Caleb Anderson: This thing we call education

By the end of the term of the previous (Labour) government, education in New Zealand had reached crisis point. Erica Stanford deserves praise for some much necessary curriculum reforms, but she is only half way there, if that.

In this opinion piece I am speaking only about curriculum reform, not about education reform more generally, which has its own set of problems.

In my opinion, there were two significant problems in curriculum design, and delivery, which had catastrophically undermined the effectiveness of our education system

1. A lack of clarity around what achievement would look like as students progress through the system, and how this might be measured in some meaningful way.

2. A shift in terms of what education is about more generally.

I think the new government has done comparatively well with respect to the first point. Schools are now teaching critical content, this content is being configured sequentially, progress can now be objectively measured, and work is in the pipeline to ensure that students, schools, and parents, have a clearer idea of what achievement looks like, where students are doing well, and not so well, and where positive changes might be enacted.

This is no small thing.

It speaks volumes about just how bad things had become that these were not already in place, and that education officials had no idea, or had little concern, that the foundational pillars of education were crumbling around them.

They just kept doing what they were doing.

Congratulations Ms Stanford for staying the course.

The second problem may be de facto addressed, at least in part, by the first point (more explicit content and measurement of specific outcomes), but is likely to need an equally concerted and tailored focus in its own right.

I began my teaching in the nineteen nineties. At this time critical thinking was taking off. The works of Edward DeBono, and other proponents of critical thinking, were taking root. Countless teachers were enthusiastic enough to enrol in courses that had the specific intention of teaching critical thinking. This involved the teaching of specific skills designed to ...

... generate ideas

... critique ideas

... evaluate these ideas objectively

... argue a case

Oftentimes students were asked to take a position, present an argument in its favour, consider the presuppositional underpinnings of an argument, and weigh it against opposing ideas, often contrary to their own. The idea was to transcend one's personal prejudices, 'to identify self interest, to understand complexity, and to find a way to make sense of things regardless.

For over fifty years a counter idea has waged a persistent war against critical thinking. This war was initiated by the political left, it was seeded in our universities, and teacher education programmes, and increasingly enforced at the chalk face.

This was the idea that free thought, and expression, came at a price, this price was borne disproportionately by the most vulnerable, and that this was "self-evidently" a price not worth paying.

Critical thinking was subordinated to, and ultimately displaced by ...

... the demarcation of boundaries of discourse

... the enforcement of rigid terms of engagement

... the change in meaning of words that once meant something completely different (e.g. democracy, equity ...)

... the emergence of no-go zones for discussion

... the embedding of specific ideologies (including ideologies that are semi-religious in nature)

Ours will not have been the first societies to have used education for ultimately political ends. Even in the West, to a point, this has been a long practice.

My argument is not against the consideration of ideas that push at boundaries, or offend our sensibilities, or even that are self-evidently stupid. My argument is that, under no circumstances, should such arguments be given special treatment. Under no circumstances should they be immune from comparative critiquing, corporate discourse, or to a metaphorical ring fencing in any way.

Ideas need to be shaped by contrary ideas. This is where rough edges are removed, and bad ideas are modified or dispensed with.

This is an area that this government has not really addressed. This is where they will encounter real push back, and maybe this is why.

We are now into a second, or maybe third, generation that has lost the capacity to critique, to weigh things beyond their own self interest, to know a lie when they hear it, to sense self-interest when they smell it, to recognize the patterns that constituted a cautionary warning signal to wiser (and better educated, and more grounded) generations.

All of this makes the West, New Zealand no less, extremely vulnerable to those who want to impose ideas that have not been exposed to the light of day.

So there it is. This is the next hurdle. That Ms Stanford was dragged kicking and screaming to accede to certain changes to the Education Act last year does not give too much hope.

Freedom, democracy, societal stability, intelligent discourse, and simple decency, depend on people not only allowed to engage in free, open, and dare I say civil, discourse, but who are encouraged and capable of doing so, even if someone might be offended.

Not only is our education system telling students what to think, it is making sure they are largely incapable of doing otherwise.

Hence we get the terrible governments that we get, re-elect them with barely a moment's thought, none the wiser to the games they are playing and the agendas they are pursuing.

We have lost the capacity to think, which perfectly suits those who are accustomed to doing this for us.

Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.