volume 5 • number 4 • october 2006 Professional Educator

Judy King rates A‑to‑E reporting

History: choose your own adventure

Going bush at Warrego School

‘for the profession’ Join us at www.austcolled.com.au october 2006

Professional educator abn 19 004 398 145 issn 1447-3607 print post approved pp 255003/02630

Published for the Australian College of Educators by ACER Press

editor Dr Steve Holden [email protected] 03 9835 7466

journalist Rebecca Leech [email protected] 03 9835 7458

Australian College of Educators 2 editorial and LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ADVISORY COMMITTEE Prof Neil Dempster, Griffith University Dr Tom Karmel, NCVER 4 oPINION Prof Andrew Gonczi, UTS l Ian Broinowski on the astonishing impact of the Australian Quality Patrick Bourke, Gooseberry Hill PS, WA Training Framework Gail Rienstra, Earnshaw SC, QLD Peter Cole, Education Consultant l Ange Kenos explains why ‘those who can, teach’ Mike Horsley, University of Sydney

production lesley Richardson 6 features [email protected] 03 9835 7470 Colin Baker tells the story behind the story of Warrego School Ralph Schubele [email protected] 03 9835 7469

NATIONAL MEDIA SALES Carolynn Brown 14 research [email protected] 03 9835 7468 l Stephen Billett reports on research into the use of students’ paid work ACER Press 347 Camberwell Road experiences to help them better understand post-school pathways (Private Bag 55), Camberwell VIC 3124 l Want to stop students who pretend they’re not really cheating?  SUBSCRIPTIONS $87.00 4 issues per year Bill von Hippel reports on research that may help you do just that Ph 03 9835 7470 fax 03 9835 7425 [email protected] www.acer.edu.au/professionaleducator 24 tHE PROFESSION – A-to-E reports ACE MEMBERSHIP Judy King rates A-to-E reporting. Will she give it an A? [email protected] Chris Cameron www.austcolled.com.au

26 issues AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE OF EDUCATORS l Joe Alexander explains why students who co-construct the curricu- James Darling House, lum become independent, self-directed and purposeful learners 42 Geils Court, Deakin ACT 2600 Ph 02 6281 1677 fax 02 6285 1262 l Zofia Pawlaczek examines academic prose and discovers that it’s not just dead boring, it’s dead

36 teaching and learning Suzie Vlaming looks at a new pilot program that may hold the key to boosting teacher retention rates in south-western Sydney

38 national Perspective and In Brief

40 interview – Andy Flouris All reasonable attempts have been made to trace copyright holders of material published. Material contained in Professional Educator is protected under the Commonwealth Copyright Act 1968. No 42 review ­material may be reproduced wholly or in part without written con- sent from the copyright holders. The views expressed in this publica- tion are not necessarily those of the Publisher or Editor and do not necessarily represent the views or policy of the Australian College of Educators or ACER. The Editor reserves the right to edit, abridge or 43 the Diary otherwise alter articles for publication. All photographs have been published on the understanding that appropriate compliance with privacy legislation has been obtained. The attention of advertisers is drawn to the Trade Practices Act 1974 and the provisions of the Act that apply to advertising. It is not possible for Professional Educator 44 as i see it... School concerts to ensure that advertisements published herein comply in all respects with the Act and the responsibility must therefore lie with the person, Thought you knew everything about Danny Katz? Think again company or agency submitting the advertisement for publication.

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006  editorial

Editorial Letters to the Editor World Teachers’ Day, on 27 October, is an opportunity Professional standards in Victoria are here, now Fran Cosgrove, Acting Group Manager, Standards and Professional Learning Branch, for your students and school Victorian Institute of Teaching community to recognise and I was intrigued by a brief news item, ‘By the profession, for the profession,’ in the March edition of Professional Educator. (5(2): 29) While wholeheartedly endorsing celebrate your work, but the view that professional standards need to be determined by the profession for it’s also your opportunity to the profession, I was rather dismayed at the comment that this was a long way off call on all stakeholders to in Australia. During 2003 the Victorian Institute of Teaching undertook the development implement UNESCO’s 1966 of Standards of Professional Practice for Full Registration. This involved developing Recommendation on the Status draft standards through discussion with teachers and referencing existing profes- of Teachers – in fact, 146 sional standards including the original standards developed in Ontario as well as those for accomplished teachers developed by the Maths, Science, English and recommendations – such as Literacy teacher associations in Australia. the recommendation that the The draft standards, as well as the process to demonstrate that teachers had met them, were then trialled by 900 principals, first year teachers and their mentors work of teachers ‘should be during 2003. We worked intensively with these teachers to ensure that the stand- so organised and assisted as ards were relevant, practical, consistent and reflective of teachers’ professionalism. to avoid waste of...time and The feedback provided by teachers working with the standards in school contexts allowed us to revise the standards, which were then offered to the entire profession energy,’ and that teachers’ for comment at the end of 2003. salaries should ‘compare We received over 10,000 responses from teachers to the questionnaire regarding the draft standards and it was from these responses that the final standards were favourably with salaries developed and approved by the Victorian Minister for Education. Since then the paid in other occupations standards have been used by over 15,000 provisionally-registered teachers and their requiring similar or equivalent mentors, and have received strong support. In the context of a Professional Learning Framework, our Council has approved qualification.’ The guiding generic standards and these are the professional standards currently being used in principle? ‘Advance in developing guidelines for the accreditation of pre-service teacher training courses in Victoria and the policy for components of the renewal of registration. We education depends largely on are at the tail end of a statewide consultation process regarding the renewal of the qualifications and ability registration and have received over 12,000 individual and collective responses to of the teaching staff in general our questionnaire, have conducted twenty-eight consultation forums in regional and metropolitan locations to over 2,000 teachers and have met with all key and on the human, pedagogical stakeholder groups. A consultation for the Future Teachers Project is currently and technical qualities of the in progress and also offers opportunities for teachers to provide feedback to the Institute. During 2005 the Code of Ethics was developed following a compre- individual teachers.’ Forty years hensive consultation process and the Code of Conduct is currently undergoing a on, these things still need to be similar process. addressed. World Teachers’ This activity clearly indicates the commitment of the Institute to consultation with teachers in all aspects of our legislated functions. I realise that the reference Day might just be the right day to profession-wide consultation in the news item may have been with regard to the on which to address them. development of national professional standards for teachers, but this was not made explicit and it is concerning to think that the education community is unaware of the extensive work we have undertaken in this area. Links: www.ei-ie.org/ worldteachersday Links: for more on the Victorian Institute of Teaching’s work on professional standards, visit http://www.vit.vic.edu.au/content.asp?Document_ID=1

