The Crisis in Political Leadership of Education: How Might We Respond?

I’m still reeling a little from Minister Stanford’s comment on Hosking's radio show (and quoted in the NZ Herald 5 August), "No more of this 'your kid turns up to school and decides what they want to learn'".

This comment implies that she believes a few things such as:

• Teachers have handed over all autonomy to children in our classrooms and let them do as they wish

• Students should turn up, sit down, shut up and do the work that the teacher has determined, in the context the teacher has determined, at the pace the teacher has determined and have their understanding assessed in the way and at the time the teacher has determined without students having any voice in any of those matters.

These beliefs do explain why she is pursuing the one-size-fits-all, mandated model in our state schools (under her watch she is allowing Charter Schools to be established to operate outside her beliefs).

I'm wanting to find a positive way to respond to the upheaval we are experiencing and I’m all for beliefs driving practice. However, it is important for beliefs, especially those that will drive decision-making across our sector, to be founded on evidence and that they are able to act as touchstones around which we can all rally together and which help us make sense of the decisions and practices being foisted upon us.

I find it difficult to be inspired and motivated by the beliefs above which sit behind her comments on the radio show as they are disrespectful of and insulting to teachers and school leaders and disrespectful of and dismissive towards our students.

It is disingenuous to claim that teachers are not driving the direction of learning towards focused learning outcomes, the ‘what’ of learning, and much of the ‘how’ of learning while skillfully constructing ways to assess student learning.

Teachers know that there are important bodies of knowledge that students need to learn and they are delivering on this admirably within the resource constraints under which they operate.

And students, at all year levels, have the desire and more capability than many policy makers realise to contribute to the decisions around how learning is designed for them.

This is not the same as, 'your kid turns up to school and decides what they want to learn'. This is all about seeking relevance for their learning (how are many adults, especially our policy makers, motivated to learn when they struggle with the relevance?) and about meeting the requirement in the New Zealand Curriculum to design learning programmes based on the needs and interest of our learners.

Looking for the middle ground

All of us want to increase student achievement. All of us know that we can be doing better, especially for some cohorts amongst our diverse learners. This is the ’What’. 

The disagreement is over the ‘How’.

The conflict emerges when we buy into a dichotomy of ‘either/or’ rather than ‘and’.

We can all agree on what important knowledge all students need to master and we can agree on a suite of teaching and learning approaches for teachers to draw on for the right student at the right time.

Saying it is all about knowledge or it is all about skills will get us nowhere. (To be fair I’ve heard more opinion about it being about knowledge with little, or any, about it all being about skills.)

Where does research point us?

There is plenty of research indicating that increased student agency in learning can lead to improved student achievement. 

Research, such as that from Journal of Further and Higher Education, RTI International and The Education Hub, has made some of the following findings:

• Student agency, which involves students taking intentional and autonomous actions in their learning, has been shown to significantly impact academic performance, cognitive development, and perceived learning experiences.

• Agency is a strong predictor of valued academic outcomes. Students who actively engage with their learning environment, seek clarification, and request assistance from teachers tend to score higher on standardised exams. Moreover, students who connect deeply with their assignments and evaluate their learning strategies achieve better academic outcomes.

• Student agency is closely tied to motivation and self-regulation, which are critical for learning. By fostering autonomy and ownership over their learning process, students become self-regulated learners who are motivated and poised for academic excellence. This empowerment allows students to make decisions about their educational paths and shape their academic experiences based on personal interests and goals.

• Implementing instructional approaches that promote student agency, such as student-designed units, can enhance learning outcomes. These approaches require students to identify learning goals and determine how best to achieve them, fostering a sense of ownership and engagement in their education.

The following image is a capability sequential process, led by the teacher, AFTER teacher directed learning of the necessary knowledge, which increases student agency.

From Trevor MacKenzie Dive Into Inquiry

Rallying around an inspiring vision

I’d love to have a Minister, supported by a Ministry, which sets about to determine, in consultation with a diverse range of stakeholders, an impelling vision for an effective curriculum and pedagogical model which recognises the body of specialist knowledge necessary for every young person to flourish now and in the future and promotes a suite of teaching practices that invites students, at appropriate times, into the learning design process.

Teachers who see themselves as learning designers and who invite their students into that design process: that’s something we could rally around.