Things are not all that well with the bureaucrats at the Ministry of Education. The certainty of the early nineties seems to have dissolved as the imposed curriculums world-wide fail to deliver and have, through their own weight, become part of the problem rather than a solution. Before it is too late we need to restore the 'magic' and spiritual dimensions of inspirational teaching.

It is now common to hear Ministry 'spokespeople' advising teachers to give up assessing all the objectives and the 'revised National Administration Guidelines, rather than being innovative, were really the Ministry playing 'catch up' with common sense. Unfortunately there will always be a gap as school try to work out what the Ministry wants next. Hardly a scenario to develop creative education communities able to thrive in a dramatically evolving world!

The current ambiguity/uncertainty provides an ideal environment for educational entrepreneurs to emerge! We desperately need school leaders need to stand up and take more control of their won schools. To do so they will have to learn to decide what it is they stand for and then say no to imposed demands! There is much at stake. Problems abound in our society that needs schools to face up to - school must see their new role as central to the revitalisation of a society crumbling after a decade of the selfishness of 'market forces'. We need innovative solutions to ensure student's do not leaving our schools with little to show for their time. We need to reinvent education as moral endeavour ensuring all who enter learn and leave with their dreams uncovered, their talents developed, a sense of optimistic hope in their hearts and a belief they are equipped to make a difference. We need a cultural revolution!

This may need a total rethinking of schooling. A bit too much to ask of politicians focussed on polls and elections but if a government had courage it would encourage as many diverse schools as possible and let traditional schools carry on as normal. An alternative 'discovery' talent based secondary school in every major community would be an achievable dream. Diversity not educational standardisation is the key to the future. Such schools would provide an entry point to let the joy of creative teaching re emerge and in the process developed the talents of all students - our countries greatest resource.

Teachers and school now need to take the initiative - innovation always come from 'the edge'!

'Tomorrow's Schools' never arrived! Self-management has only been about management and not an opportunity to be innovative and develop local community based solutions within a simple National Framework. This was the original dream of Tomorrows Schools. The seemingly endless parade of confused technocratic curriculums saw the end to that. The image of schools as neighbourhood centres to revive community cohesion and democratic ideals still waits to be fulfilled. The technocrats have killed a wonderful dream. Schools have never been more isolated from each other.

We have to give up our dependency on 'education elites' and stop and think about what Michael Fullan suggests 'what is really worth fighting for'. What we desperately need are educational leaders at all levels who can help articulate a vision of schools as central in the creation of a fairer and more creative NZ. Such a vision would a provide a real unifying purpose to the work of all teachers in all schools. Current reforms, introduced in the early 90s, have had more to do with ideology and politics than the true spirit of education. They have created, what one author calls, 'a corrosion of character' - schools too busy guessing what others want of them to stop and reflect on what future attributes their students need to have to thrive in the 21st C. As Fullan states in his latest book (see our previous Newsletter on our website www.leading-learning.co.nz) Central Government always gets it wrong.

What is worth fighting for?

If we were to start schools from scratch what would they look like? We believe most communities would have little trouble in defining what they need. All would have a different point of view but all would want their children to leave with their love of learning intact. Central government would need to provide agreed guidelines to ensure basic rights and to ensure the conditions for creativity to flower were in place. They would also need to ensure that schools are held accountable to the shared beliefs they have defined with their communities.

To achieve this dream trial innovative learning communities could be established. For this to happen educational leaders first need to ensure their communities that they can do better. It may be important to develop a real sense of anger about the problems all communities are aware of created by a growing number of alienated students. Such failure is unacceptable but we seem to blame everything but the school structures themselves. This criticism is not entirely fair because schools are too predetermined by the expectations imposed upon them by the curriculum developers whoever they may be and the conservative mindsets of many parents. As Socrates wrote: 'Any one can become angry- that is easy, but to be angry … for the right purpose, and in the right way - this is not easy'. Real leadership at all levels will be required to turn an educational crisis into an opportunity to develop new ideas.

What are the real 'barriers to learning'?

Ironically the phrase ' barriers to learning' has disappeared from the 'revised' National Guidelines. It might be that the real barriers to many students not succeeding are the 'traditional factory mentality' structures of our secondary schools themselves, and the unintended consequences of the complicated imposed 'stagnant' curriculum statements. The unintended consequences of the accountability demands of the imposed standardised curriculums, so loved by educational bureaucrats world-wide, are killing teacher enthusiasm forcing creative teachers to leave the classroom. It would seem strange to consider 'the system' itself as the real barrier but it is unreasonable to expect a system designed for an agricultural or industrial era to cope with the more flexible demands that will required of future learners/leaders. It is worth considering that many of out current entrepreneurs were themselves failures of such a restricted system. We wonder how they would go about designing a system to develop everyone's talents and not just those whose intelligences match the schools demands.