 australian college of educators • acer letters to the editor

Educators show solidarity in rejecting A-to-E reports Wendy Currie, Research Officer, New South Wales Teachers Federation In a display of solidarity, about 1,300 public schools in New South Wales have already determined that they ‘cannot and will not implement the government’s unacceptable reporting requirements.’ The NSW Teachers Federation congratulates those schools, applauds their strength and determination, and urges other schools to continue the debate. It puts the lie to departmental officials who’ve told individual schools they are the only ones not implementing the reports. The last few weeks have also seen some movement from principals’ organisa- tions in their position on A-to-E reports as well as a fair amount of media coverage, all of which is putting pressure on the NSW government to listen to teachers on an issue that is so fundamentally an educational one. The Commonwealth Education Minister Julie Bishop has made two announce- ments. On the one hand, she made it clear that the NSW government has taken a literal interpretation of the requirement to report students’ achievement using A-to-E indicators, and that descriptive alternatives are indeed acceptable, thus supporting the position the Teachers Federation has taken from the beginning of this debate. On the other hand, she wrote to the state government rejecting its Congratulations to proposal to remove Years One and Two from the requirements in key learning Fran Cosgrove, who wins areas (KLAs) other than English and mathematics. The letter is such an astonish- a voucher valued at $100 ing display of arrogance towards her state counterpart, NSW Education Minister courtesy of Allen and Unwin in Carmel Tebbutt, that it beggars belief. It demanded that Tebbutt account for how the state government would meet the Commonwealth government’s requirements association with Professional by 5 October. Educator. When it comes to the Unfortunately, while the NSW Department of Education and Training key educational issues we want (DET) has at last been negotiating with the Teachers Federation, it lodged a to know your opinion. dispute notice with the NSW Industrial Relations Commission on 13 September. In the negotiations that have followed, the Teachers Federation has made it clear Write to us and win.* that, regardless of the outcome, schools must not be forced to implement new Email editor.profeducator@acer. reports this year. edu.au; or write to Letter to the The NSW Board of Studies has still not been able to produce work samples Editor, Professional Educator, for every subject or KLA for every stage, the DET software is still not up and ­running, schools have not yet been notified that they now will have to report A‑to‑E ACER Press, Private Bag 55 achievements for KLAs other than Mathematics and English in Years One and Camberwell, Vic 3124. Two, and professional development is all but nonexistent, yet in the midst of this shambles, incredibly, the requirement remains that the new reports be produced for all students this semester. It’s becoming increasingly clear that implementation in other states and ter- ritories is as shaky and uncertain as it is in NSW. Reports suggest that ministers in each state remain unaware of decisions they are making individually and remain unaware of individual communications they each receive from the Commonwealth Quality resources government. They are not acting together in the way one might have expected of for teachers Labor governments, and therefore their strength of numbers at the state level, the www.allenandunwin.com level which has the statutory responsibility for school education, is not being used in the interests of students. The evidence that the reporting requirement is educationally unsound while * Letters from ACER staff and families its implementation is falling apart is growing at the same time as the resolve of and Allen and Unwin staff and teachers is strengthening. It’s vital that all teachers continue with the strength of families will not be eligible to receive commitment they have demonstrated so far and vital that the state government do a prize. Vouchers are redeemable for Allen and Unwin titles or imprints all in its power to bring this dispute to an educationally-sound conclusion that is to the value of $100. in the best interests of students.

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006  opinion

I was shocked to my very soul when I began to read the latest scholarly interpreta- The tions of the Gospel according to Judas. We now know through painstaking analy- sis of minute fragments of Coptic transcripts that the tensions between Jesus and his favoured second-in-charge were far deeper and more profound than we had ever AQTF realised. I was shocked to my very soul, similarly, when I realised that those tensions – essentially between order and chaos – are still present with us today. The conflict that ensued from the once close and binding friendship that played itself out in the tragic Code events we know so well has been poignantly reflected in Western culture ever since. The divide between order and chaos, it seems, was deep in the philosophies and world views of Jesus and Judas and, according to the latest scholarly interpretations Forget whether Jesus of the Gospel, it appears it can never be bridged. Judas, you see, simply wanted Jesus to conform to the quality standards laid out by the Australian Quality Training was married or Framework, which is not an unreasonable proposition. Jesus was after all a teacher, whatever; the newly which meant he was required to be accountable. According to the latest scholarly interpretations of the Gospel, we can now discovered transcripts understand some of Judas’ frustrations. To begin with, obviously, Jesus needed to of the Gospel get his Workplace Training and Assessment Certificate IV, not simply go off to run lectures on mountains without his roll book, let alone a detailed lesson plan according to Judas or assessment tasks. Can you imagine it? What would have happened if there had reveal the real reason been a fire evacuation and the people just ran down the hill without being ticked Jesus and Judas fell off? Judas and the other chaps would’ve been left standing there in their red hats with their parchment at the ready – and no names! out: it was all about As for feeding the five thousand with fish and loaves of bread, sure, his dad may proper procedure, have helped out with the provisions, but Jesus would still have needed a request-to- purchase order or at least a petty cash form, to say nothing of the occupational health as Ian Broinowski and safety issues when it comes to food handling, feeding people in class and without explains. proper permits. It seems that Judas became more and more exasperated with Jesus’ total lack of responsibly in matters that count. Imagine what would have happened in the middle of carrying out a miracle or two if the auditors came through. What sort of quality assurance were his followers getting without a thorough audit? No student records, no assessment tasks except ‘drop everything and follow me!’ Well that’s all very well but what were his short- and long-term goals? And who was left behind to clean all the fish? As for class demonstrations: teachers, no matter how well known they are, can’t just go about healing people as part of their teaching program. Imagine the insurance implications, let alone the need to provide clear objectives and link them to unit elements. Here’s Jesus, teaching for three years without a single qualification, wandering aimlessly around the countryside without even so much as an excursion form or even a bronze medallion when he was at the Sea of Galilee. It’s enough to drive your average auditor to drink – ordinary wine, of course, not any of this miraculous water-to-wine stuff. No wonder Judas, the poor fellow, took his own life. All he did was report to the authorities what he had seen: a clear professional dilemma. He Dr Ian Broinowski is an advanced couldn’t lie; he was an Apostle! So he had to pass on his report as he saw it: Jesus skills teacher in children’s services simply was not up to par. at the Institute of TAFE Tasmania, This has been a revelation to me. I now empathise so much more with Judas Hobart, and the author of Child than ever before. I know he could have handled things better, but if Jesus wanted to Care Social Policy and Economics be teacher he should have played by the rules. After all if he applied for a teaching (1994), Creative Childcare Practice: job with TAFE today he wouldn’t even get an interview. Program design in early childhood (2002) and Managing Children’s Major motifs, plotlines and other crazy stuff in The AQTF Code are not based Services (2004). on the prior publication Wholly Ridiculous, Holy Cow.

