It’s important to say before we begin this conversation that the information being commented on has come from a leaked draft document from the Ministry of Education - which was sent to just a few teachers for their feedback. They were so taken aback by what they saw they couldn’t help sharing it.
It is a draft document. Once selected feedback has been collected a full document will go out to the wider sector and public for feedback in August. So what’s been seen isn’t set in stone, but I’m grateful to those who have raised alarm bells because it’s in all parents’ interest to be engaged in this conversation.
The main concern expressed by the science teachers is that the proposed school science curriculum makes no mention of physics or chemistry. I don’t know about you but I’m under the impression these are quite central to the study of science.
The Ministry wants to take a more holistic approach and excite students by engaging with the issues of the day and teaching science through five contexts: earth system, biodiversity, food, energy and water, and infectious diseases.
My science-loving daughter just groaned. “They’re turning it into a social studies or English class. We’re already dealing with the big issues of the day in every other class”, she said, “can’t we just keep setting our hands on fire”
Some context is probably required here. My daughter loves science, not because of the curriculum or because she’s good at solving problems with a formula, but because she has an awesome science teacher who engages the class with exciting experiments to bring the science basics to life. And yes, if the class has done well or has had a good week she lets them set their hands on fire - in a perfectly safe and scientific way.
There’s something in the idea of making a curriculum more relevant and fun for students. Great teachers have already worked out how to do this, but school can’t always be fun and engaging - sometimes it's work.
No amount of playing around with the curriculum is going to make a kid who doesn’t like science suddenly like science. It’s one of those subjects you tend to like if you’re good at it, but will those students be happy to study just five main areas throughout their secondary education.
More importantly though, how is this going to prepare our teenagers for tertiary education. From the friends I know whose offspring have headed off to university to study engineering, math or science, many speak about what a step up it is and how in some ways they didn’t feel adequately prepared. Surely the curriculum also needs to be driven by what universities require of students.
Francesca is a well known film reviewer, writes for NZ Herald's Timeout magazine, and contributes to Jack Tame's Newstalk show. This article was first published HERE
The main concern expressed by the science teachers is that the proposed school science curriculum makes no mention of physics or chemistry. I don’t know about you but I’m under the impression these are quite central to the study of science.
The Ministry wants to take a more holistic approach and excite students by engaging with the issues of the day and teaching science through five contexts: earth system, biodiversity, food, energy and water, and infectious diseases.
My science-loving daughter just groaned. “They’re turning it into a social studies or English class. We’re already dealing with the big issues of the day in every other class”, she said, “can’t we just keep setting our hands on fire”
Some context is probably required here. My daughter loves science, not because of the curriculum or because she’s good at solving problems with a formula, but because she has an awesome science teacher who engages the class with exciting experiments to bring the science basics to life. And yes, if the class has done well or has had a good week she lets them set their hands on fire - in a perfectly safe and scientific way.
There’s something in the idea of making a curriculum more relevant and fun for students. Great teachers have already worked out how to do this, but school can’t always be fun and engaging - sometimes it's work.
No amount of playing around with the curriculum is going to make a kid who doesn’t like science suddenly like science. It’s one of those subjects you tend to like if you’re good at it, but will those students be happy to study just five main areas throughout their secondary education.
More importantly though, how is this going to prepare our teenagers for tertiary education. From the friends I know whose offspring have headed off to university to study engineering, math or science, many speak about what a step up it is and how in some ways they didn’t feel adequately prepared. Surely the curriculum also needs to be driven by what universities require of students.
Francesca is a well known film reviewer, writes for NZ Herald's Timeout magazine, and contributes to Jack Tame's Newstalk show. This article was first published HERE
6 comments:
This, like the new History curriculum is driven purely by one thing and one thing alone.
Ideology.
It is not about the teaching it is about the indoctrination of children to believe that black is white and vice versa.
These people who create this sort of ideological rubbish see nothing wrong because it is their ideology that drives it.
The rest of us that are capable of critical analysis are called the heretics to the new age of science and history and we like so many are called 'Yesterdays Men'.
What future holds for New Zealand when we teach unintellectual garbage as if it was intellectual to children that barely attend school anyway.
This is a politcal manifesto writ large.
The last paragraph of this article is most pertinent. Universities rely on upper secondary science education to prep students up on scientific concepts and skills that they will need to study fields such as engineering and biomedical. Upper secondary relies on lower secondary science education to instil the most fundamental scientific concepts in youngsters. Curriculum writers always need to look at their obligations to the stage after the one they are writing a curriculum for.
it staggers me that these documents see the light of day. Presumably eveybody in the path is too afraid of cancellation to reject. I gather infectious diseases is somehow invoked. I have done science to at least university 1st year level and with some revison could teach it. But as a teacher I would not have the faintest idea how to link with infectious diseases (except perhaps in studyng particke size and filter mesh)
The dmands on teachers are too obscure. In additon to the relatively simple basiscs they have to handle a vast range of abilities, behaviuoral and attitude problems, and learn te reo and invented tikanga. And now the basics are obscure.
Your daughter is absolutely right, Francesca!
As a (now retired) pharmacist and life long lover of science fiction and science with it's awesome and fascinating insights into all sorts of almost magical insights, I am appalled at this dreadful political, woke debasement of this subject.
This new proposed "curriculum" is quite simply NOT Science !!
We should be looking at our catastrophic failure in the basics before drastic changes are made to dumb down the curriculum by making it easier and more relevant which seems to me to be the driver for the new curriculum.
My two dyslexic children would never have been able to gain pure science degrees let alone ever been able to read any secondary tex science of otherwise if they had not been taught to read and do maths. They were taught by direct instruction and phonics which are still not taught well or used in most NZ schools. The latest science in education proves overwhelmingly that direct instruction is the answer to failure in the basics. O dear, can our Ministry of mis -Education ever be trusted to get their priorities right ?
And what's worse, I'll wager most teachers wouldn't have a clue what they are suppose to do with the new curriculum. It's a complete bastardisation of the English language for starters, and it's riddled with aspirational claptrap.
Which reminds me, who was big on 'aspirational thinking' and where did that get us? In the pickle we are now in on every front, not least of all with plummeting literacy and numeracy standards.
The ideologues that came up with this nonsense, at God know what cost to us hapless taxpayers, should be lined up and summarily $...!
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