The biggest problem we have in school are disengaged learners. The current educational model actually encourage disengagement for many students Such students leave without any pride in their school achievements - without a love of learning. This is something that cannot be solved by the current simplistic literacy and numeracy emphasis. This is not to underestimate such areas but to say there are more important issues to be faced up to. It seems we know how to 'turn students off', what we need to do now is to create environments 'to turn all learners on'. Engaging all learners is not an impossibility but to do in current secondary schools is. We now know enough that no student need fail but only if we change our own minds first! All children are born with desire to learn and make meaning - keeping alive the natural joy that is true learning is the real challenge of all educators. This is all the more vital for so called 'disadvantaged students' suffering from an 'achievement gap'. Despite these formable system obstacles many creative teachers still achieve wonders. It is to these teachers that we need to look to for inspiration and to learn from not 'faceless' curriculum developers.

Our 'stance' at 'Leading and Learning' - more informed vision for the 21stC

We want to see schools as creative learning communities dedicated to developing all the talents of all students. We believe this will require new conceptions, or completing 'an unfinished revolution' of student centred learning that has only been fully developed in the early years of education. Our mission is to share the insights and strategies of creative teachers and schools. Our experience tells us creative teachers still exist in our schools but they are increasingly under considerable stress by a system obsessed with asking such teachers to prove what they have done rather than encouraging them create what can only be imagined. We need to value creative teachers (and creative schools) and encourage them to share their ideas. Our website www.leading-learning.co.nz is dedicated to spreading the 'best practices' of such teachers as an antidote to externally imposed ideas. We want to represent creative teachers and to encourage them to add their 'voice' to the educational debate.

The 'agenda' for the 21st C - a return to the 'art and craft' teaching and learning

Trying to cope with demand of unwieldy imposed curriculums (no matter how much they are 'benchmarked', 'slimmed down' down or 'stocktaked!') has diverted teachers from focussing on teaching and learning strategies to achieve quality learning.

If we are to develop 'new minds for a new millennium' then schools need focus on and make explicit the beliefs that underpin all their teaching decisions. They then need to continually work towards aligning their daily practices with their shared vision of the future. Everyone involved in the school ought to be able to articulate what the school stands for and all must become willing to discuss, share, reflect and modify their strategies if the school is to become a professional learning community.

Cohesion around a shared vision of school that aims to develop the talents of all students, and to retains a love of learning, aligned around shared values, provides the genesis for an alternative 21st C. The current restrictive hierarchical structures of many schools relate to a factory image that innovative businesses have long abandoned. Community, trust respect and relationships need to replace timetables, bells and fragmented subjects. 'New mindset will be required for a new millennium'. The factory metaphor might have been OK when most students entered an assembly line, and in it's day might well have been seen as a great achievement, but, like the dinosaurs, their days are numbered. Such past orientated structures are crippling too many students and are increasingly incompatible with the demand of the future.

The new Discovery School and the Information Technology Academy, both in Christchurch, are hopeful signs of things to come. A wise government would be encouraging the spread of such innovative ideas, particularly if they really believe in innovation and creativity as 'core values'.

A new agenda based on all students achieving.

We now know enough about learning that no student need fail, but only if we change our minds first. It is not a simple matter of 'student centred' learning versus 'subject centred' learning, As far back as the early 1900s John Dewey warned of the destructive power of such a dichotomy. Unfortunately his insight was not enough to combat the efficiency ideas imported to schools and now throughout the world we have 'Mc MaC' or 'KFC Curriculums' rather the learning centred schools envisioned by Dewey and his followers. Dewey's challenge to build on the latent interests students bring with them to school and then to challenge them to extend their knowledge and in the process develop 'future orientated skills' still remains. Dewey envisioned this would take skilful teachers who could balance process with knowledge. Nothing has changed. Today educators like Howard Gardner and Art Costa, along with many others, reflect the same message but educational bureaucrats still turn a deaf ear relying on simplistic imposed, but 'popular' solutions. that are more 'band-aids' than creative alternatives. Once we had real educational leadership. In NZ, during the first Labour Government, Dr Beeby pursued similar ideals but it was to be, except for primary schools, another 'unfinished revolution'! Today it seems we have no true educators in the Ministry willing to openly confront, as Dr Beeby did, the structural faults underpinning our current model. Timid 'revisionism', it seems, is the name of the current game.