 australian college of educators • acer opinion

Let’s be honest with ourselves: quality teaching skills are all too often underval- ued by the community. The understanding of the principles of education, for many Professional people outside the profession, is basically limited to personal experiences and is often the result of manipulation by biased media. Teaching is a specialised profes- teachers sion. Its practitioners are required to attain tertiary qualifications after many years of study – and then to keep abreast of developments in their respective fields. Teachers specialise in certain subject areas, master assorted specific skills and ‘Those who can, do,’ are encouraged to add to their qualifications – usually without support from gov- ernments or employers. A great many teachers undertake formal studies to fur- as George Bernard ther develop their skills and knowledge in particular areas, partly for professional Shaw said, ‘those development and advancement but principally to be able to offer their students who can’t, teach.’ That even more. Some even undertake a Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment because their four-plus years of teacher training are not recognised means anyone can by private industry. Yet a Certificate IV is accepted, even by many a government teach, right? Wrong, department, ahead of teacher qualifications. There are two reasons teachers are undervalued. The first is that many in the says Ange Kenos. community believe that professionals are competent to act as educators without any teacher training. The second is that many in the community have the nonsensical belief that teachers have short hours of work and regular long holidays with no work taken home. Forget George Bernard Shaw’s glib ‘Those who can, do, those who can’t, teach.’ The truth is ‘Those who can, educate, those who can’t, procras- tinate.’ I’ve worked with many a teacher who begins work at 7:30am and leaves at 7:00pm for more hours at home, and a meeting on the way. Then there’s profes- sional development. The Victorian Institute of Teaching has identified the hours of professional development it deems essential for teachers to undertake over four years, yet I know of at least one teacher who has already notched up almost twice that amount in less than three school terms. Previous professional qualifications can be a real asset for teachers, but they can’t replace professional teaching qualifications if a person is to acquire the qualities and skills required of a teacher, just as first aiders cannot perform neuro-opthalmic surgery and Cessna pilots cannot pilot a space shuttle – unless they undertake the appropriate intensive further studies. Teaching in the primary and post-primary sectors, including TAFE, requires some type of formal teacher education qualification, although this legal require- ment does reduce in TAFE and is totally nonexistent in our universities, where the assumption is that academic professionals possess the knowledge and skills required to teach and to inspire learning. While some professionals in tertiary institutions may well possess the competence essential to the task, the mere attainment of a non-teaching degree, or two or three, does not equip a teacher. We could all name at least one university academic who was an awful teacher. Education is a skill, an artform that requires patience, training and prepara- tion. It depends on knowledge and abilities beyond what many might realise. Just as you would never expect a first-year journalism graduate to manage the affairs of one of our major daily newspapers, so too you should not expect any graduate Ange Kenos is President of the to be able to teach. To be a teacher is to demand a host of skills of the incumbent, Western region of the Australian who is a financial counsellor, welfare officer, psychologist, careers counsellor, legal College of Educators in Melbourne. adviser, personal affairs adviser, babysitter – yes some students have babies whilst He is the co-author of texts in legal still at school – and teacher. studies, been a pioneer in VCE The demands are considerable and the pay is less than respectable, but most Economics and has taught broadly teachers wouldn’t care about the pay if the respect were higher and they were rec- in the secondary sector for more ognised as the competent professionals which most truly are. than twenty years.

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006  feature Bush school Warrego School: the story behind

Bush School, a the story documentary that screened last month on SBS, told the story of Warrego School and its conversion to an Indigenous school serving the remote Mungalawurru community. Here, Colin Baker tells the story behind the story.

Warrego, fifty-three kilometres west of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, is today a ghost town, although at the beginning of this story it was a mining town and the school had twenty-five children. Thirty-six kilometres further into the desert along the Yappa Track is Mungalawurru, the place of the rain stone, an Aboriginal outstation community. It’s a place where children learn traditional ways from grandparents, parents and traditional owners, but also, at the beginning of this story, where children rarely went to school. In April 1999 I went to Warrego to be the school’s principal, with my wife Sandra, who went to retire. For me, it was a return to the classroom after thirty-two years. I’d lectured at a teachers college, been a college and university librarian and a library consultant. I’d also been involved in the army reserve, most recently in training analysis and design. Warrego was meant to be a retirement job at a well- resourced school in a well-catered-for desert town. Three months into the appoint- ment, however, it was announced that the mine would close, but that I could keep

 australian college of educators • acer feature

The Warrego School story has been as much one of a community realising an effective means to educate its children as it has been of a school principal finding a means to attract children to school and achieve success.

the school open if I could persuade the Mungalawurru children to come to school. For three months I tried to do that, without success, and that would have been the short end to this story. By luck, however, I happened to be out riding my horse when I was stopped by a traditional owner, Colin Freddie, who put a proposition to me. ‘We used to be stockmen,’ he said. ‘I want the community to run cattle. Can you teach the children to ride? If you can I’ll bring them to school and I’ll come and I’ll help.’ I agreed and, true to his word, Colin Freddie arrived the next day with eleven children and for the next six years all of the children present in the community were at school every day, accompanied by Marie and Eva from the community. We decided that in teaching the children to ride we’d integrate horsemanship into the school program rather than use it as a reward for attendance or good behav- iour. As the mine closed we were forced to develop a lunch program. We addressed health and confidence problems by introducing competitive swimming and by introducing a pretty comprehensive program of school-based first aid. Over time

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006  feature

I said earlier that I we were successful in achieving Northern Territory benchmarks in literacy and numeracy with children that remained at the school for at least three consecutive thought the initial years. We had little success in transferring children to secondary schools because breakthrough when of social factors, but have had success with the placement of children as boarders at New England Girls School and Melbourne Girls Grammar School. Colin Freddie asked me The Warrego School story from April 1999 until Sandra and I went on study to teach the children leave at the end of 2005 has been as much one of a community realising an effective means to educate its children as it has been of a school principal finding a means to ride was a matter to attract children to school and achieve success in terms of the Northern Territory Curriculum Framework. It’s inevitable that our story, as the school staff, takes a deal of luck. In retrospect, I of space in Bryan Duffy’s independent documentary for SBS, but it’s the community doubt that Colin would story that is potentially more valuable for the intelligent educator to consider. Given its running time of a brief fifty-two minutes, Bush School does an have seen it that way. I excellent job of documenting the developing relationship between the school suspect he would have and the community, but it can only allude to the gap that existed between the Warrego mining town school and the traditional Mungalawurru community been sizing me up for a when we came to Warrego in 1999. In 1999, the community of concern to long time before asking the school staff was Warrego, not Mungalawurru. Managing the education of children whose lives were being dismantled by the closure of the mine, the me to teach his children redundancies of their parents and the collapse of their town was a difficult task. It left limited resources to seek contact with the non-attending children to ride if he brought of Mungalawurru. The problem of converting a successful mainstream primary them to school. school with thirty-plus years of tradition into an organisation that could mesh its modus operandi with a traditional Aboriginal community was daunting, and what was most fundamentally daunting about it, we knew, was that we had a problem of cultural understanding. Our problem, at the beginning, was that the Mungalawurru culture was a mystery to us. It was a culture that we, with our 1950s upbringing, found hard to

