WHAT IS REALLY MODERN ABOUT LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS? Gregory Lee The University of Canterbury Howard Lee Massey University
As regular readers of the New Zealand Principal journal was the academic secondary schools. will know, references to ‘modern learning environments’ Hogben, for his part, maintained that the primary and (MLEs) and to their characteristics have appeared frequently in the post-primary school curriculum should enable pupils to education articles and in the New Zealand Education Gazette’s receive both a broad, general, well-balanced education (i.e., school vacancy listings during the past few years. The impression one that did not privilege one type of knowledge over another) conveyed in much of the readily accessible literature relating and an education that would encourage learners to follow the to these settings typically is one of newness or of novelty. It is academic and practical interests they demonstrated during underpinned usually by an assumption that when the word their time at school. He believed it was possible—indeed, ‘modern’ is used in educational contexts then educators and essential—to reorientate New Zealand schooling so that the interested parties will necessarily pursuit of school credentials and be introduced to something that is Nothing, not even the most qualifications would become much either unfamiliar to them or to an less important than was the provision idea or a practice that is potentially exciting and apparently of a worthwhile education for all revolutionary or radical. There is pupils. Hogben sought to redefine ‘a rarely, if ever, any mention of an idea revolutionary educational general education curriculum’, in the and/or of a practice being evolutionary, proposal, arrives on the scene post-primary domain mostly, so that it however. would embrace academic and practical What often is absent from this de novo. studies, but soon he encountered literature is any acknowledgement strong parental and community that many of the components of modern learning environments resistance in both urban and rural settings. in the twenty-first century are neither modern nor new. Our research indicates that Hogben’s objective was to prove There is an abundance of historical evidence to suggest that far more difficult to achieve than he had anticipated. Toward several elements of what might now be considered as being the end of his administrative career Hogben conceded that the contemporary, modern, educational settings were identified by public ‘fascination’ with obtaining school leaving credentials had New Zealand school inspectors, some politicians (e.g., several triumphed largely over the pursuit of education for its own sake. members of the government-appointed 1929–1930 Bodkin Hogben’s experience was to become familiar to many advocates Education Committee), and by education officials from the of curricular and institutional modernisation from the early early twentieth century. Prominent among their ranks were 1920s and beyond. This reality (alongside others) should be born George Hogben (Inspector-General of Schools for New Zealand, in mind whenever contemporary commentators announce that 1899–1915), John Caughley (Director of Education, 1921–1927), they wish ‘to put education on a new road’, as the prominent and Frederick Bakewell (Senior Inspector of Primary Schools in New Zealand historian of education, David McKenzie, later Wellington in the late 1890s and in the early twentieth century). warned in 1984: Clarence Beeby (Director of Education, 1940–1960), Peter Fraser (Minister of Education, 1935–1940), Fraser's successor Nothing, not even the most exciting and apparently (1940–1947) Rex Mason, and James Strachan (Headmaster of revolutionary educational proposal, arrives on the scene Rangiora High School, 1917–1948) also advocated for these de novo. Periods of intense energy and drama can [and do] learning environments. This list of significant educationists and occur. But these do not negate the claim of continuity. All politicians, it should be noted, is by no means complete. participants in the educational process are the products Each of these commentators, often independently, lamented themselves of past experience and tradition. the persistence of a schooling model wherein the nurturing of individual pupil's educational interests and aspirations all Matters of curricular content and curricular orientation were the too often became subservient to the public’s insatiable quest focus of many debates from the nineteenth century, about what for examination results, to the acquisition of certificates of was deemed necessary and what was thought to be superfluous. attainment, and to vocational requirements. Separately and Reflecting in 1928 on his lengthy career as a senior primary school collectively, they were keen to secure pedagogical reforms inspector, Bakewell left readers in no doubt that the New Zealand relating to the work undertaken in the nation’s primary and primary school curriculum, and the environment in which it post-primary schools, although the prime target of their criticism was delivered typically, deserved much closer scrutiny. Having
TODAY'S MODERN
observed in the early twentieth century that ‘the true interests of the child, the proper development of his [and her] mind and character, were subordinated to examination requirements’, he then declared that ‘all [pupils] had to go through the same mill. The foot was planed down to fit the boot.’ Bakewell concluded solemnly that ‘the educational horizon was narrowed to the limits of the [primary school] classroom.’ Bakewell was not alone in documenting criticisms, however. New Zealand’s Director of Education throughout most of the 1920s, John Caughley, echoed a similar sentiment almost immediately upon his retirement. While very few references have been made to Caughley’s contributions to New Zealand education, we believe his comments concerning the deficiencies of the then current schooling system might resonate with modern learning environment advocates in the twenty-first century. In 1928 Caughley reported that
too often a curriculum is regarded as a list of necessary items of knowledge or training . . . as if the syllabus were literally a collection like the stock-in-trade of a shop . . . the child is sometimes forgotten as if he [or she] were merely an elastic receptacle into which and from which unlimited quantity and variety can be poured and extracted. We suggest that a compelling argument can be made that curricular changes were not the only facet of schooling that warranted attention. The above-mentioned persons maintained, furthermore, that other aspects of schools and of the schooling process should now be re-examined. As a result of their and other people's deliberations, matters relating to school environments and design could be ignored no longer. These elements were to the fore in public pronouncements from both Mason and Beeby
