He arranged for them all to visit a doctor for a check up and they all learned the possible future dire scenarios for their health - including diabetes.

This family have agreed to try to change their eating habits and Jamie is teaching the fourteen year old overweight boy how to cook and, in the process, lose weight nad feel better for it.

Next week he is going to try to change high school students eating habits - one thing he learnt was that the school dinner providers see french fries as vegetables!

Finding out about food knowledge and preferences and how much fast food is eaten by children in our classes would make a great integrated authentic study? I am aware that many children have lost any real knowledge of their natural world but are they losing knowledge about where their food comes from?

Worth a study?
Maybe more important than National Standards as I would bet the children in the so called 'achievement tail' ( really a socio economic tail) eat more than their fair share of fast food?

Creative emergence or planning studies

Can life be planned or, in an ever evolving world, do we need to be equipped with the confidence and the dispositions to learn from whatever experiences we encounter? Traditional school people seem to believe that, without teacher planning, their students would learn little. In contrast creative educators believe that it is all about creating the conditions necessary for students to develop their innate talents. The teachers who hold the second view, of course, do need to have considerable knowledge ( or know where to point their students ) to ensure their students potential is realized.

The very young and adult artists and scientists have the attributes of 'life long learners' - to be 'seekers, users and creators of the own knowledge' as the NZC states. As Professor Brian Cox , the UK Governments Science Adviser, says , ' the point of science is to be comfortable with the unknown'. Explorers of all ages, to ' fly' like an eagle, need to be both open to new ideas and skeptical of authority.

The other day I was asked by a principal a of a small school if I had 'any links to research or examples of institutions delivering a school curriculum over a set number of years? By that I mean a policy of integrated studies areas being comprehensively covered over maybe 2-3 years rather than attempting to cover everything in one school year.I would love to see any examples of such a programme or even have links to any research you may know of'.

I guess I was the wrong person to ask because I believe such planning does more harm than good because it discounts the questions and concerns that emerge from any group of curious children. As a result students see school as something that is done to them rather than something they learn to do for themselves.

The teaching profession has always been full of 'experts', in the various subject areas, who determine what content young people should learn. Recently we have had imposed on schools the idea of national standards that all students have to achieve. As yet they have not 'morphed' into national tests but one doesn't have to have crystal ball to see what will evolve. National Standards withstanding current education is already infected by pre-planned intentional thinking. Even the most child centred classroom is really students having fun doing what teachers think they need to do. Literacy and numeracy the two worst offenders. No student, it seems, would ever learn to read or do maths if teachers didn't set about testing and teaching them .

Socrates, two thousand years ago, worked our what teaching was all about about; listening to his students , their question, and asking questions of them. He believed his peasant boy Memo already had all the geometry in his head - his role was to help him clarify his ideas. Even his 'mate' Plato wrote that 'the task of the teacher is not to place knowledge in where it does not exist, but rather to lead the minds eye that it might be see for itself'.

And for two thousand years we have ignored their advice. Experts, who know better than creative teacher, have no faith in students innate ability to make sense of their own experiences. They have pushed their lists of content , or learning objectives, or standards, on teachers. And too many teachers, believing in planning, have gone along with them.

So back to the query from the teacher.

All I could do was share a few (diconfirming) ideas with him.

I wrote: 'I have never believed it is important to define an integrated inquiry program over a number of years. Just too complicated and inflexible. The important thing is to develop in students the dispositions, attitudes and competences they will need to continue their life long learning quest. These key competencies are outlined in the NZC and are similar to the 'habits of mind' of Art Costa , or the 'powerful learning ' of Guy Claxton.

With this in mind it is vitally important to develop the 'seeking, using and creating knowledge' asked for in the NZC in the literacy block and, where possible, in the numeracy block. All too often these are developed as stand alone areas of learning. And worse still take up much of the whole day!

So the challenge is to ensure all students 'learn' through a series of experiences how to 'seek' knowledge ( using their own questions) to 'use' it ( not just cutting and pasting but showing students 'voice' and opinions) and to 'create' ( products of originality in writing, art and project work).

To achieve such self motivated resourceful learners requires them being involved in rich, real, relevant and rigorous challenges. Some of these challenges might be part of self contained language or maths topics but the best are integrated and generative inquiry studies that spin out into all sorts of curriculum areas'.