 australian college of educators • acer feature

understand and it was also a culture hidden behind thirty-six kilometres of desert. You needed a permit to visit and at first couldn’t even approach the community without an Education Department supervisor present. There was mutual suspicion: we misinterpreted normal language characteristics for aggression, while the com- munity identified us with the mining company and the white world. The most influential woman in the community, now in her eighties, had been a child at the time of the Conniston massacre. But our problem, last and most fundamentally and pervasively, was that the culture we were seeking to understand was hidden behind the traditional reticence and secrecy of Aboriginal society. For us, the perception was that the social cement of traditional Aboriginal society was secrecy, and Mungalawurru was and is very traditional. There was secrecy everywhere. There was secret men’s business, secret women’s business, secret language, secret hand signs and secret eye contact. The names of the dead were secret and there were taboos on the names of the living. There were people whose path could not be crossed and locations that could not be visited. There were people whose relationship could not be revealed and relationships that carried obligations and taboos that provided traps for anyone trying to set up a meeting, a playground or classroom. The most fundamental secrecy screen was the inability to ask ques- tions for in Aboriginal society the asking of a direct question is rude at best and provocative at worst. Only gradually is the school teacher allowed behind the secrecy screens and then only on what might be termed a need-to-know basis. I said earlier that I thought the initial breakthrough when Colin Freddie asked me to teach the children to ride was a matter of luck. In retrospect, I doubt that Colin would have seen it that way. I suspect he would have been sizing me up for a long time before asking me to teach his children to ride if he brought them to school. I suspect that if, in October 1999, I’d called a meeting at the com- munity and put up a proposition for a school-based equestrian program I may have achieved polite surface agreement, but the children would not have been

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006  feature

We decided that required by their carers to go to school. The community makes decisions about its relationship to the school on the basis of watching and observing, and on its no child would be long-term appreciation of individuals. For those of us accustomed to achieve deprived of riding as quick explanations and results in systems predicated on the interchangeability of personnel, frustrations never go away and the potential for misunderstanding a punishment because is always high. it was likely that the Our interaction with the Mungalawurru community has led us increasingly to meet community needs and aspirations generally because we’ve realised that with- naughtiest child needed out meeting them little else can be achieved. By the end of 2000 we were operating the horse experience a full-service school with significant additional input into the wider community, something we were neither funded nor staffed to do. The Mungalawurru com- most. When we started munity values the contribution of the school staff in interpreting Western culture for them. What members of the community want for their children, in order of a swimming program priority, appears to be: we applied the same l an understanding of and an ability to participate in their own culture, which members of the community want to impart outside the school’s influence principle. By the same l a healthy environment with access to nutrition, personal hygiene and medical token, swimming and help l skills which will help their cattle project riding were never used l the ability to negotiate the outside world with particular emphasis on money as a reward. and government agencies l literacy and numeracy skills; and l in some cases, the capacity for children to move into secondary education at boarding or high school. We were fortunate in the beginning in that the parents of the twenty-five town children at Warrego School when the Aboriginal students arrived wanted their children to stay. They were supportive of any activity that would help their children cope with the closure of the mine. They were looking for activities and

10 australian college of educators • acer feature

were prepared to be innovative in what, for them, was a temporary situation. At a We had difficulty quickly-convened parents meeting we decided that we could make room for one with some others ‘in hour per day of basic horsemanship safety and routine, and if necessary extend days until the end of term and then integrate the horsemanship into the program education,’ especially as ‘Primary Riding.’ The reasons behind this were that we wanted the new influx to start on the same level with the rest of the school in at least one subject and we in regard to funding. wanted to be able to teach significant amounts of the curriculum in association The curriculum people with horses, using riding-related activities in maths, literacy, oral language, nutri- tion and health, and music, to name a few. regarded what we We decided that no child would be deprived of riding as a punishment because were doing as sport. it was likely that the naughtiest child needed the horse experience most. When we started a swimming program we applied the same principle. By the same token, The sports people swimming and riding were never used as a reward. Mind you, the introduction of told us to fund what riding meant we needed to be confident that safety rules were familiar to parents and carers, and decided that horse-yard rules, such as no loud noise or sudden we were doing out of movement, and treating others with care, were equally applicable to the classroom. We taught all the school rules again, along with the horse ones, with all members curriculum money. of the school community present. We started on day one of the new venture with one horse, one riding helmet, three pairs of boots and some long pants. By the end of term we had three horses and a riding uniform, which became the normal daily uniform, for each child, courtesy of the Warrego Club. The Mungalawurru community wanted the school to teach cattleyard skills but we had to explain that they were for much older teenagers. We looked at the Primary Riding Program at New England Girls School and modelled ours on that to create a competency-based course with exit points so that students could gain a pony club ‘D’ certificate and the skills needed to begin to learn cattle work. After a term working in isolation we took the children to pony club in Tennant Creek where the children began to learn to mix, cooperate and compete. In that environment they began to see a place for both their new equestrian skills, and their literacy and numeracy skills. From the beginning, the innovations that changed the nature of Warrego School between 1999 and 2000 had the support of the Barkly Group School Principal, Ian Hopwood, and his staff. He believed in management by objectives, which he set realistically with regard to literacy and numeracy, and which we began to meet by the middle of 2000. We had difficulty with some others ‘in education,’ especially in regard to funding. The curriculum people regarded what we were doing as sport. The sports people told us to fund what we were doing out of curriculum money. At school we were clear that we were using equestrian and aquatic activities to create an effective and efficient learning environment to support the achievement of objectives across the curriculum. We often had to explain to pony club people that, as keen as we were, it was school that came first and that we would have taken up train spotting instead of riding if that would have delivered the outcomes we wanted. The introduction of the Northern Territory Curriculum Framework in the second year of the new programs made the whole task of justifying what we were doing much easier. In 2000, as the town shrank so did the school population, but its diversity increased. The high school bus to Tennant Creek stopped running and we acquired four Year Nine open-learning students. To manage this diversity we moved all stu- dents to individual learning contracts, which remained a feature of the school and proved compatible with our competency-based approach to horses and swimming. To manage the process we developed a ritualised individual planning and reporting

