There is a reason it is illegal to not answer the census, because unless everyone answers, the data is not an accurate representation of New Zealand (Stats New Zealand, 2013). Colmar Brunton get paid megabucks by the government to monitor the ‘mood’ of New Zealanders. They undertake market and social research for companies and the government to be able to get an idea of what we the masses are thinking. I am always automatically skeptical of surveys and this kind of research. It must be my science and psychology background, always checking methodologies never just enjoying the fun stats. I took an entire paper in my undergrad degree dedicated to research methods in Psychology, which basically ruined surveys forever.  Disclaimer: I don’t hate surveys, they are a useful tool to judge how people are feeling. But I do object to calling a survey a representation of an entire nation because no matter how good your survey, they come with many methodological challenges related to reliability and validity (Taylor, 2017).

So here I am ruining it for all of you too. We had a look at their 2017 “better futures” report on how New Zelanders feel about our sustainable development goals. Overall it’s a pretty bland document, and the information available for their methodologies is very skimpy. Their 2017 and 2019 better futures reports only has a sample size of 1000 people surveyed online. (Colmar Brunton, 2017; Colmar Brunton, 2019)  They call these 1000 people a “national representative”. But already their methodologies are removing groups of people from being represented. People who don’t have access to or can not navigate a computer are automatically excluded from being represented. Already you are cutting out the views of some of our most vulnerable members of society. Low socio-economic people who cant access the internet are not represented in this survey. You may find that people at the lowest end of our socioeconomic spectrum are far less concerned about supporting ethical brands and are more concerned with making ends meet. 

Also, there are many New Zealanders who would not sit down and answer a survey from Colmar Brunton. Young people, busy people, people who don’t like surveys or don’t care, are all excluded from being represented. You might argue its their fault for not participating, and yes you would be correct. However, you can not then call it a true representation of New Zealand’s opinions. There are many more obstacles for gaining a representative sample from a survey such as language of instruction; If it’s only offered in english you exclude a lot of the immigrant population. Another obstacle is the interpretation of the question. People can read the same thing but come up with completely different interpretations of what it means causing the data collected to be not what was intended (Taylor, 2017).

The dirty secret of these types of surveys is that they don’t care if they are leaving out large groups of our population. They care most about the opinions of the people with power. The middle aged, middle to upper class. These are the people who are the most influential in terms of buying power and voting power so these are the people that represent New Zealand. 

References. 

Stats New Zealand. (2013). 2013 Census frequently asked questions. Retrieved from http://archive.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census/info-about-the-census/faqs.aspx

Taylor, J. (2017). Improving Reliability in Collection Condition Surveys by Utilizing Training and Decision Guides. Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, 56(2), 126–141.

Colmar Brunton. (2019). Better futures Report. Retrieved from. https://static.colmarbrunton.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Colmar-Brunton-Better-Futures-2019-MASTER-FINAL-REPORT.pdf

Colmar Brunton. (2017). Better futures Report. Retrieved from https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/bbcswebdav/pid-4936829-dt-content-rid-10793722_3/orgs/CSOC_AE_AK3515/Colmar-Brunton-Better-Futures-Report-FINAL.pdf

The idea that learning and environment are linked is an idea that has been around for a long time. However, my third practicum school is throwing this idea out the window and is bringing in integrated, innovative, future focused curriculum without the “innovative learning space”. They are integrating their juniors (year 9 and 10) in to units that will allow three different subjects to be taught together by 3 different specialist subject teachers. Which will be planned around what McPhail (2016), calls external organisers, such as themes, topics and projects. With around 75 students in an option line. Each unit has a foucing question (eg: What is the maximum of human potential?) and requires students to work on a project that demonstrates their learning across the three subjects by achieving predetermined curriculum outcomes in each of the subjects.

This is all very exciting and innovative but the problem that the school faces is that none of its classrooms are set up to hold 75 students. They have no spaces that would be considered innovative learning environments. The school was built in 1956 in a very kiwi school style with blocks of single cell classrooms and lots of outdoor space. This innovative style of learning is generally found in innovative classrooms, with big open spaces and multiple teachers per class. 

They are getting around this by using innovative learning practices (McPhail, 2018) and completely changing the time table for junior students. They will split each option into normal class size and the students are required to be at certain classes at certain times for content input from the specialist teacher and at other times they can check in to whichever teacher will be able to help them most in their project or to achieve their curriculum outcomes. This will mean that each of the teachers will only be teaching approx 30 students at once, but they will repeat the lesson enough times to ensure the whole option receives the input, allowing the students to cycle through the different teachers lessons. Students will complete 4 units a semester (2 Terms) and will encounter every unit at some point in year 9 or 10. 

