Priorities for Education

An interesting visitor

Julia and Andrew have a visiting friend from London with them over the UK Easter break. She is a teacher, with a lively, interesting personality and lots of conversation. We entertained them to dinner last week.

Among other things we talked about her job, of course, and she described the school she teaches at.

I was horrified with her description - it sounded like something out of the 1940s, a view she agreed with.

It led me to start thinking about educational priorities as I have come to rank them after a lifetime of various forms of formal and informal educational involvement.

So here are my tentative conclusions for what they are worth.

1. Basic skills: reading, arithmetic, writing

The 3 Rs have always been the basis of education over the last 150 years, no matter how many other skills have been added to the curriculum. Nowadays as part of their writing curriculum it is important that our children have a grasp of rapid typing or other data input, most essential for efficient work in many modern occupations. And in language, listening and public speaking skills are hugely important. The 3 Rs are still the fundamental building blocks, not only for language, but also for handling money and starting to learn about technology.

2. Socialisation: playground, culture, sport, adventure, swimming

This is where an over-emphasis on the formal classroom studies of the curriculum, and relegating extra-curricular activities to an inferior status is counter-productive. Much of the socialisation of children growing up is learning to get along with their peers, to reach agreements, find win-win answers, and co-operate in team efforts.

 

Researchers know that the wider the diversity in our classrooms and schools, the better this happens; that's why I would discourage single-gender and exclusive schools, whether they are set up for cultural or socio-economic purposes.

 

Experienced teachers know that children learn more about becoming adults from sports, drama, music, outdoor education and so on than from their formal academic learning.

Education, like many other activities, is a co-operative effort. When you send your children to school, what they contribute to the socialisation and education of the other pupils is as important as what they learn from the classroom or the playground. If we keep our children at home, for example to home-school them, in my opinion we are not teaching them to be morally responsible citizens in a democratic society.

3. Essential stories: New Zealand life, history, issues, democracy

In a democratic society, it is essential that everyone grows up understanding how democracy works, how the nation got to be like it is, how to strengthen the good and change the not-so-good. They don't learn much of this from textbooks about history or civics. Largely it is matter of hearing the stories often, as books, TV programmes, movies, and community celebrations, plus getting the chance to discuss them with others.

 

Everyone in New Zealand should grow up with a picture in  their memory of stories such as those about the Treaty, Anzac and similar war episodes, the Maori and European explorations and migrations, the growth of major industries and our famous people. Even knowing about Polynesian navigation skills long before Europeans had learned similar ones is fascinating, for instance.

4. Vocabulary: English, Maori, Mother tongue

As their mastery of language develops, children need plenty of practice in getting clearer and sharper understanding of words and their meanings. And everyone should also have a basic grounding in Maori, and the option of going on to study it more thoroughly. Bi-lingualism is an advantage in academic studies, rather than a hindrance.

 

If they have immigrant family backgrounds, their Mother tongue should also be available to them.
 

 5. Science and technology: principles and processes.

And in the modern age we all need to understand some basic science, including research methods and an introduction to the ethics of such work. Subjects like Design are important here to provide ideas about how to plan, how to set goals, how to implement programmes and so on.