My advice to him was to, 'each year to cover ( two a term usually) a range of content area studies. These can be developed by looking the various strands in the learning areas ( excluding maths and language) and developing eight or so themes to cover each year. The next step is to ask the students themselves what they would like to learn more about and the issues and concerns that worry them? From such a process a teacher could co-develop a curriculum involving their students. Any topics or questions that 'emerge' ('teachable moments') should be also be taken advantage if - it is the dispositions that teachers need to always keep in mind and the talents their students are developing'.

'As for the themes that need to be covered the ones that come to mind are:

Environmental studies ( mainly natural science); heritage study - European history; Maoritanga; Science technology - physical science; a creative arts theme ( visual art, drams or music in-depth study) etc. Make up your own list by combining strands from various areas. Another thought is a Communication ICT theme. A great idea is in term four, for year 3 and above, for students to select and do their own individual research study. This is a great way to assess if students can use all the various skills you have hopefully taught them during the year'.

'Three points to keep in mind'.

'At the beginning of the year plan out the eight or so studies. Leave room for studies that just emerge. At the end of the year make a record of what studies were actually undertaken -as plans might have changed during the year. Use these to see what areas have been missed to plan for the next year and to ensure that students do not get involved in repetition.

It is important to cover a range of themes to give every learner a chance to find out what they like - their own particular set of interests or talents ( multiple intelligences)

For each study plan three or for major outcomes to encourage depth of thinking and to encourage students to do fewer things well. Each outcome will indicate skills that will need to in place or to be taught to achieve quality results in literacy time.

Outcomes could be: a research presentation where students answer three or four open questions (this might be a PowerPoint but usually involves research language work); a piece creative or expressive writing based on the theme; and a piece of creative art work'.

Finally

'The studies selected must become the driving motivation for the whole day as much as is possible - and the reason to teach reading and comprehension and presentation skills in the literacy time (and as much as possible numeracy time as well)'.

The teacher thanked me for my advice and said he would think about it. I think it was probably both the wrong question and the wrong answer.

Most teachers these days are avid planners and data collectors - to concerned with proving achievement to really trust themselves or their students. Technicians teaching by numbers - imposing their intentions on their students

Teachers in such a formulaic and dysfunctional system are no longer creative.

Plant a native garden

I have just been helping plan and plant a small native garden.

The idea of developing small native garden in the school grounds makes an ideal integrated inquiry study. And the time and weather is right for the task.

The ideal garden could feature mainly smaller alpine natives as there are a wonderful range of plants to choose from.

If you are interested first find a suitable site - open and sunny is the best. Measure it up to work out how many square metres you have.

Then start your research.

What plants might be suitable? Who could help you? There are a a number of suitable books with good photos and information to get ideas from. Another idea is to look around your environment to see similar gardens and capture their ideas with a digital camera. Note how close they are planted and maybe you will see that often plants are planted in groups. Maybe there is a parent or local who can help you select plants

Draw up a list of suitable plants ( with digital photos) and display on class wall. Do some research on selected plants.

Now to involved in some more mathematics. When you find your source of plants you will get an idea of the costs involved. How will you go about finding the money? Maybe the BOT can help you or you could get involved in some fundraising?

Possibly it is a good idea to start small and restrict yourselves to fifteen or twenty plants. With small natives look for ones with interesting shapes as well as flowers.

When you have you plants the fun begins.

By now you will have begun to develop some real knowledge about your plants -mainly how big they grow or spread.

Place then out and move them around until you are happy. This might be a good time to have a little local expertise to call on.

Learn how to plant them properly and finish the job.

Over the next months ( or years) watch them grow.You will soon find out which ones really like where you have planted them and you might have to replace the odd one.

It is fun watching how gardens turn out and by now you will have learnt a lot about plants. Maybe some of you might like to become botanists or landscape artists?

The class might even like to begin to propagate some plants of their own -many grow from cuttings but you will need to do your own research. This is real learning.

Maybe you could make study of a local piece of bush and even begin to care for it?

Environmental Awareness

A collection of rewarewa leaves and flowers -and a ceramic tui. Tuis feed off the rewarewa, commonly called for this very reason honeysuckle . From such collection an interesting painting could evolve.

As I wander around my garden, or as I walk down the driveway to a school, I am always on the lookout for ideas to share with young people - trouble is these days I don't have a class or a school to share such ideas with.