For this to be successful students and teachers will have to be fully on board with this new way of teaching. Students will have to be highly self managing and organise their time and learning well. The teacher student whanau relationship also has to be strong as students will need to take ownership of their learning and manage their time effectively. Teachers will have to embrace the new way and work collaboratively and reflectively. 

In my personal opinion, this is potentially a really exciting way to move forward in education. I commend the school for not waiting for the environment to deliver the option for an innovative curriculum. Innovative learning environments are more than the space that the students occupy. Includes many different facets of education, not only the physical space but also the social and pedagogical context (Ministry of Education, 2019). Some may argue that there will be students who will not do well in an innovative space, but in reality there are many students that don’t do well in our current traditional space. 

The student centred, project based self managing principles are at the centre of ILEs and this is what the school have done. In the future it is unclear at this point if they are going to convert their buildings into more traditional ILEs but the ground work in the curriculum and shift in culture happening now will ensure that any transition will be what in the best interest of the students. 

references

McPhail, G.J. (2016). From aspirations to practice: curriculum challenges for a new ‘twenty- first century’ secondary school. The curriculum Journal. 26(4). 

McPhail, G.J. (2018) Curriculum integration in the senior secondary school: a cse study in a national assessment context. The Journal of curriculum studies. 50(1).

Ministry of Education (2019) TKI: Enabling E-learning. Retrieved from: http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Teaching/Innovative-learning-environments#js-tabcontainer-1-tab-1

I distinctly remember being in year 12 and being told as a class our physics internal was going to be scaled up because too many of us had passed. The explanation that was provided to us was that in every assessment some of us had to fail because otherwise the assessment was considered too easy. This is a micro situation that is indicative of how the public education system is run. The idea that someone has to fail is built into every assessment sat by students across all levels of schooling. I understand the logic and practicality behind it  but this ideology goes directly against the founding principles that public education is grounded. 

The education system is set up on the premise of providing everyone the opportunity to reach their full potential As clarence Bebby said “all persons, whatever their ability, rich or poor, whether they live in town or country, have a right as citizens to a free education of the kind for which they are best fitted and to the fullest extent of their powers” (Bebby, 1992) However, at the same time, some students enter the system destined to fail. If you walk into any year 9 class in any school you will see many of them. The students the the system was never designed for. These kids will leave school with nothing but a bad taste in their mouths. Last year in New Zealand only 72% of students enrolled in level 1 NCEA passed (Ministry of Education, 2019). That’s not counting all of the students who were not enrolled. That means that at least 28% of New Zealand students did not achieve our lowest educational qualification.  

The problem is that our school system was not designed for the students it serves. Public education in New Zealand is over 100 years old. Society has come a long way since we first implemented our school system. We’ve been to the moon and back yet we haven’t changed how or what we deliver in our education system. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  So why do we do this year in and year out with our schools.

 We are failing the same demographic of students year in and year out.

Future focused education gives us the chance to change schooling to be more inclusive and not based off a model designed to serve societies in the 1800s. To me the idea of future focused education is a chance to overhaul our current system and try to actually build a system that is designed for today’s kids. Not just today’s kids but today’s kids futures. Our society is constantly shifting and changing it is a living breathing thing that will always evolve. Our education system should follow suit. We shouldn’t try to education children for a changing world in a stagenet system. 

The future is uncertain, we can not guarantee anything. There are many issues that need to be tackled and it will take a brave society to take the leap and try something new. We know that children today need to be prepared to face an uncertain always changing future. The skills and values that our students need to be successful have drastically changed. Future focused education gives us a chance to reimagine a system where these students are the guiding light. Where all students can enter into the system with a fighting chance and hopefully come out victorious. 

References: 

Beeby, C. (1992). The biography of an idea. Wellington, New Zealand: NZCER

Ministry of Education. (2019). Annual report: NCEA, University entrance and New Zealand Scholarship data and statistics. Wellington, New Zealand

Despite the decile system and the hope of education parity, low decile schools continue to underperform and struggle to produce students with the same opportunities as those from high decile schools. They have higher rates of students who have issues beyond the scope of education such as poverty (Wylie, 2013). Students in poverty often live in conditions that hinder their ability to learn. Wylie (2013) offers an apt description of life for many low decile students. “Parents may find it impossible to feed them adequately or keep them healthy, clothes or clothes for school may be unaffordable; likewise, books and computers, paints, musical instruments or sports gear may be outside the family budget. Parents who are stressed from the daily challenge of making ends meet will be less able to give children the interaction that helps them develop. Life on a low income can hinder parents engagement with a child’s school, limiting parent -teacher interaction.” Lower decile schools are drawing their student populations from more socially and economically disadvantaged communities. Not only are these students often more fiscally disadvantaged, the lower decile schools also have more difficulty drawing on other resources such as knowledge, networks and opportunities for their students in and out of the classroom (Wylie, 2013). 

