I have reflected a little more on these delightful little gems being proposed by the current National Government. Aside from my concerns about the lack of a clear policy direction in education, this government is really assuming that teachers and schools are incapable of collecting student achievement information to inform school improvement and improve learning outcomes for students. Therefore they are going to do it themselves??? Isn’t that a little like them telling the surgeon how to perform the triple bypass?

If we have the Public Finance Act to prevent governments from having too much control over our nations finances (ok yes, it has it’s flaws too!)… Shouldn’t the Education Act be updated to prevent them from making decisions which, regardless of the intent, can prevent politicians from making poorly informed decisions in education. It is only fair that our students are protected.

Yes, this is a little bit of a rant… but I do that sometimes!

Read what you will into the title of this post… a play on words about the National Government, my beliefs about the way we have been consulted ‘with’ (National taking a stand), or how I view the impact of this proposed intervention to lift national student achievement (dud).  Regardless of all of the discussion around National Standards (The link takes you to Derek Wenmouth’s very good blog post on consultation around national standards), it is very evident to me, that it is not the National Government’s intention to do much, for example:

• Q:  Will this lead to national testing?
• A: It is not our intention that this will lead to national testing
• Q: How will this affect our current curriculum developments and implementation?
• A: It is not our intention that this will take over those priorities, curriculum implementation is still your priority. (WHAAAAAAAT!  You want these implemented by next year!!!)
• Q: What about league tables?  Are we going to be faced with league tables?
• A: It is not our intention that national standards will lead to the publication of league tables.

Ohh please, I may have looked a bit ’shell-shocked’, but I didn’t have ‘prize winning turnip’ written over my face!  While these may not be intentions, they could certainly result in everyone of these.  The grey areas surrounding the implementation of these standards are enormous, gaping chasms which require more than rope and crampons to traverse.  The consultation around these standards has been poor, ill-timed and badly planned in terms of implementation time frames and the fact that some regions were left out of the consultation altogether!  And I believe that is because what is intended and what agenda informs this stand, is not being made clear.

I must point out that I am not frightened about these standards (see this earlier post), in fact, we are attempting to plan to implement our own way of communicating achievement to learners and parents directly related to curriculum levels as part of our implementation of the New Zealand Curriculum.  What does frighten me, is the nature of the consultation, and that 49% Schools are failing to do this (According to ERO).

What is clearly ‘intended’ by the National Government, is that these be implemented as soon as possible.  Well this is good, there is some intent (*sarcasm*)… what intent is less clear is that, are these standards for learners, or parents?  The Ministry of Education’s statement:

This will help students; their teachers and parents, families and whānau better understand what they are aiming for and what they need to do next.

…indicates that this is good for all of us.  But is anyone asking the big question?  HOW DO WE KNOW THIS?  Is it because Mr Hattie says so?  (I am unsure – he has been quiet on this issue despite being quoted in the National Party’s flyer on National Standards prior to last year’s elections… but we know that Mrs Tolley is a fan).  I want to see the cast iron proof that this has the pedagogical power to do what the government say it will do.

I believe we (the students, parents, teachers and community) are owed this, before this potentially flawed and rushed policy becomes reality, and a potential ‘dud’.

…and if we don’t get this?  Well, it doesn’t really matter we will implement them in a way that works for our kids anyway.

Check out this blog post too! (Thanks AllanahK)

I heard the most wonderful analogy today defining the difference between ICT-PD and e-Learning.  We had the absolute privilege of having Dorothy Burt share her knowledge and understandingof e-Learning with our whole cluster (yesterday) and our principals and lead teachers today.

Dorothy shared the old chinese proverb ‘…give a man a fish and you can feed him for day, teach him how to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime…’ and used it to illustrate the difference between the use of the terms ICT and e-Learning.  The comparison was deliciously simple, the essence being that the giving of the fish is the ICT element, and the teaching how to fish is related to the e-learning component.

What a wonderful and easy way to understand this concept!  I totally agreed with Dorothy, ‘Why do we call this development an ICT-PD Cluster, when essentially it is all about e-Learning?’.  This obvious question has helped us make some simple wording changes to our project (and soon our vision statement).  Let’s not forget, this development is all about the learning.

Thanks so much Dorothy, you clearly are an amazing teacher!

Moving into this new New Zealand curriculum paradigm (you know, the one that needs to be implemented by 2010!) we are going to need strong and effective pedagogical leadership.  This will take courage from school leaders to develop plans for what amounts to significant change in teachers’ beliefs, values and of course, practice.  Successful curriculum implementation, including all of those wonderful curriculum frameworks being developed by schools around the country, will not occur without these shifts in teachers values, beliefs and practice.  Also none of this will happen unless it (the change) is planned for and actioned with a great deal of critical reflection (in my humble view).

So what do we do to get ourselves ready for New Zealand Curriculum implementation?  I have chosen 4 key ideas to explore briefly in this post…

1. Involving teachers as ‘experts’.

School leaders need to involve teacher leaders as ‘experts’ and principals should acknowledge this expertise and build on it through strategic decision making and providing opportunity for staff to be involved, not only in the delivery of PD, but in the planning for change in teacher values, beliefs and practice.

2. Communication of the goals and plans

These plans and associated goals need to be clearly communicated with staff and communities.  Time frames should be set and specific indicators should inform evaluation and reflection on progress and reviews of plans.

3. Make it a ‘lifestyle’ change

What we are talking about here is a major cultural change in schools, not simply another ‘thing to do’.  Much like the dieting analogy (you’ve probably heard this one)… this is not a change to your diet… it is a change to your lifestyle!  You need to change more than your curriculum for there to be successful integration.  This needs alignment to school vision, policy, strategy, pedagogy, values and beliefs, plus many other big and minor players.

4. Involvement of the principal

The school principal needs to lead by example here.  Be passionate about the changes, model effective practice and take pride in the achievements (and failures), and never take your eyes of the prize… improved learning outcomes for students.  Principals need to participate in all of the professional development and communicate with, and involve stakeholders (teachers included) in how things are going.  Plus being the coach to support everyone through the process at the individual and collective levels.  The principal is the driver of the change, this shouldn’t be confused for being the ‘imposer’ of the change.

The school is a ‘place of learning’ and as such all learners (adults too) need to feel empowered and be ‘enabled’ to engage with the curriculum and for the curriculum developments.  As I stated earlier, this development must be based firmly on quality teacher values, beliefs and practice and where possible helping teachers change their own paradigms (as Stephen Covey states – in order to change someone’s behaviour, you need to look first to change their paradigm).

I will add more about this later… it seems to be evolving the more I think about it.

It appears that I have found an app that allows me to blog on the iPhone! I am very excited about this as it now opens up a new world for me and will allow me to post to my journal from anywhere and at anytime. In fact I am so pleased with this app that I may have to get the full version. For those interested the app is called BlogWriter Lite. The only downside of the lite version is the inability to upload images… Apart from that, it is all good!

I’ll find the URL for the app and post it later.