The NZ Curriculum Vision and Values

The New Zealand curriculum states it has an holistic view of the abilities and skills it wants children to gain:

• an overall vision
• values
• key competencies
• learning areas (or subject areas).

It is guided by a set of principles that are used by schools in their decision making and curriculum planning. The principles are high expectations, Treaty of Waitangi, cultural diversity, inclusion, learning to learn, community engagement, coherence and future focus.

Vision

The vision is for young people to be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners.

Students are encouraged to value:

• excellence, by aiming high and by persevering in the face of difficulties
• innovation, inquiry, and curiosity, by thinking critically, creatively, and reflectively
• diversity, as found in our different cultures, languages, and heritages
• equity, through fairness and social justice
• community and participation for the common good
• ecological sustainability, which includes care for the environment
• integrity, which involves being honest, responsible, and accountable and acting ethically, and
• to respect themselves, others and human rights.

Problem:

Excellence, Innovation, Inquiry and Curiosity: The first two values are aspirational. Of course NZ wants its future generations to value excellence, to aim high and persevere, but how are teachers to accomplish this? Can these aspirations be converted into a curriculum, or are they modelled by exposure to adults outside of class?

• How do teachers teach excellence? How does classroom study or homework teach aiming high? In short, there is no curriculum answer. One can have books (books, not videos) on biographies of people who pursued excellence, aimed high and overcame adversity, but probably not overly-slanted to winning cups, medals or knocking off mountains. Tell stories about people who accomplished things of note – and not just Kiwis. Especially focus on how their character was formed – what education enabled their excellence? 
   
• How is innovation taught? How does one teach curiosity in the regimented structure of a class? In fact, the classroom system is not structured to favour innovation and curiosity, and it probably is asking too much of schools to try. Yes, have alterative programs for those students whose multiple intelligences do not fit into the conventional curriculum, but otherwise focus on literacy first, then specialisation in higher grades.
   
• The reality is that few students appreciate their education until much later, and then typically speak about one teacher out of the dozens who taught them who significantly and positively influenced their lives. The best the system can do is to identify multiple intelligences in different children and, if not encouraging it, at least avoid interfering with it.
   
• The reality is that NZ is one of the most culturally-diverse small nations on earth. Different families value education differently. One size does not fit all. The best the school can do is teach children the skills they will require to live and thrive in a rapidly-changing world. In doing this, parental involvement needs to be encouraged, with family and their community feeling more welcome by teachers and school. Invite them into the classroom to talk about what it is like to be an adult in real life. Break down the barriers.

Citizenship: The next two values, diversity and equity, are ideological and reflect aspirational virtues. Diversity is about identity (race, colour, religion, gender, age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, education, and national origin) as a filter for opportunity and inclusion. The core question is how to link them where the role of the teacher and classroom is educating rather than indoctrinating.

• Diversity is a fact in Auckland but less so in Hurunui. Teaching it is a branch of civics, but except for talking about it, and hoping it takes, it is difficult to see how the classroom makes a difference. Diversity is taught by media, which is doing a reasonably good job of modelling a more diverse world. The most effective way to teach diversity in the classroom is to break down the barriers between the classroom and the outside adult world. Invite parents and community & business leaders to come into the classroom to talk about their adult lives so students begin to learn about real diversity which is far more than colour or identity.
   
• Equity is a political platform where bias is reversed, used to provide a negative filter for the privileged, positive for the disadvantaged. This is controversial because it is not a universal national value. It also is a problem in teaching, because privilege is primarily passed down through families, not in the classroom (except where families place their children in elite private schools). While students should learn to not use diversity as a negative filter in their lives, it is far more effective for teachers to identify strengths within a group and inviting its members to engage where they can make the most positive contribution.

Socialisation: 

• Community and Participation: Which community? The classroom can teach children to get along with each other. It can provide proximity and cooperative group projects where those groups self-identify the distinctive skills they can contribute to the group. Called multiple-intelligences, different individuals have different strengths, and a strong community brings out the best in each individual to achieve a common purpose. But as adults, people belong to many communities… their neighbourhood (although transport-based, townhouse communities tend to rip these identities to shreds). Work community depends on the culture of the place – it can be toxic. Social, sport, hobby, religious, volunteer and other communities exist, although the internet is eroding them. Generally, the most a school system can do is to build a school community in which children make life-long friends. Start with better bonding during school lunch.
   
• Participation for the common good has two parts, the second of which seems to have been ignored. Humans are by nature social, thus they cooperate by specialisation – becoming a master of a skill – but they also need to compete – to innovate by doing it better than another. Competition is a natural human quality, but it extends to behaviour, not just sports.
   
