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Mother helping son code a hobby electronic project.
Mother helping son code a hobby electronic project.

OPINIONSocietyMarch 30, 2020

High School 2.0: It’s time for education to prepare for the new normal

Guest writer
Mother helping son code a hobby electronic project.
Mother helping son code a hobby electronic project.

As New Zealand looks toward an uncertain future in all areas of life, Auckland school principal Claire Amos sees an opportunity to change high school education for the better. 

The last week has been an interesting one for school leaders. Monday arrived, it was all on – schools were closing the next day, schools across the country were to go “full remote mode” by Thursday. How did our schools fare? It is safe to say that they landed on a continuum ranging from “we got this” to “bugger, we better start planning”. For the most part, schools and educators have rallied together and have managed to patch together an OK plan for the time being. 

And therein lies the problem:

a) It was, for many, patched together and
b) nearly universally, it is a plan that will suffice for the time being. 

As the days pass it feels like our understanding of what we are dealing with and going to be dealing with is becoming clear. This won’t be a four-week pause before we return to business as usual. Depending on the modelling you look at and how well we all abide by the lockdown rules, we could be looking at further weeks of lockdown and will most likely face a future of further regional lockdowns as the Covid-19 waves roll through.

On one level this is kind of terrifying, on another it gives us once-in-a-lifetime chance to prepare for a “new normal” in all areas of life. As a secondary school leader, I am interested in how we might reimagine secondary schooling, so as to ensure it has a hope of rolling with the punches and coming out of this fight fit for purpose.

Addressing our IP infrastructure and the digital divide

Before planning goes any further we need to address the foundations on which much of these changes rely on. We need to address the shortcomings of our national infrastructure for internet provision (IP) and address the digital divide. In 2014, I was part of the 21st Century Learning reference group convened by then associate minister of education Nikki Kaye. I look back at recommendations made in the paper we published and can’t help thinking that, had they been implemented, we would have been better prepared for what happened last week.

Delivering remote learning relies on two things – affordable reliable internet for every household, and every learner having access to an appropriate device for learning. There is more you could do, but without those two things you are pushing the proverbial up hill. If I was in charge, my first priority would be laying some seriously good foundations and laying them yesterday. 

Empty classrooms could be the new normal (Getty Images)

Reimagining what school looks like in an age of uncertainty

The second thing we need to collectively address is our reliance on both timetables and our physical school institutions. I personally believe school-wide one size fits all timetables are not designed for remote or flexible learning. I have noticed many schools have clung to these in the remote environment. How does that acknowledge the complexities of life in lockdown? Teachers also have their personal wellbeing and whanau to care for, and students have the same. 

Life in lockdown shouldn’t have a predetermined timetable, and neither should learning. Replicating a timetable in a remote context is not kind, and haven’t we all been asked to be kind?

Secondly, timetables aren’t actually serving the purpose they do in schools (managing resources, teachers and teaching spaces). And what an opportunity to develop trust in our teachers and agency in our learners! I believe one way of changing this exists already in the model that some Canadian schools used for nearly 50 years as part of the Self-Directed Schools movement. The following is from the Calgary Catholic School System website: 

“What sets Bishop Carroll apart from other high schools is its unique self-directed learning environment, which puts students in the driver’s seat of their educational journey. Here, students have the freedom to customise a learning program that they feel is best suited for their unique goals, abilities and interests.

“With the guidance of a teacher-advisor and their parents, the student will choose the program and courses they want to follow. Students can then progress through these courses at a personalised rate reflecting their individual needs and learning pace.”

I visited Bishop Carroll in 2013 and was blown away. This is not a newfangled experiment where learners are guinea pigs, this is a well-researched, well-structured and well-resourced system where students have exercised learner agency for the last 49 years. Basically, it means the students do not have a timetable (although they do have a number of scheduled masterclasses and workshops) but the teachers do. The teachers’ timetable represents when the teachers are “on the floor” and able to help students when and if they need it.

This structure was combined with a strong support system that meant all students had a sit-down fortnightly one-to-one with their teacher, who monitored and reported on progress and provided more structure if needed. You can imagine how much easier it would be for those learners to switch into “remote mode” when and if they need to. If we face a future of moving in and out of remote mode, we can still value the physical space – when and if we can – and provide strong pastoral care for learners. 

Getty Images

NCEA and reimagining definitions of success 

It’s important to address the other elephant in the room: NCEA. While it’s possible for the next few weeks to relax and let students simply learn, we will, as the year progresses, need to address what the heck we do with NCEA within our new normal. I would happily bin it, but though I may be a dreamer I am also a realist who understands that simply won’t fly. 

Firstly we need to ask ourselves: Why is NCEA actually important? What’s the purpose? The NZQA website is says the following:

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is the main national qualification for secondary school students in New Zealand. NCEA is recognised by employers, and used for selection by universities and polytechnics, both in New Zealand and overseas.   

NCEA is basically a “sorting hat” for tertiary providers and some employers, and it’s a national qualification that produces a record of learning and, for many, a badge of honour. If we are imagining a “new normal” for teaching and learning, surely it’s time to imagine a new normal for how we measure success.  

What could we do? We need to remove the complexity of NCEA and recognise that if we are moving in and out of remote mode (and “examination centres”) then doing a lot less (but doing it better) would be wise. 

My suggestions:

  • Get rid of Level One NCEA altogether (let’s just focus on learning).
  • Make Level Two NCEA the base level national qualification for University Entrance and tertiary providers. Who knows if this will remain relevant considering how tertiary providers will need to adapt. 
  • Replace Level Three NCEA with a focus on students developing their PoPE (their personally curated Portfolio of Personal Excellence). Year 13 could also become the second year of Level Two NCEA (if needed) or simply a time to focus on personal excellence and personal pathways.
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    In terms of our current Covid-19 context, these suggestions would mean no group of students would be needing to stress about gaining their definitive NCEA certificate this year. Current Year 11s could exhale, Year 12s could know that there is no rush, and Year 13s could refocus on their personal interests and pathways capturing evidence of all their learning happening in the bubble they find themselves in. 

