New Zealand’s much-publicised truancy problem is not easy to get a handle on. Should we go for the carrot or the stick?
On the ‘carrot’ side of the ledger, some American commentators have suggested paying students to turn up to school. But here in New Zealand, the government has opted for the ‘stick’ approach, announcing $74M to pay for new attendance officers. ACT wants to use a bigger stick and issue on-the-spot fines to the parents of truant students.
But some of our innovative secondary schools have devised a clever, ‘third way’, approach to the problem. Their solution is to change the definition of school attendance.
Inspired by home-based learning during COVID lockdowns, they are implementing ‘working-from-home’ days for their students. This is a stroke of genius.
On working-from-home days, students do not have to attend school to be counted as attending. On those days, there is always full attendance.
Some parents may worry that their children will spend working-from-home days on their PlayStations or social media. What they don’t understand is that this is a feature, not a bug. In today’s classrooms, teachers are not supposed to teach anyway. Students direct their own learning.
A look at the New Zealand Curriculum shows us why parents have nothing to worry about.
The curriculum emphasises ‘key competencies’ more than old-fashioned subjects. We are told that young people need key competencies for life in the 21st century. They include things like managing themselves and relating to others.
It’s easy to see why personal management and social skills feature so prominently in a 21st century curriculum. But the way some critics talk, anyone would think that human beings had been organising themselves and interacting with one another from time immemorial.
There’s no better way for teenagers to learn self-management than to make key learning decisions for themselves on their working-from-home days. Which game to play? Which posts to like? These are difficult choices. But young people must learn to take responsibility for life’s crucial decisions.
And what better way to learn about relationships than by posting selfies or chatting with friends on Instagram? The future, after all, is online.
Yes, working-from-home days are perfect for 21st century learning. They side-line teachers and put student agency in the forefront. They foster the key competencies.
And if every day was a working-from-home day, we would have no truancy at all.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
On working-from-home days, students do not have to attend school to be counted as attending. On those days, there is always full attendance.
Some parents may worry that their children will spend working-from-home days on their PlayStations or social media. What they don’t understand is that this is a feature, not a bug. In today’s classrooms, teachers are not supposed to teach anyway. Students direct their own learning.
A look at the New Zealand Curriculum shows us why parents have nothing to worry about.
The curriculum emphasises ‘key competencies’ more than old-fashioned subjects. We are told that young people need key competencies for life in the 21st century. They include things like managing themselves and relating to others.
It’s easy to see why personal management and social skills feature so prominently in a 21st century curriculum. But the way some critics talk, anyone would think that human beings had been organising themselves and interacting with one another from time immemorial.
There’s no better way for teenagers to learn self-management than to make key learning decisions for themselves on their working-from-home days. Which game to play? Which posts to like? These are difficult choices. But young people must learn to take responsibility for life’s crucial decisions.
And what better way to learn about relationships than by posting selfies or chatting with friends on Instagram? The future, after all, is online.
Yes, working-from-home days are perfect for 21st century learning. They side-line teachers and put student agency in the forefront. They foster the key competencies.
And if every day was a working-from-home day, we would have no truancy at all.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
6 comments:
Yeah, maybe you just let the self learners self learn.
Government should provide a free Apple phone; ChatGTP, Google, Youtube and TikTok is all they need. Theyre all so amazeballs at the new tech. School budgets and the education vote could be shifted into Welfare. You could then deconstruct Policing because who needs that.
Education and Policing is so old hat - its just colonisation in disguise.
Brilliant. Close all the schools and turn them into housing. Develop ChatGTP teachers and save on staff. Ease congestion and pollution with no more chauffeured children. Freebie computers and headphones for all, to adjust to the modern age / no other educational resources required.
Wow, new age stuff.
This is exactly the sort of thing the ministry would support.They just can;t resist new newfangled ,unresearched, unproven, experimental stuff like this. Anything at all rather than admit everything they do fails eg balanced literacy , numeracy project, open classrooms, undirected and ineffective group and project work etc For them treating other people's children like lab. rats is par for the course. Much more interesting than looking at possible root causes of truancy like bullying, underachievement, school anxiety, boredom from lack of challenge in school work,lack of discipline and work ethic in students, a vacuum in knowledge teaching and so on.
In all aspects of society now there is no serious end stop to discourage socially destructive and non productive behaviour. When nations were great there was.
I would say that there has been little careful thought gone into this 3rd solution. For example: will there be anyone at home ? What about the very many concerns about the effect of screen time on a developing brain with respect to and regardless of the content? What age group is being considered ? It stinks of Roussean idealism that the child should be given freedom to direct their own education because they know best. This mixed with Vygotskyian social learning taken to an extreme. Certainly some children thrive with some of thess forms of learning, since I have seen it, but from my experience the percentage of children who do is low.
I would suggest for most children and especially the low SES, it is sentimental nonsense. The aim of education is for me preparing students to be independent functioning adults who have reached their full potential academically and have a large choice of careers. Not those who are just socially and emotionally adjusted socialists.
State education is broken beyond repair. It has become an indoctrination system designed to mold young minds into compliance and group-think. The best solution is for families and individuals to step out of the system and take the initiative.. this could be home schooling or private education which caters to choice and not one-size-fits-all factory schooling. I'd argue that truancy spares many young people from the state's educational malpractice.
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