{"id":1718,"date":"2010-07-26T10:05:45","date_gmt":"2010-07-26T00:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/?page_id=1718"},"modified":"2012-07-16T23:27:56","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T13:27:56","slug":"bruce-hammonds-towards-a-21","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/?page_id=1718","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Hammonds : “Towards a 21stC School…[Extract]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extracts from Bruce Hammonds: TOWARDS A 21st<\/sup>C SCHOOL FOR ALL LEARNER<\/strong> {Teachers Today<\/span> magazine,NZ, July 2010} <\/strong> ….with interruptions from an Australian commentator in italics. <\/em><\/p>\n

Bruce Hammonds is a New Zealand education consultant, author of\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cQuality Teaching and Learning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

___________________________________________________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n

The NZ government\u2019s response to schools\u2019 failure and poor teaching is to implement National Standards <\/strong> aka Naplan in Australia and NCLB in the US,<\/em> strategies that look back to the past for inspiration. This \u2018rear-vision thinking\u2019 is too simple and diverts attention.<\/p>\n

Time for a public conversation.<\/strong> The biggest concern is that there seems to be \u201c…no urgency for change…in schools…where disengaged students are reaching frightening proportions\u201d. The standards agenda is \u201c… rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to get a better view. The confusion around national standards actually makes ensuring all students achieve success difficult by distorting teacher energy, narrowing their teaching and making it difficult for teachers to focus on developing inquiry based learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Vision for New Zealand. <\/strong>\u201dWe could do worse than follow the lead of Singapore <\/strong>with its \u2018Thinking Schools, Thinking Nation\u2019 <\/strong>motto. According to the Ministry of Education \u2018thinking schools will be learning organisations in every sense, constantly challenging assumptions, and seeking better ways of doing things through participation, creativity and innovation…the spirit of learning should accompany our students even after they leave school… A Learning Nation envisions a national culture and social environment that promotes lifelong learning in our people.\u2019 Singapore\u2019s Education Minister explains that the big adjustment for teachers is the way we educate our young to develop a willingness to keep learning, and an ability to experiment, innovate, and take risks.\u201d [If only Australia\u2019s Minister for Education had visited Singapore in 2008, instead of New York!!]<\/em><\/p>\n

Our schools could achieve such a vision if all their energies were focussed on implementing the current New Zealand Curriculum rather the standards. The same is true for Australia. <\/em>Schools need to focus their collective energies on developing environments in which students and teachers\u2019 creativity, in-depth understanding and thinking can flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Personalised learning.<\/strong> \u201cWe need teachers with the in-depth understanding able to help children to learn on their own, or as our currently side-lined NZ Curriculum says, to be their \u2018own seekers, users and creators.\u2019<\/p>\n

Daniel Pink<\/strong>, in his latest book Drive: the Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us\u201d,<\/strong> writes \u201cthe drive to do something because it is interesting, challenging, and absorbing \u2013 is essential for high levels of creativity. And, quoting research by Deci and Ryan<\/strong> on the self-determination theory, he writes, \u201cWe have three psychological needs \u2013 competence, autonomy, and relatedness. When these are satisfied, we\u2019re motivated, productive and happy… [and] if there is anything fundamental about our nature, it\u2019s the capacity for interest. Some things facilitate it. Some things undermine it.\u201d\u00a0 [ Australia\u2019s passion for\u00a0 a blanket testing regime certainly \u2018undermines\u2019 it]<\/em><\/p>\n

Pink\u2019s three conditions for success. <\/strong> The three conditions required for the motivation of all learners are : Autonomy \u2013 the provision of authentic choice;\u00a0 Mastery \u2013 the desire to get better;\u00a0 and Purpose \u2013 which provides the context for the next two. … The most powerful energiser of all is purpose <\/span> – as seen through the eyes of learners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having a winning mind-set. <\/strong>According to Carol Dweck <\/strong>[Stanford Uni.]: \u201cPeople hold one of two views of their own intelligence. There are those who believe they are born talented [or dumb] and others believe in effort and practice. Those with a \u2018fixed mindset\u2019 give up and …those with a \u2018growth mindset\u2019 do not interpret mistakes as failing but merely as a means of improving.<\/p>\n

Perkins [Making Learning Whole] <\/strong>outlines seven research based principles of teaching that can transform education, one of which is that students need to practice the \u2018hard bits\u2019 so as to achieve mastery in whatever they are attempting.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The School As The Home of the Mind.\u00a0 \u201cArt Costa\u2019s<\/strong> powerful metaphor is well known to New Zealand schools and are similar to Guy Claxton\u2019s ideas of \u2018learning power\u2019 and his reference to \u2018the mind as a muscle\u2019 which grows with exercise… ideas which underpin the key assumptions of the NZ curriculum…The intentions of Costa, Claxton <\/strong>and the Key Competencies <\/strong>of the New Zealand Curriculum are all about cultivating thinking dispositions. Costa calls them \u2018habits of the mind\u2019; and Claxton \u2018learning power\u2019. Guy Claxton of England visits NZ occasionally. He has visited Australia, but Joel Klein with his hard-data system, became Ms Gillard\u2019s favourite.<\/em><\/p>\n

Inquiry learning. <\/strong>Student thinking and purposeful teacher interaction cannot develop in a vacuum. Learning needs meaningful contexts…Gardner\u2019s multiple intelligence theory encourages teachers to explore chosen content through a variety of ways \u2013 through the arts, the sciences, mathematics, language, music, and physical activity. Integrated learning is natural to the very young [who are not aware of subject divisions] and teenagers today explore the world through technological media crossing subject boundaries with casual disregard. Secondary schools remain locked into compartmentalised and fragmented learning with their genesis is a past industrial era while their students experience and interconnected evolutionary real world.<\/p>\n

The Big Picture. <\/strong>Schooling ought to be seen as central to the development of New Zealand as a \u2018cutting edge\u2019 society. Enough is now known about teaching and learning that no student need fail. The current NZ Minister\u2019s emphasis on compliance [Hello, Julia<\/em>] through national standards is characteristic of yesterday\u2019s assembly-line thinking rather than looking towards the unknown challenges of the future. The real literacies of tomorrow entails the ability for students to\u00a0 be their own navigators able to thrive in unpredictable situations supported and guided by the positive dispositions they have hopefully gained through their educational experience.<\/p>\n

This is not a summary. It quotes extracts from a catching article that is printed in NZ journal, Teaching Today.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

While schooling and Australia\u2019s real future has remained a non-issue during present electioneering, it seems alive and well across the ditch.<\/em><\/p>\n

Simon Crean, have you purchased your ticket to Singapore ? <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Extracts from Bruce Hammonds: TOWARDS A 21stC SCHOOL FOR ALL LEARNER {Teachers Today magazine,NZ, July 2010} ….with interruptions from an Australian commentator in italics. Bruce Hammonds is a New Zealand education consultant, author of\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cQuality Teaching and Learning.\u201d ___________________________________________________________________________________ The NZ government\u2019s response to schools\u2019 failure and poor teaching is to implement National Standards aka … Continue reading Bruce Hammonds : “Towards a 21stC School…[Extract]<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":779,"menu_order":17,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1718","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1718"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1723,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1718\/revisions\/1723"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}