Central bureaucrats must learn to see teaching as an 'art' rather than a 'science'.

Teaching as more an art than a science. It is more about relationships than curriculum. Creative teachers have an un -definable 'magic' about them when working with students but there are elements that creative teachers can share with their colleagues.

Creative teachers have the ability to live with and handle a multitude of dilemmas, tensions, contradictions, and uncertainties. As such they already live in the 'post modern' chaotic world of unpredictability and uncertainly. There needs to be an acceptance of teaching, by those distant from the realities of the classroom, of teaching as a creative and somewhat 'messy' experience. Teachers, no matter how well they plan, are constantly adjusting and adapting. To succeed in such a fluid environment requires interpersonal skills or 'pedagogical tact' - a quality of sensitivity that enables a teacher to do the 'right thing' for a learner acquiring in the process a fund of knowledge about each learner that enables them to win their trust and confidence of their students.

To succeed in such an environment requires expertise from the teacher to obtain a 'working consensus' that will protect the interests of all learners allowing, through shared understandings, learning to proceed with the minimum of interruption and maximum goodwill.

When all the above are 'orchestrated' it becomes craftsmanship - the art of teaching. Shifting between instruction and affection, management and laughter, teachers display a superb feel for moving back and forth between familiarity, liking, caring, warmth and a more detached teacher like stance.

Add to this the ability to handle the variety of personalities and a range of complex learning tasks, juggling priorities, resolving dilemmas, continually adjusting to students actions, providing on the spot feedback to assist students develop work of quality they can be proud of, makes teaching very much and art. This gives only a small impression of the craftsmanship of teaching - the pride of being in control, the intrinsic pleasure of giving and receiving affection - the joys and thrills of teaching. An appreciation of the psychic demands made by these important dimension are entirely lacking by those who wish to improve education by imposing solutions from a distance.

If these intangible qualities that are not appreciated by those who see education in simplistic terms of providing curriculums, and accountability measures it is no wonder creative teachers despair. People who have not taught have little idea of what it is like to have taught well, to be buoyed up and swept along by the responses of students who are learning. Judgements about what is needed to improve teaching should be made by those who understand the subtleties involved. Teaching is a complex and underrated art - difficult to sustain in times of rapid change, with students with problems brought with them to school as well as confusing imposed accountability demands

The future demands that we focus on creating the conditions for school to create exciting learning environments. Imposed curriculums have not achieved the dreams of their technocratic masters. What has been ignored is the importance of the ordinary daily efforts of teachers to do their best for their students in trying times. We would now do well to focus creating conditions to sharing the best practices of creative teachers and schools. The real differences are between classrooms and schools, which will not be solved by imposing curriculum and accountability demands.

Classrooms are the 'social crucibles' forging for better or worse out future society. To really support positive changes will require a new mindset from those who hold the power. Schools either continue getting better at a bad job or be reinvented and given the encouragement to develop themselves as real learning communities. There is really no alternative.

We now know what creates a quality learning community on a general level - 'high expectations, parent support, strong school leadership, dedicated teachers and motivated pupils' but we have not learnt on a large scale to create the conditions where they do not naturally exist. We need to learn to 'stitch together' the lessons learnt from both educational research and most importantly successful schools and creative teachers. This is the true role of a Ministry of Future Education.

Vision Values and Core beliefs -a model for 'future orientated' schools.

Our advice is for schools to clarify with their communities a shared vision for their school - a vision that can be summed up in short phrase, rather like a school motto. Schools need to see themselves as being part of something heroic and worthwhile, developing students to create a fairer society, and not simply to 'deliver' or 'comply' to whatever the Ministry of Education dictates. A useful task is define the positive behaviours, based on the school values, the school wants to encourage of its staff, parents and students and to draw up into charters for each. Most important of all is to define a set of Teaching Beliefs that all teaching staff can self reference against to make their daily teaching decisions on and to agree to be held accountable to. The development of such ideas by every learning community would develop a powerful learning culture that could contribute to development of a learning society our only guarantee of future survival.

There is an example of such a set of Teaching Beliefs that school could customise on our website www.leading-learning.co.nz

Bruce Hammonds.
Wayne Morris


Our next newsletter - What we now know about teaching and learning that would guarantee all students success.


We would be interested in any feedback about this newsletter.