I was pleased, while visiting a local school, when a teacher on seeing me, rushed over to ask me to visit her classroom. She wanted to show me the results of a kowhai study that she had based on one of my recent blogs.

This time of the year the Rewarewa ( or Honeysuckle) is in flower and around their base you can pick up flowers , last years seed 'pods' and of course leaves.

Rewarewa are a common native tree and are well worth a study. It maybe possible to visit a tree or at least bring a few flowers and seed 'pods' along for children to wonder about, to observe and to draw.

Students need to be encouraged to look carefully, use their senses and, if drawn, to take their time, to go slow, so as to produce work of quality. It is important for students to learn to do things well. As they draw children can be encouraged to note their thought and their questions.

Following this books can be used to 'research' and develop their knowledge.

All this might lead into bush study or at least looking for native trees in the school grounds, or even buying a rewarewa tree to plant in the school.

Personally I believe that such small scale studies are vital to develop environmental awareness and will lead students to develop a love of their environment and then onto the more adult idea of sustainability.

The great thing is teachers can learn alongside their students and get away from the idea that teachers need to know first and then teach which seems to underpin much of what passes as teaching these days. This is demeaning for learners.

Children are born learners and are equipped with ways to learn that schools need to encourage. Adults are at best resources students can call on but their main role is to create the conditions for children to want to learn. It was Jerome Bruner who wrote that 'teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation'.

And a long time a go that wonderful teacher Socrates simply asked questions of his students believing that the knowledge was within.

Another Greek Plato wisely wrote that the 'task of the teacher is not to place knowledge where it does not exist but to lead the minds eye that it might see for itself'.

So my advice to to keep you eyes open for ideas to 'tempt' children and then help them learn for themselves. Spring is the time to develop this awareness.Such a lot of things to notice if you keep you eyes open. November is the best time for a harakeke, or NZ flax, study.

It is time to stop teaching and become co-learners.

It is about ensuring students become ' seekers, users, and creators of their own knowledge ' as it says in the revised New Zealand Curriculum.

More fun and easier.

What messages does your school pass on to students?

This students' mural of going to school in the 'olden days' gives pretty clear 'message' about what was important in such times. The green lipped backboards is central and, along the walls, the olden days equivalent of laptops . The clock stands front centre representing the importance of the timetable and a 'special needs ' corner complete with dunces hat. I am not sure that they were ever used in New Zealand? Spot the mistakes. The students are facing away from the board .In earlier days desks were screwed to the floor - no moving around allowed. And the teacher ought to be immense as she, or he, ruled supreme. In her hand is a cane or, in my time a length of supplejack, or leather strap. Note the ceramic ink wells in the desks.

What school was all about was clear. Obedience, conformity, no talking and the 'three Rs'. In those times classes were called standards - maybe this is where Mrs Tolley is taking us. This approach to education lasted up until the late 1950s -and in many ways is still the standard village dance in many secondary school classrooms.

The other day I had occasion to look at a teachers timetable for the coming term and I considered the 'message' it was giving to both the teacher and their students. All the morning were to be spent on literacy and numeracy with the afternoons given to art, te reo, technology and sports. The afternoons only went from 1.30 to 3.00. An inquiry topic seemed absent. Little emphasis was placed on students 'voice', cultures, or the various aspects of the local environment. It seems that nothing much has changed in this school?

The following are some clues to determine the 'messages' of a school?

The use of time is a major clue.


The first thing to look for in a primary school is how time is apportioned out during the day.

In a secondary school note how all students are timetabled, sorted, and graded. If learning is fragmented as if a factory it results in a ‘hardening of the categories’. Another clue is in primary schools if literacy and numeracy take up all the prime time and the other Learning Areas are virtually light entertainment in the limited time remaining. This will be exaggerated even more in such schools by National Standards, giving off more than a whiff of a Victorian mentality.

Once inside the school, look for evidence of student ‘voice’.

Does the learning centre around students’ questions and concerns or are students busy following teachers’ pre-conceived plans? Can you see, or read, their personal thoughts about their lived experiences, their responses to their environment, and their critical thoughts about whatever study has caught the class’s attention? Look for individuality in the way children’s work is presented and particularly in their art which ought to be as diverse as the students. Do classrooms have an aesthetic quality? If in primary classroom, students’ ‘voice’ is overwhelmed by literacy and numeracy demands and in inquiry studies student ‘voice’ is often missing with children happy to simply present information, this too is a clue.