The whole idea of the decile system was to provide educational parity for students across socio-economic levels. However, a 2012 study found that the funding that the decile system provides is nowhere near enough to  combat the socio-economic background of the students or to match higher decile schools. Wylie (2013) states “A comparison of the total income of five decile 1 and five decile 10 primary schools found that the decile 10 schools had about $1,100 more to spend per student each year than the decile 1 schools. The decile 1 schools’ income per student amounted to about $7,518 per student; the decile 10 schools’, about $8,653. Yet one US study estimated that students from poor homes needed 40% to 100 % more funding per student to provide equitable learning opportunities.^” All these factors combined contribute to the continued inequalities we still see in education.  

PISA (2016) found that more than half of the variation in mathematics scores between schools is associated with the socio-economic profile of the school. Recent research has shown that it is not actually the school that’s the problem but the socio-economic background of the students. Once decile is accounted for, the achievement across students at different decile schools is about equal. Hernandez (2019) states that   “inequality in education outcomes evident in school league tables is not a result of large differences in school quality, but rather large differences in family background characteristics, particularly differences in parental education.” This highlights one of the major issues with the decile system, being that it delivers funding to schools based on the community that the school is situated in but not based on the individual students that actually attend the school.

It also highlights the lack of government responsibility in terms of making non-educational issues education issues. Many continuous governments focused on within school solutions and failed to pay any attention to beyond school issues. This forces schools and teachers to try to be the answer to wider societal issues, which is an issue that needs more than just teachers to take responsibility for. 

References: 

Hernandez, J. (2019). Tomorrow’s Schools: Data and evidence. Wellington, New Zealand: The New Zealand Initiative

PISA (2016). Low performing students: Why they fall behind and How to help them succeed. Paris, France: OECD publishing 

Wylie, C.(2013) Schools and  Inequality. Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget William Books Ltd

In education, we all know that we are walking into a profession of haves and have nots. If you step foot into a decile one school, you will immediately see the differences to a decile 10 school. However what is not so obvious is another group of students who are distributed across deciles. Students with extra learning needs are present across all school demographics. The haves and have nots of this group are not so easily defined and come in many forms. Student that fit under this category include students with physical, mental, behavioural and learning difficulties. This is a wide range of conditions that are in no way homogeneous. This is a huge topic that is multifaceted but in terms of inequality I chose to look at how funding is distributed to these kids. It is extremely difficult to receive funding for these students. In many cases only the most severe students receive government funding. Leaving the care and access for these students up to the individual schools.  

In New Zealand we have a commitment to education for all and have one of the most inclusive educational systems in the world (Ryan, 2004). But just because we are including these students doesn’t mean we are serving these students. It all comes back to the idea of equity and equality. Sure these kids are allowed to attend our mainstream schools and have the same opportunities to obtain an education like everyone else but the systems and supports put in place to make education equitable for these students is shameful. 

In my own personal life I have experience with just how unequitable the New Zealand system is for students with disabilities. My brother has severe quadraplegic dystonic spastic cerebal palsy. In short, the part of his brain that controls motor skills and movement is damaged. This means that as a result he is entirely wheelchair dependant, he can not sit unsupported, he can not hold a pen, and he cannot type independently. My brother is one of the lucky ones as he can speak, however most children who are as physically disabled as him are nonverbal. Despite all this he is just like any other 15 year old boy he is bright, funny, and loves rugby. My mum decided that he should attend mainstream school to provide him the best education and social interactions, and from the day he was enrolled it has been a fight to provide him with the support he needs to make his education equitable. Yes there are special schools set up for students with disabilities but they do not offer the same level of education as physical and mental disabilities are often catered for in the same schools and do not go above curriculum level 1. (Wilson School, 2019)

My brother qualifies for extra high ORS funding. For those who are unfamiliar, ORS stands for Ongoing Resourcing Scheme. This is how schools fund supports such as teacher aids and resources for students with disabilities in the classroom. For example, in my brothers case they drew on his ORS funding to ramp his school so he could have access to classrooms, but it can be things as simple as books with enlarged text for students with vision or language difficulties(Ministry of Education, 2019). ORS funding is not just for students with physical disabilities. It is also for students with learning, behavioural/social and vision/hearing needs. However, many students who need ORS funding are excluded as the criteria to receive any form of assistance are extremely high. 

