EDITOR
‘Massive’ takes on new meaning when you attend an There was no shortage of Australian politicians amongst the EduTECH Conference. Ten thousand delegates are about nine presenters either. Star amongst them was former Prime Minister thousand more than you normally expect at a conference – but of Australia, the Hon Julia Gillard. With obvious passion and not at the largest education event in the southern hemisphere, pride, Gillard expressed the virtues of NAPLAN, the Australian hosted at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Sydney. school testing system, and the My School website on which I was helpfully informed by organisers that the conference was school NAPLAN results are made public. Both were developed spread over 3 venues although all plenary sessions would be held under her watch. Her belief is that the more public information in the ICC Theatre. out there, the better the education policy debates will be. Delegates chose their areas She said her motivation for of interest from a list of twelve NAPLAN stemmed from a different congresses within desire for everyone to enjoy which there were even more the profits education brings. break out choices. You were Educational opportunity, access fortunate if most of your and equality were her goals and options were held in the same these result in resilient healthy venue area, otherwise, wellchildren, she said. It was her developed map reading skills belief that NAPLAN would push were essential to navigate your the performance of schools and way around this mini-city. disadvantaged schools would The plenary sessions brought do better. NAPLAN provided everyone together and since the data, the evidence, through the plenaries showcased the which continuous improvement keynote speakers, all wanted could occur, she said. She also Delegates stream into the ICC Theatre, Sydney in readiness to to hear their wise words. That’s introduced initiatives like hear the latest in educational thinking where the ICC Theatre came needs-based funding and set into its own. Walking into the tiered fan-shaped theatre was a clear national standards and a national plan for improvement. bit like turning up to an AFL match in a covered stadium with Politicians of all persuasions want to align themselves with the lights dimmed. needs-based funding now, she said. Delegates had gathered in Sydney to hear about the latest Whilst most in the audience showed support for her goals to educational research and the best practice in school leadership, provide equal access to education, and to lift the success rates new advances in technology, learning environments, pedagogy for disadvantaged students, not all in the audience, particularly and curriculum. They also wanted to know where global Australian educators, agreed that Gillard’s educational reforms thinking was at and were looking forward, as I was, to hearing were the best way to achieve those goals. Many oppose what has international experts like Yong Zhao, Prakash Nair, Guy Claxton become high stakes testing saying it has damaged the teaching and Adam Gazzaley. of the broader curriculum and has fuelled a coaching industry. Variety had to be uppermost on organisers’ minds. Props for A conference called EduTECH would inevitably have a strong the presenters were mostly just screen pointers, to help draw emphasis on technology and that was certainly the case. In the attention to the details of projected images, but in one case, exhibition hall you spent as much time dodging roaming robots included a pommel horse. Yes, the former Olympic gymnast as ducking crowds to watch a demonstration. From Microsoft to and multiple Gold Medallist, Brennon Dowrick, stripped down 3D printing, web builders to tactile iQube circuitry systems, they to his gym gear, to demonstrate how he learned the four basic were all on active display to draw you in and blow your mind! skills of the apparatus. As he walked the ‘horse’ on his hands and Delegates were exposed to leaders in artificial intelligence and performed his intricate swinging ‘scissor moves’, he explained robot development from across the globe. to his audience how he practised each skill for two years before Professor Rose Luckin of University College, London, told perfecting his medal winning routine. His tough message was for her audience that Artificial Intelligence (AI) was most certainly teachers to hammer home the importance of discipline, patience coming but teachers did not need to be anxious about it. and practice if students are to aspire to excellence. She spoke of the connections between AI and psychology,
neuroscience and education, explaining that AI was a study of He describes the traditional classroom as ‘cells and bells’. ‘Take human intelligence including the areas of philosophy, linguistics, out some walls and turn your space into a learning community,’ science and learning. She talked about the need for both AI and is his advice. ‘Children don’t have to be told how to learn, you human intelligence if we were to solve some of the world’s big just create the environment for them to thrive,’ he says. problems. The last minutes of his presentation he spent looking ahead Perhaps most reassuring to the future world of work of all were the repeated and the skills our young people comments from speakers on should be developing now. technology that the chances There were no surprises on his of humans becoming work list which included problem redundant and replaced by solving, critical thinking, robots was most unlikely. creativity, people management, Luckin emphasised that AI coordinating with others, was not socially intelligent and emotional intelligence, does not understand social judgement and de cision intelligence. In fact, she said, making, service, negotiation AI cannot explain its own and cognitive flexibility. His decisions. Her last message point was that given these are to the educators in the room the skills our learners require was to say ‘the human skills the traditional classroom is Prakash Nair presents his teaching dichotomy – The Carpenter or of educators are very much no longer relevant. ‘Live, play, the Gardener going to be in demand.’ Other engage and create,’ he said speakers suggested that the age of robots would create more brightly, echoing the title of his latest book on education, as he employment opportunities than we could ever take up because exited the stage. we want to interact with humans not machines and robots. Dr Yong Zhao, Professional Fellow, Mitchell Institute Prakash Nair, Founding President and CEO, Fielding for Health and Education Policy; Foundation Nair International, USA Distinguished Professor, School of Education, Prakash Nair is well known internationally for school design. University of Kansas USA He believes that learning should occur anywhere, any time, so Yong Zhao was the conference draw card for many. His the concept of the ‘classroom’ has become obsolete. He draws reputation precedes him, particularly his attitude to standardised the distinction between educating as a carpenter or a gardener! approaches to learning. He opened in his usual exuberant style saying, ‘We have to The carpenter picks the materials, measures up and builds the learning environment. The gardener works on learning within deal to the deficit approach to learning.’ He told his own personal story of growing up in China. ‘I the existing environment. The carpenter, he says, wants learning to be standardised, can be here [as a Professor] because I was so bad at Maths and controlled, so that we do only what the teacher wants us to do, Chinese people are not allowed to be bad at Maths’, he joked. He and hierarchical, so the learners are powerless. Educating like a said the benchmark for success in the Chinese village in which carpenter is to build to a plan model. The gardener on the other he grew up, was how well you could drive the buffalo! ‘That was hand promotes personalised learning, is democratic, seeks ideas my NAPLAN,’ he said, and I wasn’t too good at that either. Today, from the learners, is empowering and distributes leadership to Zhao is an international leading light for education policy reform. ‘Using one single score to fix a deficit is taking education in the students. Educating like a gardener is the love and nurture model. The carpenter talks of providing education, whilst the the wrong direction,’ he said. ‘We are all born with different potentials and different gardener speaks of learning. ‘Learning is alive and well, but capabilities. Some are more talented in certain areas than others,’ education is on life-support’, he tells the audience. continued p.24
The ‘Carpenter’ approach to education
The ‘Gardener’ approach to education
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Professor Yong Zhao says the one way forward is enhancing strengths not fixing deficits
Hon Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia, expounds the virtues of NAPLAN
he explained. He went on to say that he didn’t think he could have been a ‘Justin Bieber’ but then he didn’t have the opportunity to try, so he will never know for sure! ‘The more opportunities we have, the more chance there is that we will fulfil our potential,’ he said. He drew his audience to the five different personality traits, saying ‘You see these are different, not deficit.’ Nature and nurture interact, and if we get it right, nurture can amplify our nature. If we don’t, it will stifle it. In education, he said, we value only some people. ‘The moment you arrive at school, we are looking at your ‘readiness profile’’, he said. ‘We’ve already made a judgement about what counts.’ Next
is the testing and scores get averaged out so we end up with a lot of losers. We look at the average and say we want to fix people to become successful in an average way. ‘We are not looking at what a child has, but what we want them to become,’ he said. ‘We are getting them ready for our future not theirs!’ He described this process as turning diversity into homogeneity, which is a sausage making process. This approach is designed to perpetuate inequities, he said. The second part of his address was devoted to the importance of seeking out the talent in each individual and building on that. The future he said will require specialisation in many different ways and we must prepare for that rather than focus on what has counted in the past. ‘One job in the future, will not need a lot of people like the factories of old, but more jobs will require hyper-specialisation,’ he said. ‘We must look at the child, not at narrowing the curriculum to subjects we think count.’ ‘Don’t fix the deficit, enhance the strengths!’ he concluded. No one does it with greater flair, but Zhao was one of many speakers counselling the audience to focus on developing individual talent and strengths rather than getting bogged down in the narrow school culture of standards and averages. Yet there remained a balance of speakers, many from the IT business world, presenting the latest solutions to more deeply mine school data and identify the deficits in the children’s test results. It was clear that Zhao’s views have not yet achieved universal influence, and none more obviously than Australia itself.
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Driving the Buffalo was Professor Yong Zhao’s NAPLAN, he said, and he failed!
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Sign up to ShakeOut New Zealand ShakeOut, our national earthquake drill and tsunami hīkoi, is happening at 9.30am on 18 October 2018. All of New Zealand is at risk of earthquakes and all of our coastline is at risk of tsunami. We can’t predict when they will happen, but we can practise the right action to protect ourselves. Taking part in New Zealand ShakeOut 2018 is a great way to learn the right actions to take and get prepared. Visit www.shakeout.govt.nz to sign up to take part and find information on how to plan your school’s drill and hold a tsunami hīkoi if you’re in a coastal region. You’ll also find resources for teaching emergency preparedness to primary school students, lesson plans, advice for principals, boards, and management to prepare and plan for emergencies, and more. (* If you cannot do the drill at 9.30am on 18 October 2018, you can choose a time to suit you within two weeks of the drill and still be counted). What’s the Plan, Stan?
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Whatstheplanstan.govt.nz is a free, online resource for teaching emergency preparedness is used by school across the country to teach emergency preparedness for years 1-7, with suggestions for teaching and learning programmes focusing on emergency events and the impacts they could have.
Sign up for the New Zealand ShakeOut Schools Challenge to win prizes for your students and school, and help your community take steps to be better prepared for emergencies. Brought to you by the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management and EQC, the challenge encourages students to teach others in the community how to be prepared and the right action to take before, during and after earthquakes and tsunami. Students will take home a passport to complete with their household and will be able to choose from a pool of prizes when they return their completed cards. Schools who run the challenge will also go in to win a $500 Prezzy Card for their school. After you’ve signed up to take part in the New Zealand ShakeOut drill, you need to opt in to the challenge and we’ll send you an info pack with passports for students and a pack of prizes for your school to hand out to students once they’ve completed their passports. To take part in the challenge, you need to sign up for the drill and register for the challenge. Find out more at www.shakeout.govt.nz.