Art All #88 | The New Curriculum

For students to see a purpose in their learning at school they need to be allowed and guided into making a personal connection with their subjects. From this standpoint they will be able to draw comparisons and apply their knowledge /understandings to their current and ongoing contexts. Without a personal connection there is little or no motivation for students to fully engage with study at school. I believe that a student is able to make these personal connections more easily if their school actively encourages and acknowledges qualities such as: integrity, respect for self, equity, humour, management of self, respect of others (irrespective of age, race, and creed). 

The Ministry of Education's (M.O.E) new curriculum document places more emphasis on this need. It also emphasises the importance of each school's relationship with its community and the curriculum's implementation explicitly requires schools to liaise with their community. A further commitment to school and community partnerships is the MOE's investment in the Artists in Schools programme, which includes the Visual Arts, Drama, Dance and Music. 

The shift in thinking that the curriculum is requiring of New Zealand schools and their communities will be a challenge, although some schools are well on their way and others are streets ahead. Schools have two years to implement the curriculum and in the process develop a deeper level of liaison with their school community in order to achieve a consensus and understanding for the curriculum. 

When Chris Arcus presented the NZ curriculum at a MEANZ workshop I attended, he said  "the new curriculum is an acknowledgment of a New Age in which we find ourselves; The Knowledge Age where all skills will become obsolete except one, the skill of being able to make the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what you were taught in school. We need to produce people who know how to act when they are faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared." Seymour Papert, 1998 The new curriculum is also recognising the truth contained within the following quote by Sir Richard Livingstone, 1941 "The test of successful education is not the amount of knowledge that pupils take away from school, but their appetite to know and their capacity to learn." 

The MoE says it seeks to encourage the development of confident, connected, actively involved life long learners who are creative, energetic and enterprising and can help secure a sustainable social, cultural, economic, & environmental future for our country. 1. We must resist the temptation to TELL. 2. We must stop teaching decontextualised content 3. We must stop giving students the final product of OUR thinking. 4. We must make a fundamental shift: problem first, teaching second. 5. We must progressively withdraw from helping students. 6. We must re-evaluate evaluation. 

These curriculum changes are not cutting edge revelations for all of New Zealand's learning communities, but it is encouraging that the majority of schools will be moving in this direction. For some time one non state school, that I know of, has been working from the premise that the "teaching" of art, language and social studies, maths and science, and so on, is not so much about imparting information, as it is about helping students to develop an emotional relationship with those areas of learning so that they can feel the value to themselves of the skills and knowledge provided for by them. 

For this school, it is not enough that the student learns simply in order to achieve knowledge and skills as though these were just commodities through which to gain approval and security. For example, through their language programme, they try to create the possibility for it to dawn upon the student that, through exploring the language of others, and experimenting with their own, they can be an active part of it; absorb it; reject it; or influence it. 

Similarly, with social studies they emphasise the consideration of human nature and behaviour and decision making in a certain set of circumstances. It is not significantly important to them, for example, that students (a) remember the date of the American War Of Independence (though, when they study the topic, it is encouraged!) (b) remember whether a particular idea would stem from Socrates, Plato or Aristotle. What is of significant importance to them is that the students would (a) seriously consider and argue the positions of both the American colonists and the British government in the appropriate historical context; imagine and explore what both parties may have felt they needed, and why, placing all of their perspectives in the context of human nature, and (b) open their minds to ponder and debate the ideas of great minds, and receive inspiration by recognising human courage, commitment and vitality as expressed by some of the ancient Greek philosophers. 

Schools liaising with their community. For some schools, having a closer partnership with their community is easier said than done. For example, consider the position of a multi cultural, inner city school community, which is made up of second generation Pacific Islanders who - traditionally - according to the teachers, support their children with their learning at home but are not active in making participatory links between school and home and - are generally happy to let the school decide on what their child needs to know, but do not believe a child should question the content. 

Over the last three years this inner city school has consulted with its community about their strategic planning and this has had a positive impact on literacy and numeracy achievements within the school. These consultations and discussions about the new curriculum have given parents a platform to demonstrate their support for the school and consider how they can support the partnership between with the school and home. 

The MEANZ workshop, mentioned previously, also included very useful presentations from the M.O.E's Pasifika, Refugee, Migrant and Iwi liaison officers; they gave guidelines to their museum and gallery educator audience on appropriate ways of building and having successful partnerships with these ethnic groups. Merivale School, Tauranga has demonstrated that their task of liaising with the community, which was initially seen as daunting,when approached with appropriate consideration ie: through Hui and Fono has resulted in some very positive outcomes for the school and their Maori (85%) and Pasifika (10%) parents. Again this need to consult has resulted in a significant shift in the relationship between the school and its community. Many families have expressed their feelings of being in control. They have also expressed a new found ownership with the school. As a school we feel we are hearing from more families and getting far better feedback and feedforward than in the past Merivale School, Principal. 

I want to change the world I'm looking for a new England I'm not just looking for another girl V

Views and comments around this subject area are very welcome please send them to Branwen:schools@artistsalliance.org.nz Branwen Lorigan (Feb/Mar 2008 issue)