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 11 feature

procedure. We acquired a large black book which became The Book, and each child was given three pages per term. At an interview each child wrote what they wanted to learn that term in The Book. On the next page we wrote in what carers and key community people wanted the child to learn, and on the last page we wrote in what the school expected the child to learn. Teacher, child, and carer discussed and agreed the outcomes and the teacher attached Curriculum Framework descriptors. The Book was then used to design common group experiences and individual learn- ing contracts. At the end of each semester the school reported, on each child, to the assembled children, carers and community on success achieved in terms of The Book on the principle that if it takes a village to raise a child the village should be aware of the child’s achievements. Outcomes not achieved remain teacher secrets, or are simply mentioned as things to be learned or fixed next time, so as not to create shame. Integrating horses into the curriculum as Primary Riding was easier than integrating swimming, but the pay off from swimming was greater because it improved hearing and better hearing improved learning outcomes. Swimming was also cost effective. For the cost of sending one rider to pony camp for a week of learning and living in a competitive environment, the whole school could attend a three-day swimming carnival. We began teaching swimming after school to prepare town children for transfer to other schools. We moved it into the school day to fit into transport arrangements so that the Aboriginal children could join in. Swimming was originally funded by the Warrego Sports Club, Aboriginal Student Support and Parent Awareness (ASSPA) and, once the children were noticed, by Australian Adventure Tours, Australian Swimming and Trust for Young Australians. This swimming funding provided four away carnivals per year and we used them to teach life skills, and the relevance of literacy and numeracy. Social skills learned at swimming and pony Pictured: pages 6-7, Warrego School club provided the base for excursions to the eastern states each eighteen months student Hailey; page 8, Colin that further reinforced the relevance of the curriculum. Freddie; page 9, Colin Baker with The experiences our students gained through swimming club gave them a Warrego School students; page 10, better understanding of the importance of good nutrition for health and suc- Warrego School student Ezekiel cess, which reinforced the lessons from the school lunch and nutrition program, with Colin Baker; page 12, Colin paid for by the community, which we commenced after the mine shop closed. and Sandra Baker. Stills from Bush On Thursdays Sandra takes Marie and Eva to Tennant Creek to buy the school School courtesy of Bryan Duffy food and the camp food. School lunches are prepared in the school kitchen each Productions, © copyright Bryan weekend for the following week. This has resulted in a better understanding of Duffy Productions. nutrition by the community and has changed shopping habits. When appropri- ate, children are taught to do food shopping and food preparation. The school is Bush School is an independent docu- visited by staff from the Aboriginal Health Clinic in Tennant Creek when funds mentary by Bryan Duffy Productions, and staff are available. The school runs a daily first aid session to teach children produced with the support of the to do their own first aid. This has resulted in less lost time due to illness, injuries Australian Film and sores associated with camp and hunting life. Commission and the NSW Film What we do at Warrego School takes $2,000 per student per year on top of and Television Office, that screened the government’s recurrent funding for the school. In the beginning, the Warrego on SBS in September 2006 and is Sports Club was crucial to funding but since the mine closed we’ve relied on funds available from SBS at http://www. from ASSPA and sponsorship from Australian Adventure Tours. Since our ASSPA marcom.com.au/product_details. funding ceased, the Melbourne-based Trust for Young Australians has been our php?prod=6SBBS anchor source of funding. In 2004 and 2005, we’ve enjoyed joint sponsorship from Giants Reef Mining and the Northern Territory Minister for Education, Sid Colin Baker, principal at Warrego Stirling, who took a personal interest in the school, but apart from these two years School in the Northern Territory, is we’ve never had more than three months funding in hand. In 2007 the funding currently on study leave. situation promises to be no different.

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professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 13 research Informing post-school pathways

Investigating school students’ authentic work experiences

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The Informing post-school pathways: Investigating school students’ authentic work How do you help experiences study investigates how best to utilise school students’ experiences in students to develop a paid part-time work to enable them to have a better understanding of post-school pathways, as well as give them the ability to make wise decisions about these better understanding of pathways. The focus on paid work experiences, rather than school-organised work post-school pathways? experiences, is because paid part-time work is more ‘authentic’ and informative, since it entails an employment arrangement, immersion in workplaces and the By using their paid work exercise of employment obligations and requirements on the part of both employees experiences to get them and employers. thinking and talking, as Why does an understanding of post-school pathways matter? Because although participation in vocational education and training (VET) subjects may have Stephen Billett explains. increased, there is still a disassociation between schooling and school-organised workplace learning experiences for many students. Research drawing on 2002 Australian Bureau of Statistics data indicates that transition to vocational education courses is an unsuccessful experience for many school leavers, with fourteen per cent of adolescents failing to com- plete any module and thirty per cent failing to complete half of their modules. It would appear that either the choice of courses or the match of students to courses is a problem, and that there’s a need to find bridges or pathways between the experiences within general education and destinations beyond schooling, particularly paid work and specific vocational preparation in higher education institutions. To find out more about bridges or pathways between the experiences within general education and destinations beyond schooling, three specific questions were addressed by the Informing post-school pathways project. l In what ways can school students’ engagement with paid work experiences assist them and their peers to understand work, working life and post-school pathways? l What kinds of teaching practices might secure these outcomes? l How can schools best organise experiences to inform students about work, working life and post-school options? Preparing young people for life, including working life beyond school, is an implicit goal of schooling. One of the ways schools do that is through the provision of reflective learning experiences that help young people to focus on their generic and employability skills and attributes. Many, perhaps most, Australian school students in Years Ten, Eleven and Twelve engage in working life through paid part-time work outside school hours. In addition, school students are increasingly being employed as school-based apprentices and trainees as part of their schooling program. These working-life experiences can be regarded as a resource that schools can use to assist students to prepare for and make decisions about their transition to work and working life. This can be achieved by using, as part of the school-based curriculum, these instances of ‘authentic’ working-life experiences in classroom-based activities to individually reflect and collectively discuss and appraise work, working life and post-school pathways. These paid work experiences can be maximised by extending students’ understanding of the value of their part-time work and engaging them in reflective practices with those students who don’t, or don’t yet, participate in paid work experiences. The ‘authenticity’ of paid work experiences derives from their real-work context. As part of the workforce, students need to fulfil the requirements of employees and be subject to employment obligations. In this, they are distinct

