With election year almost in full swing and the various political parties vying for every vote; once again Education seems to be at the forefront of many political parties' agendas.
This should be great… but from my perspective the policy makers seem to have a disconnect from educators and are more interested in pandering to the voting public than focusing on the precise needs of students using up to date and valid pedagogical research.
Recent media coverage has only exacerbated this trend with ‘journalists’ listening as much to home viewers as educationalists that they have invited on to their programme. I don’t have problems with the questions and comments from the home viewers, the problem that I had when watching was that the educationalists didn’t have the chance to respond and that equal weighting was given to the uninformed comment as to the informed comment. I don’t want to get onto a rant about the media, but it would be good to expect that political parties could be open to scrutiny from nationally recognised educationalists and the media/public made this scrutiny happen.
This does bring me to a common theme that I have encountered over the past few terms - agency. We have looked as a staff into Student Agency and created plans for how to increase student voice, student empowerment and engagement in their learning. We have a common understanding and are keen to develop this area as we see it as vital in preparing our students for their futures.
What is not discussed is Parents/Whānau/‘Aiga agency. We have just as much variance in agency in this group as we do with our students. Some of our parents/whānau/‘aiga are engaged in their sons/daughters' learning, they know that they can have an impact on the learning and development that happens both in and out of school. These parents feel that they have a voice and use it, they are empowered to act for the betterment of their son/daughter and are engaged in the learning process.
Then there are other parents who don’t have this level of engagement, empowerment or knowledge of their own ability to impact on learning. I do not feel for one second that this second group aren’t as good or well meaning as the first group outlined. I am yet to meet a parent that doesn’t want the best for their children. It is just a matter of understanding where learning is going, the current state of our schools and society in general.
How can we help parents/whānau/‘aiga to develop in their agency, their propensity to get involved with school and make a positive impact on the learning of their children?
I am not sure I have the answer/s - but it is an area that we need to develop in each of our learning communities. We need to start with the question as a collective in order to get solutions and answers that come from the communities that we serve.
Bringing all of the above together
I think we are at a critical juncture in education in New Zealand where educators are looking at 'future focused pedagogies' and true engagement with their communities in order to set and achieve a real curriculum (while at the same time balancing the National Standards).
What we (as a collective of educators across the country) are yet to do successfully is educate our parents/whānau/‘aiga on the principles behind the future focused pedagogies so that we can get not only buy in, but informed buy in.
We want the general public to be asking questions and critiquing our schools in the media and in policy creating offices in Wellington. But we want these questions to come from current information, utilising NZ educational experts and current research/identified best practice…. not based on what happened 30 years ago 'when I was at school'.
