While much of the debate, especially among educators, takes place at the technical level the general public remains confused. There is therefore a tendency always to support what is known, and what is known is the conventional model of schooling. Comfort lies with the status quo, and change, particularly if it affects my children, is threatening. But the public needs to be drawn into the debate; not at the confusing level of technicalities but at the level of principles. The real debate, the one that is not aired, is about fundamental values. Do we want to continue to put substantial resources into a schooling system designed for educating only a few, or do we want schools to provide a meaningful education for all students? That deep division in values lies at the foundation of our educational dilemma. If we don’t enter that debate we will continue to allow the educational establishment to take moral stances on our behalf, to confuse us with their technical ‘expertise’ and professional ‘judgement’, and to determine how the system operates. If we don’t, the gap between the education that our young people need as we approach the 21st century, and what they get, will continue to widen. And, if we don’t, we will not know who to blame when the changing world, and especially new information technology, makes schools as we know them increasingly irrelevant to students and to society.

This book is about that debate. It is about schooling of the past, present and future. It delves into history because, without knowing the context in which we do any business, including education, we are doomed to repeat history’s errors. Unfortunately educators suffer from ‘genesis amnesia’; they have forgotten the origins of the system of which they are part, and the beliefs that underpin them.

The book therefore asks questions like “Why do I have to learn this?”; “Why do teachers teach?”; and “Why is 50% good enough?” Without asking such questions it is impossible to know why the schooling system is what it is, and it is impossible therefore to enter into an intelligent debate about what it should be.

Out of history myths arise. While myths can be a source of comfort in a changing world they can also be terribly destructive. Myths or false premises abound in education. Our systems of education and training were designed primarily on three false premises: the idea they should serve only an elite of fast learners; the belief that to be educated once can be sufficient for a lifetime; the prejudice that education and training are different in kind.” This book is about dispelling these false premises and other myths which have plagued our system of education for too long; they have no place in a world in which the principle of lifelong learning for all is now widely accepted.

This book is also about paradigm shifts. It is a concept well understood in business. Paradigm shifts occur when it is recognised that the old ways of thinking and doing no longer work. In this fast changing world paradigm shifts are required in schooling as they are in any other kind of business. If schooling is to be about success in learning for all students then we need to critically examine what we believe about how we teach, how children learn, and what our purpose is in doing both. We also need to critically examine an institutional qualifications system based on young people sitting exams, at set ages, which decide the parameters of their future expectations for life. Industry has moved away from approaches based on mass production, one-off quality control and no after-sales service.” The schooling industry also needs to adopt similar shifts in thinking and doing.

All of these comments would suggest there is nothing good about our secondary schools in New Zealand. That is far from the truth. There are many exciting things happening in many schools. There are many teachers who know what is good and what will work for their students. But teachers, individually and collectively, are constrained by the characteristics of schooling over which they have little direct control; they are as much victims as are their students. They are frequently thwarted in their efforts to change the system by those within the profession who are particularly threatened by change, those whose status and reputation has been built out of the old world, and who therefore have considerable political influence. We don’t help as parents when we make judgements about different schools on matters which have little to do with the quality of learning. And politicians don’t help, when they continually make compromises as a means of keeping the peace between the warring factions and when they publicly display ill-informed prejudices about schooling. We have a schooling system we are all responsible for; we have collectively made it what it is. In this rapidly changing world our hopes of health, wealth and happiness depend on learning – our own and that of others.” We need to get it right.

This book is therefore not just about why change is needed, but what needs changing, and how it can be changed; how it can be got right for the learner. Learners are the primary customers of our schools; schools exist to service their needs. Unfortunately too often we act as if the situation was the other way round – students exist for schools. In my 35 years in education I was a secondary teacher for 25, a teacher of subjects as diverse as geography and physics, a dean, guidance teacher and careers adviser, and a head of department and principal. In all of these roles “Why do we do things this way?” was the question I was always asking, because I could see the system was not working for the students. It was not working for the fast learners, those we labelled ‘bright’ because the system decreed how much and at what speed they learned. It was not working for those who were the slower learners, the ‘plodders’, because the system decreed they had to keep up with the rest, which of course meant that they didn’t. And the system was not working for those who learnt in ways other than through the abstract and theoretical, because the system decreed they had to eat the same diet as everyone else.

It was only in the last 10 of those 35 years that I was able to find many of the answers to that ‘why’ question. In some respects, therefore, this book is a personal journey; it is a reflection on what I have learned; its purpose is to share with you what I have found.

I hope in reading it that you will come to accept tradition has no place in the schooling system unless it retains value for the learner; that you will share with me a strong sense of frustration about a system based on the concept of inquiry, the seeking of answers to questions, which continues to ignore demonstrable evidence of its ineffectiveness; and that, as a consequence, you will add your weight to the call for change.

Pages: 1 2 3

More articles by David Hood