To solve these problems teachers need to reframe both literacy and numeracy as vital ways for children to express personal, critical, or interpretive points of view in their inquiry studies.

In such classrooms literacy is used to ‘frontload’ content by developing comprehension and information inquiry skills to contribute to current inquiry studies. Such an integrated approach makes literacy and numeracy more important and more meaningful.

It is important if students are to become active learners for them to tell their own stories, to pose their own questions and to make their own interpretations of what they experience. If their ‘voices’ are not recognised there will be many who will continue to disengage from their learning. That is the problem that standards are meant to solve!

Learning is essentially personal. How personalised is learning?

We all invent ourselves in response to experiences we have. It is obvious that it is impossible for every student to have their own programme but it is possible to value each learner’s interpretations and creativity. Teachers, who believe in a constructivist approach to learning, who respect learner’s prior knowledge and skills, and who give whatever help is necessary, are well on the way to personalising learning.

There are also teachers who follow James Beane’s model and negotiate a curriculum based on asking students for the problems, issues and concerns they would like to study. From such an emergent process curriculum themes are democratically arrived at and then students individually, or in groups, become personally involved in purposeful research. The ideas behind science, mathematics, or science fairs can be extended to part of normal teaching. The Reggio Emilio early education schools of Milan are excellent models of true community schools whose curriculums ‘emerge from their students’ interests. This approach was common in New Zealand primary classrooms of the 70s and is equally relevant today.

Does the school value students’ gifts and talents?

All students are different and ‘one size’ never fitted all. As students progress through school their innate differences ought to become more diverse. Current pressures for standardisation and focusing measurement on a narrow range of academic abilities repress such diversity. Schools must celebrate diversity.

Howard Gardner tells us that children can exhibit intelligences in a range of areas – the visual arts, music, sport and dance, mathematical and logical thinking, natural history, linguistics, and inter personal and intrapersonal skills. Do schools recognise and value these or do linguistic and mathematics ‘intelligences’ dominate? And if this is the case what happens to those students whose talents lie elsewhere?

Imagine if schools made developing students’ creativity their central focus and then introduced appropriate skills to help then realise their gifts? Such teaching would move teachers well beyond predictable ‘best practices’, or standards, and asks them instead to accept the ‘unknowability’ of what might evolve. Personal excellence based on a comparison with previous achievements would be the criteria for success.

Does the school assess values and dispositions?

Schools in past decades have been encouraged to demonstrate achievement in literacy and numeracy and no doubt this will be exaggerated by National Standards. Some schools however are also recording students ‘feelings for’ the various learning areas and are able to demonstrate how their students’ attitudes have improved through the year. As well, other schools are making efforts to assess students’ dispositions towards learning - the competencies that contribute towards ensuring all students become confident life long learners.


How central is inquiry in the school?

In schools that believe in inquiry classrooms reflect students’ questions, prior ideas, theories and evolving ideas being gained as they learn. There are a number of inquiry models but the base of all ought to be the realisation that inquiry is the ‘default mode’ of all learners from birth. Just as students were born to create they were born to inquire and search for personal meaning. That this desire to learn, this love of learning, often dulled by schooling ought to a concern of all. There are those who see process as the new content but the revised curriculum is clear, both content and process are to be seen as complimentary. Learning how to learn is the shadow of in-depth inquiry. A study without real content is a study at risk.

If inquiry was truly central to learning then the results would be plain for all to see. The room would be full of the results of authentic studies covering a range of learning areas. The walls would be covered with study questions, research findings and processes - not just de Bono’s hats or an outline of an agreed inquiry process. The visual environment ought to be seen as the teacher’s main message system and the importance of aesthetic expression in all forms ought to be an integral part of such a message system

Authentic assessment ought to be based on what students can do - particularly in a new situation. ‘It is what children do when they do not know what to do’, that is the key to future success according to Piaget. Innovative schools are requiring their students to undertake a self-chosen inquiry challenge towards the end of each year as an assessment task. Such tasks clearly demonstrate how well students are able to use the critical seeking, using and creating skills required for such learning.