• Bullying: Why does NZ have such a bullying problem? It has many, complex origins, but while schools talk about creating safe environments, they don’t seem to have a clue how to foster friendship and support in a community of children. The concept of segregating children by age – a different class for each birth year is not how humans are hard wired. Positioning older children to help younger ones is a form of natural responsibility and it can be a cure for much bullying especially if the older ones become protectors. 

Environment:

• Ecological sustainability: Society is telling its younger generations the golden era is over; that the planet is doomed to suffer heat, fire flood, drought, plague and privation and to lose land to sea-level rise. Rather than inspire to clean up our act, it evokes a sense of powerlessness, anger and over-simplistic solutions with many unanticipated negative side effects. Teachers can teach the adverse effects of human activity on the planet, and how to measure proposed change to ensure effective healing, but it needs to be about empowerment, not doom.
   
• In 1989, in Sweden 50 scientists were asked to come to a consensus on what a sustainable society would do:

“In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing
    1. concentrations of substances extracted from the earth’s crust.
    2. concentrations of substances produced by society.
    3. degradation by physical means
    4. and, in that society human needs are met worldwide.”

• This consensus can be taught. It avoids fear-mongering that adversely impacts students view of their future

Personal Character:

• How is integrity, character and respect taught by a curriculum? Many adults tell of the one teacher in their life who deeply influenced them, but what about the other dozens who did not? These are fine aspirational goals, but they fly in the face of family, culture, media and other overwhelming forces that shape individual character. It takes the village to raise the child, not the school. The more successful educational programmes that build character through integrity and respect are outdoor based. Scouts, Young Farmers and programs like the Hillary Outdoor Pursuits as well as church youth groups served these needs better than classrooms. If the schools wish to take on building character, the education ministry needs to look at outdoor camps that focus on character building.
   
• Resource: Unlike many nations, NZ has an extraordinary underutilised resource that is slowly seeing its leaders age and die: the marae. Dotted throughout the countryside are 1-hectare sites with a wharenui to sleep and wharekai to eat and often a knowledgeable rural group of kaitiaki ready to teach leadership and respect. For older teens, these can serve as bases for public service, not dissimilar to the public work relief schemes during the Great Depression. For example, have them build tramping trails and shelters that connect these marae into a marae network that can become an authentic and educational visitor experiences for those wishing to visit Aotearoa (and Te Waipounamu), as well as New Zealand.

In Summary:

Question the value of values. Instead of preaching, focus on doing. Simplify the purpose of the curriculum:

• Communication: the ability to interact with others to express ones thoughts and understand other’s. This begins with literacy, that the students learn to read, to write and to form coherent thoughts they can communicate to others. Today, it also means learning how to effectively communicate in a world where technology has changed the tools. Learn how technology shapes reality and how to discern its effects – especially the addictive and socially-destructive technologies driven by pecuniary interest. There is a reason why Steve Jobs would not let his children have iPads.
   
• Socialisation: the ability to participate in society, to work with others, to learn to cooperate, to specialise and to compete. Socialisation includes understanding how one becomes a stakeholder in society, and the responsibilities that come with being a participating member of society.
   
• Specialisation: Once a student learns the basic tools necessary to become a participating adult, they will be guided to select areas of focus that may become their calling in life. This could be science, arts, manual skills, engineering, leadership or any of the other roles adults play in society. 

Policy Changes

Values: Remove all vision and value statements from the Ministry of Education, and if it seeks to rewrite them, first require it initiate a public consultation on (a) if values have a place in education and (b) if they do, what is the national consensus as to their content. If this proves too difficult to achieve (and this is the most likely outcome), then re-focus:

Re-Focus: Strip down the national curriculum into a set of core competencies and options.

Core: Students will be able to 

• Read: Read at least one book per month at their age-level and report on their contents,
• Write (handwriting and typing) write a coherent 5-paragraph essay, a letter 
• Maths: Know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide without using a device, to manage money and budget
• Civics: understand how government works, how democracy works and the social contract in being a citizen
• Science: understand how the natural and constructed worlds work to pierce the wall of opaque engineering  
• Technology: to know how to use technology tools to achieve the above, but also not be wholly reliant on it; to know how to read printed books, handwrite, calculate on paper and to be literate without devices.

Options

• Languages: If there is a national consensus on Te Reo, teach the very different world view, not just the words
• Arts: Children have multiple intelligences, ensure the creatives have their own development stream
• History: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Especially important for civic leaders