Slash Your Storage Costs!!! Save Thousands $$$ Looking for sliding storage systems? Ex Hire Lundia & Hydestor Systems Now Selling up to 60% off retail Near New – Lundia – Sliding & Static Shelving Advance Hire Co Call FREE: 0800 42 42 47 (08004chairs) – Ask for Mike Auckland • Wellington • Christchurch • All Areas Serviced web: www.advancehire.co.nz email: advancehire@xtra.co.nz
in the 1940s. Mason, as Minister of Education, was adamant that ‘to aim the pedagogic blunderbuss at the so-called “average” child, and hope that those who were not average were hit by a few of the flying facts’ was an indefensible and outmoded schooling orientation. He understood that this approach had been a hallmark of New Zealand primary schooling until the mid-to-late 1930s, nonetheless, and he was eager to secure reforms. Mason considered carefully the particular milieu in which schooling was being conducted in New Zealand. Accordingly he sought not only to ‘extend and deepen the contacts between the class-room and the world beyond the school-gates’ but also to encourage changes to the physical design and the location of schools. Mason reported that these initiatives ‘will enable [primary school teachers] to carry out sound teaching on modern lines.’ Classroom design and equipment considerations were not restricted to the primary school domain, however. In 1945 Mason announced that ‘schools at every other stage need special facilities of their own.’ He favoured the establishment of dedicated classrooms and/or workshops for certain activities, with appropriate equipment and resources, the reduction in class sizes, and enhanced sports facilities at schools, regardless of their classification. Mason’s views were hardly radical, though, given that many educationists had expressed similar views earlier. A previous Director of Education, Theo Strong (1927–1933), had stated in 1928 for example that while ‘an individualising of the teaching’ – with reference to pupils’ ‘temperament’, ‘special interests’, and to ‘individual difficulties in acquiring knowledge’ in particular – was evident increasingly from the late 1920s, the large class sizes, along with rooms that were either too small or too large, militated against realising this educational aim. Like Mason subsequently, Strong believed that retaining ‘[an] old-fashioned school building that has not yet been remodelled’ was unhelpful. For Strong this ‘remodelling’ required teachers to work in their own room – to avoid ‘the confusion of sound and the racking of nerves caused by two classes attempting to work where only one should have been.’ It meant, moreover, that school buildings had to have more floor space, larger (and low-set) windows, single desks ideally (with dual desks as the minimum provision), and readily moveable tables and chairs. Having described this situation as symptomatic of ‘[a] tendency towards freedom’ which is characteristic of ‘[a] democratic spirit of the time’, Strong concluded that the tendency in the modern schoolroom is to regard it as a workroom . . . a room but still part and parcel of the outside world, not a prison for saddened souls, not a retreat where silence must reign, but a place where pupil and teacher meet to work happily together, a place enlivened by song, by spirited discussions, by freedom of movement. It is quite true: the school architecture and the school furniture reflect most vividly the educational thought and tendencies of the time. It should be noted, however, that wartime and associated fiscal constraints in the immediate post-World War 2 years meant that the Fraser Labour Government’s school building programme nationwide was driven chiefly by the pressing need to provide more schools to accommodate the large number of incoming pupils, owing to the school leaving age being raised to 15 years from 1944. A desire to reconfigure classrooms and schools as rapidly as possible, therefore, was not a priority. Both Mason and
Beeby knew that accommodating a large number of pupils had to take precedence over school redesign and school architecture considerations until the 1950s. They understood that making curricular adjustments, to suit an increasingly heterogeneous pupil population, was now a matter of urgency. Assigning priority to particular aspects of schooling (e.g., primary and post-primary school curricular reforms, and examination reforms in the post-primary sector) and not to others, therefore, was an inescapable fact of institutional and administrative life at that time. Consequently the introduction of other ‘reforms’ had to be delayed. From the 1950s, with a spirit of post-war optimism and greater financial prosperity evident nationally, the attention of New Zealand educators and education administrators was directed once more toward modern learning environments. Members of the 1960–1962 Currie Commission on Education in New Zealand, for instance, understood the relationship that existed between curricular pedagogy and school environments, having described this relationship in the following terms: Increased rolls meant increased demand, but new requirements in curricula and higher levels of education [have] also resulted in new requirements in the buildings in which this education was to be given . . . School buildings are subject to hard usage; they grow old, deteriorate physically despite maintenance work, and with educational advances, become quite unsuitable for the work they were originally planned for. Such an assertion appears little different in nature and in scope from statements issued in the twenty-first century in relation to modern learning environments. The Commissioners and contemporary commentators have made reference to environmental concerns, pedagogical elements, the kind(s) of technology available in a given age, and to the desirability of adjusting architecture and design to suit particular requirements once these have been identified. In the words of the Currie Commissioners, ‘the earlier rigidity has been relaxed so that plans can be flexibly adapted to the needs of sites, of climates, of special types of schools, and even of variations in curricula.’ The result was that ‘modern schools represent a considerable advance on the schools of the past, [in] that they are light, bright, and airy and make pleasing use of colour and varied building textures.’ The Commissioners were sympathetic to a future-oriented focus in education, both philosophically and practically, because they had little choice but to engage with the form(s) that 'education' might assume from the early 1960s. In this way they are barely distinguishable from educationists and other commentators in the twenty-first century who emphasise the importance of making provision for 'new' kinds of education inquiry and for ‘new’ (or redesigned) settings within which education can be nurtured. To put the point another way, prior to this century only a very small minority of educationists and education administrators in New Zealand had defended the status quo in schooling. One explanation for this situation rests with a greater awareness by New Zealand educationists of schooling ideas and proposals for change that were being debated and introduced internationally. Regrettably, though, an impression has arisen in recent years in some communities of interest that such an orientation to learning and to teaching in New Zealand had not existed prior
to the twenty-first century. This conclusion is erroneous, based on the body of historical evidence that exists on the matter. Although there certainly is truth to the claim that a contemporary 'future focus' orientation takes account of the contributions that digital learning can make to education and to schooling, it should be remembered that in its earlier iterations such an orientation necessarily embraced and reflected the technology that was available in a given era. To this end a leading University of Georgia (USA) information technology specialist, Clarence R. Carpenter, warned in 1974 that whatever counted as ‘information technology’, or its equivalent, needed to be interrogated rigorously for its educational worth. He opined: Educators and researchers need to evaluate systematically the expectations and possibilities that instructional technology will increase instructional effectiveness, decrease educational deficiencies, provide better conditions for learning, and maintain or reduce costs . . . There are side effects that should be considered in relation to the application to education of the results of the twentieth century communications revolution. We believe that Carpenter’s observations are as applicable to the present decade as they were in the 1970s. In essence Carpenter argued that information technology delivery might have a cargo-cult ethos to it, such that the educational contribution it may, or may not, offer is seldom examined dispassionately. This orientation is abundantly clear in the National Government’s current Canterbury Education Renewal Strategy where the provision of digital technology in schools is presented ipso facto as nothing less than an educational nirvana. It is not surprising to find therefore that taken-for-granted relationships often are assumed to exist between high quality education provision, modern learning environments, digital technology, and twenty-first century teaching and learning discourses and practices. These relationships can be detected in several documents released by the Ministry of Education, in response to the Key Government’s policy directions and priorities. They are identifiable readily in contemporary pronouncements, with Nicky Wagner’s bold declaration in September 2015 (as a Christchurch National Party MP) constituting just one example of the perceived, special, merits of having modern learning environments. Wagner stated confidently that ‘[pupils] will be inspired to learn in new and exciting ways’ only when ‘the classrooms of yesterday are replaced with innovative new learning spaces.’ While many educators may believe that education will be enhanced automatically by redesigning and by redeploying spaces in schools, we trust that they will recognise the gulf that exists between educational rhetoric and reality. What is needed urgently is serious and meaningful debate about what constitutes ‘education’ and the contributions that digital technology may, or may not, make to learning and to teaching. By failing to engage in these conversations educationists and other interested parties will contribute by omission to the perpetuation of yet another education myth—that the mere provision of something deemed ‘new’ and ‘modern’ in education is synonymous with worthwhile education pedagogy. Such a reductionism and association, we maintain, is incompatible with authentic modern education practice.
About the Authors Dr Gregory Lee and Dr Howard Lee are Professors of Education History and Policy at The University of Canterbury and at Massey University, respectively. Gregory Lee Dr Gregory Lee is Professor of History of Education and Education Policy within the School of Educational Studies and Leadership, based in the College of Education, Health, and Human Development at The University of Canterbury. Gregory's work examines education policies and practices from historical perspectives. He focuses on analysing and explaining the assumptions that underpin these practices and policies, and on exploring any debates and controversies that may follow. Gregory has written, co-authored, and edited professionally more than 350 publications, across a wide range of education topics, in a 34–year career within four tertiary institutions. Gregory can be contacted at: gregory. lee@canterbury.ac.nz Howard Lee As Professor of Education Policy and History of Education at Massey University's Institute of Education (formerly, the College of Education), Dr Howard Lee has explored a comprehensive range of education topics in his lengthy (34–year) career as an academic in three tertiary education institutions. Although Howard is a history and policy specialist in the area of education assessment, qualifications, and credentials his many publications include, for example, explorations into rural schooling policies and practices, primary and post-primary school curricula, biographies of significant Aotearoa/New Zealand educationists, and studies of debates over religious instruction provision in state schools. Howard has published more than 250 articles as book chapters, journal articles, academic monographs, archival articles, opinion pieces, and conference papers. Howard can be contacted at: H.F.Lee@massey.ac.nz
MAGAZINE
You can now access the current and past issues of NZ Principal magazine online
You can search by magazine issue, article name or author visit www.nzprincipal.co.nz