Bob Edlin: Teachers say Treaty must be included in our English curriculum......

Teachers say Treaty must be included in our English curriculum – but are we envied by overseas schools?

Time is running out, if you want to contribute to the consultation on a draft intermediate and secondary school English curriculum that reportedly prioritises Shakespeare, grammar and 19th century literature. A report from RNZ says the consultation “ closes on Friday”, which is today.

PoO imagines many submissions will have been made, because English teachers told RNZ they were worried the draft set unrealistic workloads for students .

But that’s not all. They further complained it failed to mention the Treaty of Waitangi.

Seriously?

Are our teachers expecting us to believe they can’t teach English if the curriculum does not mention the Treaty – and (presumably) their students will be impeded in their learning?

Apparently so.

Moreover, our English curriculum – according to those teachers – can only be greatly improved by larding it with a streak of te reo.

RNZ drew PoO’s attention to this early in April with a report headed

‘Educational violence’ – Lack of Te Mātaiaho in English curriculum slammed

Having been educated in the days before there was any Te Mātaiaho in the English curriculum – so far as we knew – the PoO team proceeded to be informed by the RNZ reporter who explained:

The draft secondary school English curriculum is ringing alarm bells for some teachers, with no reference to Te Mātaiaho – the framework that underpins every other curriculum area.

Teachers told RNZ the omission of Te Mātaiaho in the document published this week was bizarre, and they were worried it was part of a move to sideline the Treaty of Waitangi, which until recently had been a critical part of Te Mātaiaho.

Because the English we learned was not larded with te reo, we were left wondering what Te Mātaiaho entailed and what might be the repercussions of making no reference to it in the draft.

The RNZ report today did draw attention to aspects of English lessons with which we were familiar:

Teacher Corey Spence said the curriculum felt aspirational, but the jump in expectations was large.

“In Year 10, our students will be expected to have mastered the Oxford comma and we’re still often looking at commas and sentence structure even deep into our senior levels,” he said.

“There is good stuff there, but the sheer expectation and the sheer volume has definitely been a bit of a jump. Our programmes at the moment have perhaps a collection of short texts or an extended text each term, whereas moving forward it might need to be two of those, each term which is going to apply a lot more pressure on teachers as well as students.”

Then we learned (with an element of sympathy): :

The teachers did not agree with the draft’s requirement that schools teach Shakespeare and 19th Century texts in Years 12-13.

They told RNZ they enjoyed teaching Shakespeare and it was important that teenagers were able to encounter his works, but it should not be compulsory.

Yep. PoO has often sympathised with opponents of compulsion.

But the need for the Treaty of Waitangi to feature in the English curriculum bemused us.

Maybe shaking it out of the curriculum – along with that Te Mātaiaho thing – will be a good thing.

Let’s note that – according to another RNZ report:

Barely half the teenagers who tried to pass the critical NCEA literacy and numeracy benchmark via online tests this year have succeeded, final results indicate.

The Qualifications Authority has published results of the September round of the tests and also the cumulative results considering both the September and May rounds.

They show that more than 100,000 students attempted at least one of the tests over the two rounds, with more than 80,000 sitting each subject. They had pass rates of 55 percent in numeracy, 66 percent in writing and 70 percent in reading.

Students must pass all three tests before they can receive any NCEA qualifications.

Has the decline in performance by our school kids happened before or after The Treaty and Te Mātaiaho were brought into the curriculum?

Another question:

If the English curriculum in New Zealand is enhanced by mention of The Treaty and Te Mātaiaho, would the same enhancement happen in schools which teach English in other countries?

Or are those schools doing much better in teaching English to their students because they do not include those components?

But if the Treaty must be involved in the curriculum – well, here’s an idea:

Give each students a copy of the English text.

Then put them to work to assess their comprehension prowess.

Hands up the students who find a mention of “partnership”, then steer the rest of the class to where it sits in the text.

Next – look for the mention of “co-governance”.

And of “science”. “education” and “health”.

Come to think of it, the kids could spend a year or two looking for those words.

It’s probably too late to prepare our submission before the deadline.

Too bad. It was bound to be influential.

The Education Ministry’s consultation page said an updated version of the curriculum would be published in term 4 and schools would be required to teach it from the start of next year.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.