    Now is the time to plan at a system-wide level. We can do all of this with the workforce and the resources we have now, as long as we sort the technology provision. It will require strong national educational leadership and nationwide collaboration. We need a schooling system that is genuinely agile and capable of moving in and out of physical spaces. I don’t know about you, but I’m totally up for preparing for that.

    Our lives has changed forever. The sooner we face reality and seize the opportunity to dream – and maybe even make our dreams a reality – the better. 

    Keep going!
    The remains of the Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Photo: Getty
    The remains of the Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Photo: Getty

    SocietyMarch 30, 2020

    History, hope, and Covid-19

    Guest writer
    The remains of the Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Photo: Getty
    The remains of the Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Photo: Getty

    Covid-19 will transform society, just as the plague and smallpox transformed nations centuries ago. This time, however, we have something they didn’t, writes historian Ayelet Zoran-Rosen.

    Throughout history, epidemics and pandemics have been a threat to people and states. They strike societies with little or no notice, upend their social and economic patterns, seep through political, ethnic, and linguistic borders, and rob individuals of control over their lives and fate.

    While present-day experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic provide us with a painful glimpse into past experiences, they also show us how much the world has changed. Advances in science and the speed at which we enjoy global communications are perhaps the most obvious. But the political and social aspects of pandemics, which also affect how they spread, how they are understood, and how people react to them, are less straightforward.

    The global nature of highly contagious diseases is not new. The spread of disease has always been connected to the movement of people; be it during maritime trade, colonisation, armies marching to war, or refugees fleeing conflicts.

    The plague pandemic of the 14th century, for example, was first recorded in 1346 in the Khanate of the Golden Horde, a Mongol territory in today’s southern Russia. The following year, maritime trade carried it across the Black Sea to Constantinople. From there ships carried it again across the Mediterranean to Greece, Italy and France. In 1349 it reached as far as Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria in North Africa and England and Norway in Europe.

    By 1350 it had affected the Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden and Germany; by 1351 it spread to Poland and the Baltic States and by 1353 to Muscovy. This pandemic, which became known as the Black Death, receded in 1353, but outbreaks of the plague continued throughout the centuries. The disease was last recorded in Western Europe in 1722, but persisted in Eastern Europe until 1771 and in Egypt until 1844. Even in times when – compared to our own age – travel and communication were limited, such a deadly disease engulfed much of the world, and for long periods of time.

    There is, however, a distinctly new aspect of our encounter with Covid-19, and it has to do with a sense of human hope and collective agency. When the plague hit the Mediterranean basin in the sixth century, people were helpless in coping with a disease that had, in the words of the Byzantine author Procopius, “no cause which came within the province of human reasoning”. The main task performed by governments was to arrange and fund the burial of the dead. When it struck Italian city-states in the 17th century, their governments established boards of public health, which used extreme measures to control the spread of the disease. Authorities imposed quarantines, isolated the sick and rapidly disposed of the corpses of victims and of their contaminated possessions.

    Family members of sick people were confined to their houses, whose doors and windows were sealed, and the possessions of the sick were seized and burnt. Sometimes, the authorities would even condition entrance to the city on the display of a health pass confirming the person carrying it was not ill.

    The practice of isolating the sick was also in place in Boston in the early 18th century, but a lack of scientific knowledge rendered it imperfect: in April 1721, for example, a British merchant ship approached Boston carrying people who had smallpox. The known cases were isolated, but some of those who were infected but not yet showing symptoms disembarked the ship and spread the disease. More than half of the people of Boston fell ill during this major smallpox epidemic. In an attempt to prevent the spread of the disease, sick people were isolated in their homes, which were marked with a flag pleading “God have mercy on this house”.

    For centuries people died without knowing what was killing them, and the response governments and communities could offer was dictated by what they knew and limited by the means they had. Today’s response to the new pandemic is the result not only of an improved scientific knowledge but also of cooperative global efforts to control travel, support individuals and families, and find a cure or a vaccine to this disease.

    Some of these efforts are coordinated by international organisations such as the World Health Organisation, as countries and institutions share their findings and coordinate their policies. With our advanced scientific understanding of diseases and their causes, governments and international organisations can make informed decisions as to the measures that should be taken to slow down the spread of the disease.

    The role governments and institutions play in our lives has changed dramatically in the last century. We now expect the state to help us find our way through this difficult time. Rather than merely reacting to disaster by burying the dead and burning their possessions, we expect the modern welfare state to take proactive measures, to provide us with health services during the epidemic, and to support us during the economic hardship that it might bring. Citizens also expect their governments to communicate their decisions clearly, share the data on which their decisions are based, and give reasons for their actions. These high expectations are a testament to the unprecedented capacity of humanity to pull together and take an active role in fighting pandemics and their consequences.

    The Covid-19 pandemic has become part of our lives, and also part of our collective history. The effect that it will have on our politics, societies, and economies is not yet known to us, just as the people who suffered from the plague or smallpox could not imagine the ways their societies would be transformed by it. But we do know that good science and strong social structures that we have developed throughout the centuries can help us as we work together to meet this challenge. Our democracy, the welfare state, an evidence-based medical system, and global collaborative enterprises are all a source of hope that we will see this thing through. They also give us a sense of human agency; an agency of which, in their own times of turmoil, our predecessors were deprived.

    Society