On the ministry of education website (Ministry of Education, 2019) they provide profiles of students who meet the criteria for funding. Under physical disability The profile for the lowest criteria for support  is as follows “They usually have poor hand control and cannot independently dress, eat, hold a cup or maintain their stability when sitting on the toilet. These students need considerable personal support for mobility, positioning, changing direction in their wheelchairs or walkers and for meeting personal care needs.” This is example is taken from the lowest level of difficultly required to receive funding meaning a child with anything slightly less severe is left to their own devices. Even with ORS funding this child would only receive around 1-2  hours a day teacher aide support everything else is up to the school or the classroom teacher. (Matt, 2018)

ORS funding in New Zealand is extremely lacking. Students like my brother who attend full time mainstream school with extra high physical needs ORS funding will only receive approx 15 hours a week teacher aide time. That means that my brother who can not even hold a pen, under the ministry would be left alone in a classroom with no support other than the main teacher for 3 hours a day. Luckily my brother attends a college that has a pooling system for funding, meaning they take on may students like my brother with ORS funding and pool the funding together so that no student is left without a teacher aide through essentially a buddy system of one teacher aide between two or more kids. 

In schools that cannot pool ORS funding, students with needs become the problem of the school in the times that they do not have a teacher aide. If the student is unmanageable by the class teacher, it is not uncommon that the student is asked to only attend school during funded hours or the parents have to pay extra teacher aide hours (Matt, 2018). How is this equitable? How is this inclusive? These students are barely supported enough to be allowed to attend class let alone learn anything. If it wasn’t for schools taking ownership of these students and providing systems like at my brothers school, these kids would be entirely excluded from education, how inclusive is that?  

References:

Matt, S. (2018). School takes on debt for its special pupils. Manawatu Standard, 6. 

Ministry of Education. (2019). Criteria for ongoing resourcing scheme (ORS). Retrieved from https://minedu.cwp.govt.nz/school/student-support/special-education/ors/criteria-for-ors/

Ryan, E.J. (2004). Failing the system? Enforcing the right to education in New Zealand. Victoria University of wellington Law Review. 35(3). 735-768.

Wilson School. (2019). Our Learning. Retrieved from https://wilson.school.nz/our-learning/

Pierre Bourdieu was a french philosopher who died in 2001. However, his life and work still influences much of what we do in regards to bicultural education today on the other side of the world.

Pierre Bourdieu’s work was focused around the concept of capital. He looks at how possessing different forms of capital is related to one’s class. He introduced the idea that it was not just economic capital but social and cultural capital that distinguished class (Hart, 2018). Bourdieu defines cultural capital as having three distinct forms; firstly, “embodied as a disposition of the mind and body, objectified as cultural goods and in its institutionalized state, for example, educational qualifications” (Nash, 1990). Bourdieu also talks about social capital which he describes as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (Nash, 1990).

Obviously Bourdieu was not writing for a New Zealand and Maori context, however all of this sounds all to familiar when we look at our Maori students here in New Zealand. Bourdieu explains that the school system is controlled by the socially and culturally dominant classes and therefore is working to reproduce the dominant classes. Bourdieu argues that these forms of capital help reproduce the class system as they are. It is therefore clear that in modern society, schools have become the most important factor for the reproduction of almost all social classes (Nash, 1990). In Nash, (1990) using Bourdieu’s framework, he argues that this factor is the primary reason for lower educational attainment of working-class students. Bourdieu himself states that students with lower cultural or social capital will often “take refuge in a kind of negative withdrawal” when educated in this setting which once again we all know the statistics on Maori engagement, Only 33% of Maori school leavers will obtain level 3 (Ministry of Education , 2019). Hart (2018) also using Bourdieu’s framework states that “Children who feel a sense of entitlement to their education and who are taught in language codes that reflect their own tastes and distinctions will fare better than children who feel out of place and who do not recognize the cultural norms of their educational institution”. This is especially relevant for what we are trying to do in New Zealand, which is the idea of enabling Maori students to feel seen and have their cultural capital valued when they come to school. 

In New Zealand there are initiatives currently using Bourdieu’s capital theory to try and raise the social capital of Maori students. Programs such as “In Zone” (in which low income Maori students are moved in grammar zone to enable them to attend the school and gather higher levels of social and cultural capital through status and networking in circles such as “the old boys club”) work solely on the idea that going to grammar will enhance the social and cultural capital of the students and therefore lead to better prospects. 

In New Zealand the hangover effects of colonialism means that it is often Maori students that have lower social capital. They do not have the ‘societally valid’ knowledge and networks to allow them to be competitive in western education systems. The systemic valuing of western culture will not vanish overnight but it is something that educators should be aware of in their daily practice. Just because the cultural capital of Maori students is different doesn’t mean it is any less valuable.

References 

Nash, R. (1990) Bourdieu on Education and Social and Cultural Reproduction, British Journal of Sociology of Education. 11(4). 431-447.

Hart, C.S. (2018). Education, inequality and social justice: A critical analysis applying the Sen-Bourdieu Analytical Framework, Policy Features in Education. 17(1).

Ministry of Education. (2019) Education Counts: Quick stats about Maori Education.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

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