Inevitably at this time of year, as the stationary supply shops start displaying their back to school specials, our collective focus starts to shift from beach/BBQ/DIY/reading etc. to the start of the new school year.
So let's kick off with an opinion piece.
Many of us are facing 2025 with a slightly? uneasy feeling. It is not necessarily easy to define the source of this unease but there could be a couple of basic factors that lie behind it.
There is still a significant lack of certainty about what 2025 will bring us [curriculum reform/PLD/ budgets/staffing /NCEA]. Many of these areas are still a little ‘grey’.
One thing teachers do not like is uncertainty. We are OK with change but we get very nervous about uncertainty. We like to plan, it is in our DNA. We can plan for change but we can't plan unless there is a degree of certainty, we like our ‘trains to run on time.’
Uncertainty causes unease. Uncertainty creates a void that is often filled with a noise that is not always helpful in allaying these feelings of unease.
There is an almost universal agreement that we can do better. Better in identified areas such as literacy and numeracy, better in areas around well being etc. We can do better and we want to do better, but many of us are not sure that the solutions that we are being offered [often with little consultation] will actually solve the problem in a meaningful and sustainable way. This puts teachers in a very uncomfortable position. If we disagree with an initiative it can be interpreted as being a belief on our part that there is not a problem to solve, that we are denying the existence of an issue.
We are not saying that there are no issues that need to be addressed with some urgency but that we would prefer to feel comfortable that the initiatives we are being asked to implement will provide an effective solution. Think of education in Aotearoa as being a person with a broken leg. We can all agree that a broken leg is a serious injury that requires medical intervention if the patient is to regain full mobility.
Now there are numerous solutions to treating this serious injury. One solution is to remove the leg. There… the patient no longer has a broken leg, problem solved? Not really, this solution has fixed the broken leg but actually left the patient worse off. He is reduced to having one leg, there may be complications etc. etc. The solution must be appropriate and effective, I am not sure that as a profession we are convinced that the remedies being offered will fix the patient.
The solutions that have been offered or hinted at [structured literacy/ structured approach to numeracy/charter schools/ BOT reform/ NCEA reform etc may be the solution but then again they may not and the risk of fixing a broken leg through amputation is a justified cause for some unease. This is heightened when we feel that as a profession with some knowledge of the ‘patient’ we have not been adequately included in what the appropriate treatment should be.
I have to say at this point that many of these fears are currently just that, fears. They are filling a void of uncertainty so we need to be careful about overreacting or defaulting to a doomsday scenario too quickly.
There is a bigger underlying contributor to this unease though and it is partially captured in the phrase below;
Think of your school as the community here. I am pretty sure that we all accept that our schools have to be run well, managed well and administered well. There has to be prudent use of available finances and schools need to be accountable for their use of the resources provided to them alongside being accountable for the learning outcomes of their learners.
We all accept this need to be aware of these limited resources that we have at our disposal, they are not drawn from a bottomless pit. Schools have to operate within certain market forces and these forces demand a certain amount of business acumen and an approach that is prudent, careful and responsible.
Most of us though, have operated under the belief that the purpose of this ‘market’ awareness is so that we can look after our ‘family’ more effectively. We have tended to see the ‘market’ as being subservient to, and indeed serving, the needs of our ‘family’. Most classroom educators are quite ambivalent around the business side of the school beyond how it improves life and outcomes for their students.
Our current unease is partly due to a feeling that this balance seems to have changed and is continuing to change. Could it be that the ‘market’ approach of accountability to balance sheets and profit where people are seen as commodities is no longer serving the ‘family’ but that the ‘family’ is serving the market? It could be that this shift in balance is creating much of our unease
I am not prepared to say whether this shift is a good or a bad thing, or whether the balance was right in the past, what I am trying to say is that there has been a shift in the balance and that the needs of the ‘market’ may well be determining the needs of the ‘family’ more than it has in the past.
So what to do?
Well the need for a balanced, market oriented perspective has always been there. It is not going to go away and not should it. What we can do though, is that no matter what winds of change sweep through our schools this year we can sharpen our focus on what we really care about: the ‘family’ within our schools, the people within our community. We can ensure that, more than ever before, we protect them, focus on their needs and defend our school as it seeks to provide the best for those who enter its gates.
Focus on what we can control, focus on what we know, be aware of the changes and the unease but don't lose focus on what really matters.
As schools we can look for the common ground with the winds of change wherever possible but always filter them through what we know is right and good for the ‘family’ within.
If you do want to read about the bigger picture then I can recommend two very interesting books that provide an interesting international perspective on much of what is happening here.
Both are from the UK but there are many points of similarity between what these two writers discuss and what we are experiencing.
-James Bartholomew, “The Welfare of Nations.”[2015].
A look at the International welfare state from a neo liberal [even though I hate that phrase] perspective. It often reads like a playbook for the decisions of our current government.
-James O’Brian “How They Broke Britain.” [2023].
A perspective from the other side of the fence. A fascinating analysis of the politics and the media in Britain with a primary focus on Brexit and the changing role of the media.
Placed side by side they provide insights into the reasoning behind the direction taken in Britain and the consequences of that direction.
Comments