The hardware of information technology is often shown off to visitors as an indication of up to date thinking but all too it often over promises and under delivers. However, if used wisely, it contributes to in-depth inquiry and could eventually transform education, as we know it. Used unwisely it can result in shallow learning. Nothing should be researched that can be answered with one click of Google! A quick look at students’ presentations and bookwork will show, through the language used, if inquiry is robust or if ‘cut and paste’ and shallow thinking is the order of the day.

What is the role of the teacher in the school?

In such a democratic environment the role of the teachers is vital. No longer to be seen a transmitter of predetermined content and chief judge the teacher is now much more of a creative learning coach providing help, negotiating tasks and criteria for student self assessment. And that help should always be given with a light hand.

Creative teachers understand the need to do fewer things well, appreciating that something done well can be a transformational experience for a learner. Not only do creative teachers help students see connections between learning areas they also appreciate the importance of enriched sensory experiences gained through first hand learning.

Most of all creative teachers work hard to establish a democratic, trusting relationship to allow students to take the necessary risks to learn. As part of such an environment teachers need to negotiate benign classroom organisations, often defining group tasks, to provide their students with a sense of structure and predictability. All too often primary classrooms are too heavily structured in literacy and numeracy and then too open for the rest of the day. And secondary schools too timetabled, fragmented and disconnected. Successful learning depends on organisational patterns that allow students to work independently (often in groups) and also allow teachers to focus on helping those in need.

What is the 'message' given of a future learner?

Teachers, in all their interactions, need to keep in mind the vision of the learner they want to develop. Guy Claxton suggests that students need to be encouraged to be curious and to ask questions; to be resilient and to stick at things; to be willing to ask for help and accept feedback; and to step back and think things through. He asks of teachers to envision their students as ‘brave and confident explorers, tough enough in spirit, and flexible in mind, to pursue their dreams and ambitions’.

The revised curriculum is premised on a vision of all students being ‘confident lifelong learners’ and sees students as able to 'seek , use and create their own kowedge'.

This is not what I see when I visit schools and, heading towards National Standards, is heading in the wrong direction.

Dweck's book a must for all teachers and leaders.

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It is hard to avoid reading about Carol Dweck's work on the power of mindsets in learning. Business leaders and sports coaches use her ideas and so ought schools. It will be the most influential book on motivation. A book that with ideas to change the lives of students and their teachers.

I am writing this blog before I have fully absorbed the message of the book as I want to loan it to a young teacher . As a result of reading the book I have decided to start something I have been meaning to do for years. I now have the right mindset. Watch this space.

My advice - buy the book pronto. My copy cost NZ $29. Not bad for a mind changing book. 'Mindset The New Psychology Of Success' Published by Ballantine Books NY ISBN 978-0-345-47232-8


Carol Dweck is a Stanford University Psychologist and in her book Mindset she shares the ideas about learning she has been working on for decades. In her book she shows the power of people's beliefs that strongly effect what we want and whether we succeed. Beliefs ( 'mindsets') we are unaware of but which have a profound effects on our lives. An understanding of these beliefs have the power to unleash your potential and that of your students.

Dweck has written this book in a popular style which makes it available to anyone who picks it up.

Schools worldwide have problems with students who fail to learn and this book provides some real answers.

Dweck outlines the two mindsets.One she calls 'fixed' where students believe that their talent is 'fixed' from birth ( natural talents) and the 'growth mindset' which sees learning as a result of effort and practice. Dweck does not suggest that those with a 'growth' mindset can be anything but they do believe that a person's potential is unknown and that to develop it requires 'passion , toil and training'.

The real problem is that many people feel that those who succeed in any field do so because of natural talent. This is the 'fixed mindset'. The problem is that such people do not believe in effort and even see the need for it as weakness. And those who believe they cant do something see no point in trying.

My bet is that such people make up our so called 'achievement tail'. Helping struggling children change their limiting mindsets may be more profitable than obsessively focusing on literacy and numeracy standards.

Dweck writes that the 'fixed' mindsets can be changed and replaced with the more positive 'growth' mindset. Her book is full of practical ways to do just this.

'When you enter a mindset', she writes, 'you enter a new world'.

Dweck believes all students are born with an intense drive to learn and worries about what puts an end to this exuberant learning and why some children develop a limiting 'fixed' mindset.

It begins, she says, when students begin to evaluate themselves and, as a result, some become afraid of challenges - and this is further developed by parent who want their children to succeed. Such children end up by wanting to make sure they succeed and don't like taking risks; don't like to expose their deficiencies. And they don't like asking for help.