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from school-organised work placements. In Queensland, employers taking school At a glance students on work placements are not required to provide ‘real’ work or payment for • Paid work experiences work experience. In Victoria, on the other hand, the employer offers the student provide a rich resource a contribution to out-of-pocket expenses. The research reported here, however, for school students, proposes that the paid work experiences of Australian school students are dif- enabling them to ferent from and potentially superior to these school-organised work placements, because paid work expects both students and employers to recognise the rights consider the world of and responsibilities created by the employee-employer relationship. Furthermore, work and post-school these work experiences are usually ongoing and of a longer duration than school- pathways, including organised work placements. career planning. School Through their paid work, school students can gain impressions, both indi- students report that vidually and collectively, of the different kinds of work in their workplaces and reflecting on their paid how working life plays out for different kinds of employees. The guided reflec- tion of these experiences has rich educative potential for a critical and reflective work helps them make understanding of work and working life, which can assist students in making informed choices about informed decisions about post-school pathways. It’s important to recognise, work options. however, that these work experiences should not be seen as exemplars but as • Integrating students’ instances of work and working life with the capacity to offer insights into the paid work into the world of work. school curriculum While this innovation has an educative purpose, it also provides a practical could provide a solution to a shrinking pool of work placements, given the difficulties that many schools experience in providing and monitoring these placements. Classroom- vehicle for recognising based reflections on students’ paid work experiences can become an educational and acknowledging resource – one that is freely available in Australian schools – and offer the prospect workplace competence of considerable savings in school resources such as the administrative and travel for vocational education outlays needed to support work placement programs. The resources absorbed by courses within schools school-organised work placements can then be redirected to other means of prepar- more readily than does ing and supporting students for their post-school pathways. Essentially, paid work experiences have the potential to provide a rich resource. the conventional work The procedures for the Informing post-school pathways: Investigating school stu- experience model of dents’ authentic work experiences study comprised four stages. First, schools were work placements. invited to participate in the project. That first stage involved gaining consents and • Using students’ paid establishing the research relationship. This first stage resulted in participation by a work experiences can total of ten classes and their teachers in six schools across Queensland and Victoria. reduce the requirements To make sure the schools in the study were supportive ones, preference was given to those schools with a track record in VET in Schools programs. for school-organised Secondly, teachers and researchers in the six schools negotiated ways to meet work placements and the needs of particular classes and students in the implementation of classroom- the resources deployed based activities designed to assist students to reflect on their paid work experi- to provide them. ences. This second stage involved working with selected teachers to develop the • Careers advice necessary classroom-based activities to assist students to describe and understand schemes, such as the their paid work, thus allowing them to reflect upon appropriate post-school path- ways. It was important to engage in discussions about each school’s setting and Australian National location, student cohorts, and student readiness in order to develop appropri- Industry Careers ate classroom-based activities. A framework for describing the students’ work Advisers initiative, will was adapted from earlier studies and comprised categories of work activities and benefit from integrating interactions. Teachers were encouraged to tailor this framework to their students’ students’ paid work needs and competence. experiences into their During the third stage, ten classes of students in the selected six schools processes. were involved in the implementation of the research project. Four metropolitan schools in Queensland and two in regional Victoria participated. One Queensland

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­metropolitan school began the classroom activities in the final term of 2004, with Classroom-based the remaining five schools in Queensland and Victoria participating in the first reflections on students’ half of 2005. Stage four involved progressively gathering and analysing the data and writing paid work experiences the report. can become an Findings educational resource The findings can be categorised according to the following key areas: l negotiating the procedures established by the research – one that is freely l understanding work available in Australian l understanding future pathways l reflecting upon work and post-school pathways. schools – and offer The findings also address the teachers’ roles in the process and advance con- the prospect of siderations for vocational education and schooling. considerable savings in Negotiating the procedures From the pilot study, a set of classroom resources was created and basically school resources such adopted unaltered by all the participating schools. These resources were, how- as the administrative ever, implemented in quite different ways by each school, which led to distinct sets of classroom experiences. In some instances, students and sometimes teach- and travel outlays ers struggled with the classroom-based activities. The variation in experiences needed to support work arose from: l the capabilities of the teacher involved placement programs. l the interest and readiness of students l the resources for and status of work experience and vocational education pro- grams within the school. The fact that students and sometimes teachers struggled with the classroom- based activities is noteworthy as it highlights the centrality of the teacher’s role and the school’s commitment to supporting them in VET initiatives.

Understanding work Through classroom activities, the students were able to engage in and present critical, although sometimes not particularly considered, analyses of their work experiences. Crucial features identified included: l the contrast between the conditions and roles of part-time workers and those of full-time workers l the unrewarding and unattractive nature of menial work l the nature of discretionary work roles, where workers act autonomously or semi-autonomously l differences in work roles l concepts about and appraisals of team work l the standing of workers and their treatment by, for example, customers and management l the requirements for work performance. Feedback from students supports the claim that workplace experiences derived from authentic employment relationships provide a richer base for expe- riencing and considering work and working life than do school-organised work placements. The extent to which classroom activities can produce educationally worthwhile reflections on work experiences depends on the work by teachers, the depth of the teachers’ understanding, and their ability to facilitate this within the classrooms.

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Understanding future pathways Through their reflections on their paid work experience, students identified that they had learnt about: l working life l different kinds of work – and the ways different kinds of work are different and sometimes similar l the kinds of work they do not want to engage in post-school l the kinds of work they do want to engage in post-school l their preferred work options Even students who l their preferences for a post-VET or university-prepared occupation l the relevance of school-based learning for preparing them for the occupation struggled to present to which they aspire. their ideas in a In all, students indicated that reflecting on and discussing their part-time employment in classroom-based activities provided opportunities for considering written form provided options for working life, for identifying employment preferences and, in some responses supporting instances, for the need for investing greater effort at school or in higher education to ensure the realisation of their working-life goals. the conclusion of most students: that their Reflecting on work and post-school pathways Overall, students reported that reflecting on their part-time employment had been paid part-time work useful. Clearly, they enjoyed discussing their work experiences and the opportunity to share experiences and insights in ways rarely provided in the classroom or work- was the best way of place. In addition, the discussion of this topic in class provided insights for those not understanding work and yet employed. Even students who struggled to present their ideas in a written form provided responses supporting the conclusion of most students: that their paid part- post-school pathways. time work was the best way of understanding work and post-school pathways. There were also suggestions about improving other ways of learning about occu- pations. These included advice from teachers, industry speakers and careers advisors, and access to electronic resources and agencies whose role it was to provide information on forms of employment. Although these other resources could provide a welcome complement, school students consistently claimed that their paid employment offered the most effective educational resource – and one that is freely available in most Year Eleven and Twelve classrooms in Australian schools. With minimal re-organisation of school programs, these class activities could be accommodated by both teachers and high school students to enable reflection on the world of work beyond school.

Teachers’ roles While students bring their experiences of paid work to classroom activities, the essential role of teachers is to provide classroom-based experiences to enable indi- vidual and group reflection on paid work experiences, thus assisting students to realise the full potential of those experiences. In this context it’s clear that teachers need the capacity to: l adapt and utilise resources to meet students’ needs l facilitate student learning, that is, draw upon learners’ experiences l manage the teaching-and-learning process to enable students to take up ­productive critical reflection l understand the potential of thinking about work l expand students’ views about learning and educational goals. Levels of teacher competence in their roles in this area of learning and inno- vation determined the usefulness of the outcomes. Not all teachers possessed the required expertise or were able to provide effective guided reflective experiences, a

