Education or social manipulation?

Press, 30 August 1986, Page 20

Education or social manipulation?

AGNES-MARY BROOKE, a former secondary school English teacher, a parent, and convenor of parent-teacher association meetings on the curriculum review, discusses the draft report of the Committee to Review the

Curriculum.

A certain amount of “I-told-you-so” is going on as the draft report of the Ministerial Review, of Curriculum and Assessment is being flourished by Mr Russell Marshall, the Minister of Education.

People’s reaction, here in Nelson, is largely cynical, as was the reaction of most parents countrywide last year, when local school committees tried to interest parents in attending discussion groups.

Most refused. It was not because they were not interested in their children’s education. The majority regarded the Curriculum Review meetings as a stagemanaged publicity exercise engineered to give the public the impression it provides an input into .education.

Parents see it differently. Consensus was that two previous, nation-wide participation exercises — one in the seventies under the Labour Minister of Education, Mr Amos, and the more recent Johnson Report meetings — were largely a waste of time.

The Department of Education and its present Minister are seen as having the bit between their teeth, modifying the education arena for socio-political reasons.

Most parents felt last year that nothing they said would make any difference, that the effort of going along to schools on parents’ nights, or expressing con-

cem about declining standards, inadequate teachers, or teaching methods, had made no difference. :'

Some facta support their conclusions. Months before the draft report was assembled, Mr Marshall was pre-empting its findings. Even last year, and repeatedly this year he has announced his personal intention to abolish School Certificate — a move which parents, employers, and the community at large thought they were being invited to consider. Consensus seems to be now an irrelevant concept. If most parents regarded the meetings on education as a waste of time, it says much for the efforts of individual school committees and P.T.A.S that, in the end, the Ministerial Review Committee received more than 20,000 submissions, most of which the committee never saw. Instead, the Department of Education was responsible for recording, analysing and filing submissions. Schools all seem to have had considerable difficulty arousing interest among staff and parents. In one representative secondary school only two staff members initially showed interest. Their number was increased to about 50 by commandeering school time and requiring all staff to participate. Hardly spontaneous enthusiasm. A similar reaction met those trying to arrange parent meet-

ings. Explanatory newsletters went out from schools, followed by reminder notes and telephone calls, and public notices in. the newspaper. Seven or 12 parents attending, perhaps 20 at the most, from a school roll near the thousand mark was a typical response.

The result, according to the recently released draft report of the Review Committee is that an "education system 1s needed which recognises Maori status, fights sexism in schools, involves the community, and gives children more everyday skills.” Catch 22 is that all the repetitive, poorly drawn-up questions in the seven booklets issued for the responses to the Curriculum Review seem to have been designed for only one end — to elicit the answer arrived at.

Parents who did participate complained about leading questions. Along the lines of "have you stopped beating your wife yet,” the questions left those answering little choice but to virtually rubber-stamp departmental proposals. Some parents felt strongly that these booklets were an attempt at social engineering, nudging towards responses that the department desired. Examples of begging the question included:

“What is the special place for . ..?” — presupposing there IS a special place for . . . “How should all people be given a fair chance in our schools?” — suggesting that all people are not at present being given a fair chancee in our schools . . . “How should schools reflect the many cultures in New Zealand?” —• which avoids the question of whether that should be an

intrinsic aim of learning in schools. As an aim, it contrasts with the past accepted idea that schools should be required to pass down an inherited body of learning — something that some claim is no longer being done. What did emerge from community meetings was concern about the increasing politicising of teachers’ organisations, the P.P.T.A. and the association of English teachers, which for some time has been arguing for the abolition of School Certificate. In view of demonstrably declining standards in the teaching of English, parents parted company with the Minister and activist teachers on this issue.

While the Department of Education has recently imported an American specialist to advise on aspects of the English curriculum, parents see growing illiteracy and falling educational standards in America and Britain as bringing imported theories into question. Many recall the introduction from overseas of the illconceived “Look and Say” reading programmes which discouraged the phonetic pronunciation of words, setting back many children in their reading skills. The dreary, boring “Janet and John” reading sets were another fashionable importation. Parents who, in the past, felt unqualified to front up to education experts are now relying on their intuitive appreciation that many innovative theories, such as the new maths system, brought in by departmental theorists have been against the interest of children. Pupils have been confused, bored or discouraged, rather than aided. Community consensus does not join in the trumpeting by Mr Marshall that this is a “liberating document.” The majority may have regarded the initial school meetings as a waste of time, a manipulation of the public to rubber-stamp the department’s intentions. But some mothers and fathers did conscientiously waive other commitments, or leisure time, to attend. They may well agree with Mr Bolger that not only the abolition of School Certificate, but the whole exercise, was a confidence trick. What the Curriculum Review draft report has produced are statements about racism, inequality in academic abilities, social opportunities, and so on which in many cases have no connection with passing on an inherited body of learning. The Minister himself, by his own admission did not do well at school, and seems to identify with others who do not do well.

A feeling which came through strongly at meetings was that an over-emphasis on slow learners, those who do not perform well scholastically, is being used, inadvertently or,; not, to distract attention from equally urgent concerns.

It is felt that children with problems in learning, or little support from their home environment, can be accommodated in ways other than by allowing New Zealand’s whole education system to be watered down, disadvantaging ail others.

The removing of University Entrance, the proposed removal of School Certificate, and, probably eventually the last objective external examination in the seventh form, can only have farreaching consequences which parents appreciate — but the Minister seems unable to recognise. ? ;

Signs of the promotion of social envy, too, are emerging in hints that children from middleclass or professional homes who work hard, to do well, are, somehow, nebulously, disadvantaging others by passing external examinations.

Accusations that these youngsters are somehow “ripping off’ the system by succeeding annoy those parents who see the long hours worked by their children to do well, and who feel that opportunities are already available for all and that if various sections of society are not availing themselves of them, not encouraging their youngsters towards full scholastic development to the best of their ability, then it may well be a case of negative parental attitudes disadvantaging the children.

The claims of the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bolger, that the abolition of School Certificate is a confidence trick will be endorsed by many, given Mr Marshall’s persistent determination to remove it well before the Review Committee had even made its findings.

For those concerned over the inadequacy of present educational standards, the review draft report offers no comfort What seems to be confirmed is the view of the majority who refused to attend meetings and who regarded them as a waste of time — a white-wash of departmental attempts at syllabus manipulation with a view to making social changes; a department bent on its own course, but wanting an appearance of community involvement.

Those who are aware that Christchurch Teachers’ College has recently been ordered by the Department of Education to abolish its literacy test for teacher trainee entrance, because ?Btoo many potential teachers could not pass it, may well accept that in making submissions to the Review Committee they were wasting their time. It may be time for the seemingly contradictory phrase “liberal fascism” to be recognised as a surprisingly apt description of a determination to have, one’s own way, in spite of conservative ; community concern,,, by someone bent on forcing through social “reform.”