Editorial: Half empty or half full?

Abstract

As we know, a pessimist is someone who sees the glass of wine as half empty while the optimist is someone who sees it as half full. The pessimistic perspective with its emphasis on problems, often gets more attention, and this would be understandable when a new policy such as a curriculum document is released, entailing possible increases in teacher workloads. Yet over the last 12 months I have informally interacted with teachers and colleagues as they commented on the draft curriculum and could not help noticing that many aspects of the draft have stimulated both pessimistic and optimistic reactions. I tend to side with the teachers who saw new opportunities but I understand the alternative view. Regardless of my bias it seems important to consider both perspectives because implementing a new curriculum, like introducing a new topic in class, involves the change process, and just as a teacher starts where the students are, so a curriculum change agent must start where the teachers are. From teachers' comments on the Ministry of Education's (2006) draft curriculum (the final version was not released when this editorial went to print) I have identified a number of issues that stimulated contrasting views. In terms of the vision of the curriculum, the words entrepreneurial and economic well-being were interpreted as implying a business orientation. While some favoured this, preferred a concern for sustainability, which they identified as being contradictory. The key competencies were seen by some as being too middle-of-the-road, with terms such as managing self' and relating to others not going as far as self-respect, self-knowledge, personal and social identity, and concern and empathy for others. At the same time, most of the people who made these comments seemed to see the increased emphasis on the personal, social, and cognitive domains as a desirable--if not an essential--broadening of education. The alternative view was that such an emphasis was impractical in our current educational climate, that curriculum content is more important, and that an emphasis on personal and social growth means less time will be available for the content that is needed by students. The notion of thinking was affirmed, in terms of a thinking curriculum being desirable and habits of mind being more important than facts that are quickly forgotten after students leave school. Although thinking was criticised for being so general that it was virtually meaningless, and because teachers were seen to need considerable assistance with both thinking in general and with thinking in each subject, a more positive stance was taken by a small group familiar with teaching young children philosophy. The learning areas seemed to be what had been expected. The two opposing viewpoints were that the subjects worked against holistic education, and that the subjects were not specific enough to honour the traditional senior-school curriculum. Within the learning areas the notion of a second language seemed to be generally accepted, although some high school subject teachers felt that this would mean they have less time for their specialist subjects. A common observation made about another language was that it was time New Zealand's second official language was given full recognition, although the comment I most enjoyed was about our third official language: sign language. It apparently uses a different side of the brain from spoken languages and therefore helps visual learning, but the opportunities it provides during examinations suggest a wonderful tool for sabotaging the assessment industry. The learning area descriptors provoked three types of response. Some acknowledged them for being wonderfully brief and as enabling teachers to concentrate on what would benefit their students and build on teacher strengths. Others thought the brevity of the descriptors gave little guidance in terms of what was expected. …