'Growth' mindset children, in contrast, see success in learning as stretching themselves, about becoming smarter, and are happy to ask for help.

'Fixed' mindset people do well when things are within their grasp. If 'fixed' mindset people think they cant do anything they don't try, avoid situations, find endless excuses, blame others, and don't ask for help. They don't want to to risk their identity. Perfectionist girls seem specially at risk in this respect.

It makes a big difference which mindset develops.

And the positive 'growth' mindset can be taught.

Dweck lists accomplished people who were considered to have little future potential including Charles Darwin and Elvis Presley. People with a 'growth' mindset know it takes time and effort for potential to flower. She also describes people who many think had a natural talent ( 'fixed') but whose success was determined by a 'growth' mindset including - Mohammed Ali and Michael Jordan.

Dweck suggests teachers do a simple survey of their students to see what mindset they hold and then to introduce ideas to change those with the limiting 'fixed' mindsets. Do they believe their intelligence was a fixed trait or or something they could develop?

She also describes a number of research situations where she demonstrates such changes. Students with the 'growth' mindsets allows people to love what they are doing and motivates them to try harder, practice and ask for help. Mistakes, or failures, are seen as learning opportunities not the end of the world. A 'growth' mindsets allows abilities to be cultivated.

Talent, or drive, with the right mindset, can help any learner produce amazing things. It is all about continually improving on ones personal best.

Talented or failing 'fixed ' mindset students fail when placed in new learning situations - 'growth' students enjoy the challenge. Even prodigies with gifts feed the gift with constant endless curiosity, practice effort and challenge seeking. All children , Dweck writes, have interests that can blossom into abilities and this includes those currently seen as 'low ability' or failing. No one know about negative ability labels like Maori and Pacifica group or woman when it comes to maths and science.

All students need teachers who preach and practice the 'growth' mindset. Such teachers focus on the idea that all children can develop their skills. 'Growth' orientated teachers and parents praise effort rather than ability or talent. Praising talent teaches students the 'fixed' mindset. Ability grouping and praising ability can have negative effects on learning.

We need to give all students the gift of the 'growth' mindset and in the process put students in charge of their own learning.

Many students will enjoy the stories in the book about the difference between the natural and effort orientated sports people. Their stories will help students appreciate the positive growth mindset and how sports people learn to cope with setbacks. Teachers will enjoy the differences between the 'fixed' and growth orientated coaches.

School leaders will enjoy the differences between the heroic talented leaders ( 'fixed') and the 'growth' orientated leaders and how they handle failure and staff development.

The most important chapters focus on teachers and parents and where do mindsets come from?

These chapters focus on the messages we give children - and that every word and action sends a message. Students are extremely sensitive to such messages. What we praise, or give feedback about, is vital and it needs to be focused on effort and future strategies to consider.

Consider also how children develop their attitudes towards maths, or art, or sport. Do they see it as a 'fixed' gift or something they can all do to some degree with effort and practice as they ought to? Consider how you would set about to change students' attitude towards maths, or art, or anything thay have closed their mind to.

'Dont judge. Teach.It's a learning process', Dweck writes.

All the stories Dweck shares are about how parents and teachers want the best for their children in the right way - by fostering their interests, growth and learning.

If teachers make explicit the importance of a 'growth ' mindset and encourage it in their students all students will succeed. The teacher's stance is all important. 'Growth' mindset teacher tell the truth and set about to help their students close the gap. Dweck's research shows it can be done even with students who at first don't seem to care.

Most interesting for teachers are the mindset lectures she gives her graduate students and the brain, or mindset workshops she gives younger students where students learn about positive mindsets and how to use them.

In just eight one hour sessions children's' minds, she shows, can be changed.

And she makes the point that change is not easy. It is hard to give up a 'fixed' mindset. Concrete plans are required not just good intentions. 'Will power', Dweck writes, 'is not just a thing you have or don't have. Will power needs help.'

It is all about seeing things in new way.

Every day presents you with chance to grow and to help the people you care about grow. Learners who take on board a 'growth' mindset become more alive, courageous and open.

Buy the book to really get Dweck's powerful message. The ideas in the book will resonate with the many creative teachers who really value developing in their students a positive learning identity. Students who are able to 'seek, use and create their own knowledge'. Students who will become 'confident life long learners'.

Get it now and share her ideas.