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finding that is particularly relevant to other initiatives aimed at improving informa- Associate Professor Stephen Billett tion for school students about post-school options, such as career guidance. is a Researcher in the Centre for Applied Language, Literacy and Lessons for vocational education and schooling Communication Studies at Griffith In all of the schools involved in the Informing post-school pathways study, teachers used University. The author wishes to the pre-prepared materials supplied by the researchers with little or no modification. acknowledge the key support provided While this was successful in some schools, in others it led to unsatisfactory outcomes by Carolyn Ovens from Griffith for both students and teachers, which indicates that the uncritical and unadapted use University and Jen Walker from the of externally-derived materials was problematic. Teachers need support to develop the North Eastern Local Learning and capacity to adapt materials, and educational resources such as learning guides and Employment Network. other non-endorsed resources supporting training packages. Such materials need to be adapted to meet the requirements and capabilities of particular student groups. The This work has been produced by reluctance of teachers, however, to trust and engage with those outside the school, such the National Centre for Vocational as researchers, who have specific knowledge and who can provide expertise not avail- Education Research (NCVER) on able in the school is a shortcoming that reflects the ‘closed culture’ of schooling. behalf of the Commonwealth govern- The diversity of teachers’ levels of competence in the areas of work and vocational ment and state and territory govern- education was surprising. Furthermore, schools’ espoused track records with VET ments, with funding provided through were not predictors of positive educational experiences. Even in schools committed the Department of Education, Science to VET in Schools programs, arrangements for vocational and workplace-based and Training. experiences appeared marginal, unsupported and unmanaged. Clearly, additional demands have been placed on both schools and students with: take-up of school- Links: for the full report, Informing based apprenticeships; VET in Schools programs, as well as part-time employment post-school pathways: Investigating after school and on weekends; and the ongoing pursuit of academic qualifications school students’ authentic work for entry into higher education programs. The research also found that the demands experiences, by Stephen Billet, go to placed upon students and teachers should be more balanced to permit the additional http://www.ncver.edu.au/publica- activities required for vocational education in schools to be accommodated. tions/1681.html Some schools claimed that vocational education was already an integral part of their operation, yet this did not guarantee effective and well-managed school- based activities that provided opportunities for understanding work, working life and post-school pathways. Successful vocational education programs in schools are the ones that focus on the vocational program, allocate adequate resources and program appropriately.

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 19 research

Rationalised cheating

What turns honest students into cheats?

You can prevent or reduce cheating among students who are happily dishonest by convincing them that they’ll be caught, but how do you stop students who rationalise their cheating by reinterpreting their behaviour as honest? Just make it more difficult for them to Classroom cheating is an enormous problem that continues to worsen as describe cheating as technology gives an increasing edge to potential cheaters through text messages on anything other than mobile phones during exams, internet-plagiarised papers and the like. Although some students are concerned only about getting caught, many other students cheat cheating, says despite having qualms about engaging in dishonest behaviour. This possibility led Bill von Hippel. to my research question: what enables those students to cheat who believe that cheating itself is immoral? My research team has focused on one answer to this question by examining how students rationalise their cheating as they attempt to construe their dishon- est behaviour in a more positive light. Allow me, here, briefly to review two sets of experiments that my colleagues and I have conducted in our efforts to identify people we’ve called rationalised cheaters, that is, individuals who will only cheat when they can tell themselves that their actions don’t ‘really’ amount to cheating. You’ll find references to the original articles that I summarise here at the end of this article.

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The goal of our first study (Vargas, von Hippel & Petty, 2004) was to identify people who tend to interpret acts of dishonesty as capitalising on available oppor- tunities rather than as dishonest behaviour. We reasoned that people who viewed acts of dishonesty as reflecting something other than dishonesty would tend to be more dishonest themselves than those who did not, as they should also be more Rationalised likely to reinterpret their own dishonest behaviour in such a manner. This sort of a reinterpretive process would enable such individuals to forestall any qualms they might have about their own cheating, as they would effectively be interpreting their own behaviour as something other than cheating. To provide a test of this possibility, we presented 154 people with a series of vignettes that described different individuals engaging in what might be called cheating ambiguously or moderately dishonest behaviours. For example, one vignette read as follows: ‘Colleen checked out a rather rare publication from the school library. The due date had passed and she received a letter in the mail saying that she had What turns honest students into cheats? to pay $50 to replace the book if she could not return it. Colleen realised that this was a very small price to pay for this particular book. The book was out of print and she had always wanted her own copy of it. She decided to pay the $50 and report the book as lost.’ Following each vignette, participants were asked how dishonest they thought the protagonist’s behaviour was, and what percentage of people they thought would behave as the protagonist had in that situation. Later in the experiment, the opportunity to cheat was provided by an anagram test – what words can be formed from recsnapa, ecbiaanm, and gnimimtyana? If you want to cheat, the answers appear at the end of this article. The second page of the anagram test included an answer key that provided the solutions. Participants were told that they had up to fifteen minutes to work on fifteen anagrams. If they finished before time was called, they were to score their own anagram test using an answer key provided on the second page and were then to begin the second packet. Otherwise, they were to spend the fifteen minutes allotted for work on the anagram test, and when time was called they were to score their anagram tests before beginning work on the second packet. Finally, participants were told that they were free to leave when they had completed the second packet. These instructions were designed to suggest to participants that it would be possible for them to complete the experiment more rapidly if they were to cheat by using the answer key provided. In addition, the study was conducted in large groups in a lecture hall, thereby making it relatively easy for participants to cheat without being visually detected. A cheating score was calculated for each participant by computing the number of difficult anagrams answered correctly and for which there was no accompanying evidence of effort, in the form of working out on the scratch paper provided with the test. This scoring system wasn’t perfect, as some highly intelligent students may have been able to solve these anagrams without trying different solutions on the scratch paper. It should be noted, however, that even those students who did try many different solutions were typically unable to answer more than one of the difficult anagrams correctly within the fifteen-minute time frame. Thus, it’s fair to say that our scoring procedure primarily captured actual cheating. Correlating our analyses of this measure with findings from the vignette ‘honesty rankings,’ we found that people who regarded the moderately dishonest behaviours from the vignettes to actually be honest and common were themselves more likely to cheat on the anagram task. This finding emerged despite the fact that self-reported attitudes about honesty did not predict who cheated on the

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 21 research

anagram test. These results suggest that people who tend to reinterpret dishonest acts as not inherently dishonest, but rather as capitalising on opportunities, are themselves particularly likely to take advantage of such opportunities to cheat when they believe they won’t be caught. Thus, it seems that this process of reinterpret­ ing dishonest behaviour as something other than dishonesty enables people to rationalise their own actions, and thereby overcome internal, that is moral, barriers to cheating. In a second set of studies (von Hippel, Lakin & Shakarchi, 2005), we wanted to further explore the process by which people rationalise dishonest behaviour as not inherently dishonest by providing them with a potential excuse for their cheating, and then assessing which type of individuals cheated when given such an excuse. In service of this goal, we measured cheating via two computer- Preventing cheating administered maths tests that were given to 303 university students. Students among those who do it in these experiments were told that they would be completing a series of maths problems, and that they were to push the computer’s spacebar as soon as a maths knowingly and without problem appeared to activate an on-screen response-box, after which they were to solve the problem. If they answered the problem incorrectly, the problem would guilt is probably just a remain on-screen until they answered correctly. This feature of the program was matter of convincing designed to provide students with at least some motivation to cheat, as otherwise they would have no choice but to solve each problem correctly before continuing them that they will be with the experiment. caught, but it may be Students were also told that if they took too long to push the spacebar, the answer to the maths problem would unintentionally appear on the screen, due to a possible to reduce ‘bug’ in the computer software ostensibly left in by our programmer, who wanted rationalised cheating, to work on the program without constantly having to solve the maths problems. This ostensible software bug gave students an opportunity to cheat, in that they even when people could simply wait for the answer to appear rather than pushing the spacebar in a timely fashion. believe that they won’t In the first set of questions, participants had ten seconds to push the spacebar be caught, by making before the answer appeared. For a second set of questions, participants knew they had only one second to hit the spacebar before the answer appeared. Participants it more difficult for performed the tests in private cubicles and were told that we wouldn’t know if they them to reinterpret their had seen the answers, although in fact we monitored this information. Cheating rates averaged thirty per cent in the first ten-second maths set, and behaviour as anything forty per cent in the second one-second maths set. The additional ten per cent other than cheating. in the second maths set appeared to be individuals who felt that it was wrong to cheat on purpose, that is, when cheating required that they wait ten seconds for the answer to appear. When they could tell themselves that they were trying their hardest but had simply failed to be quick enough, however, this fiction appears to have freed them from their scruples against cheating. That is, when they only had one second to respond they could rationalise their cheating as unintended, reflect- ing a simple failure to be quick enough, even though other tasks in our experiment demonstrated that people were perfectly capable of pushing the spacebar within one second when they were motivated to do so. The question arising from these findings is this: what sort of individuals were more likely to cheat when they could rationalise their cheating as unintended? As it turned out, the rationalising cheaters were the same people who were most likely to have self-serving traits in other domains – they tended to aggrandise their suc- cesses and minimise their failures. Although most people are self-serving at least some of the time, this result indicates that people who are self-serving even when very little is at stake are also particularly likely to cheat when they can rationalise

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their behaviour as unintended. These findings suggest that some people show a Question: what words general tendency to protect the self from unwanted thoughts and situations by can be formed from reinterpreting the world in a fashion that enables them to view themselves and their behaviour in a more congenial manner. recsnapa, ecbiaanm, In combination, the two sets of studies we have conducted on rationalised cheating suggest that self-serving individuals are particularly likely to cheat when and gnimimtyana? they can reinterpret their behaviour in a more positive manner. These studies also suggest that some people engage in this sort of reinterpretation chronically, and thus are more likely to cheat under a wide variety of circumstances. Answer: pancreas, There’s a question that obviously follows from this: how might this informa- ambiance, and tion be used to minimise cheating? Preventing cheating among those who do it knowingly and without guilt magnanimity is probably just a matter of convincing them that they will be caught, but it may be possible to reduce rationalised cheating, even when people believe that they won’t be caught, by making it more difficult for them to reinterpret their behaviour as anything other than cheating. For example, it might be possible to reduce rationalised cheating by explaining to students why any unacknowledged References assistance constitutes cheating, and how such cheating unfairly disadvantages Vargas, PT, von Hippel, W, & Petty, other students. RE (2004) ‘Using “partially struc- Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that our work on rationalised cheating is tured” attitude measures to enhance far from complete, as many questions remain unanswered, alternative explanations the attitude-behavior relationship.’ need to be tested, and most importantly the relevance of these ideas has yet to be Personality and Social Psychology examined in an applied setting. We hope to have the opportunity to develop and Bulletin, 30: 197-211. test interventions based on these ideas in a classroom setting. If these ideas have von Hippel, W, Lakin, JL, & any applied value, it will be critical to demonstrate that we can reduce cheating on Shakarchi, R J (2005) ‘Individual real exams in real classrooms, at least among those who rationalise their dishonest differences in motivated social behaviour by labelling it as something other than what it really is. cognition: The case of self-serving information processing.’ Personality William von Hippel is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at the and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31: University of New South Wales. Email [email protected] 1347-1357.

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 23 the profession A to E Educationally indefensible

Judy King looks Schools don’t need politicians of either state or federal persuasion determining at A‑to‑E reporting the fine detail of assessment and reporting policies and procedures for students across Australia. We at Sydney’s Riverside Girls High School are very concerned and rates the new about the alienation of students at risk and those who are disengaged from learning assessment system. and achievement, despite the very best efforts of their teachers. For many years we have provided our students and parents with detailed learn- Will she give it an A? ing profile reports, twice a year, which clearly explain what students know and can do, and what they need to do in order to demonstrate improvement and move to the next level of achievement. We allocate grades A to E for each subject as part of a program of school-based assessment in the second semester of Year Ten, only when it is appropriate to do so for the awarding of the New South Wales School Certificate. We do not allocate grades in Years Seven, Eight and Nine or in the first semester of Year Ten and, in the twelve years that I’ve been principal at Riverside Girls High School, no parent has ever asked me to do so. Sixty of my students out of a total of 1,050 can expect to be labelled failures seventy-six times over the next four years under the New South Wales compulsory A-to-E grading system. These are students who are struggling to learn and cope with the demands of the curriculum in Years Seven to Ten who don’t qualify as special education students, don’t attract integration funding and are not exempt from the Commonwealth government’s new legislation regarding the allocation of A-to-E grades. Let’s not be fooled by the pious claptrap about the grades labelling the work pro- duced by the students, not the students themselves. Who are they kidding? Whether we like it or not, the students who struggle to learn will be labelled as failures and can look forward to seventy-six grades of E over their four years of junior high school if we go ahead and implement this educationally indefensible grading regime. If the Commonwealth government has indicated that grades A to E or their equivalent are acceptable, why has the NSW government mandated A to E for Years One to Ten? Consider the following scenario: a below-average student with a chronological age of thirteen in Year Seven and a reading age of around eight or nine can expect to be labelled with the E grade – ‘limited’ or ‘elementary’ or ‘with help can demonstrate the following’ – twenty times in her first year of high school – with ten Es for the half- yearly report and ten for the yearly report. These are the descriptors for grade E in the NSW Board of Studies guide for teachers in the allocation of grades. The descriptors for grade A include ‘extensive knowledge’ and ‘very high level of competence.’

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Our struggling student can then back up for twenty more Es in Year Eight, Let’s not be fooled by followed by eighteen in Year Nine and a further eighteen in Year Ten. Over her the pious claptrap about four years in junior secondary school, she can share seventy-six Es with her parents and family members, if she keeps attending school. Most students in NSW study the grades labelling nine or ten subjects in Years Seven and Eight – stage 4 – while students in Years Nine and Ten – stage 5 – study eight or nine subjects, depending on whether they the work produced by choose two or three electives for the School Certificate. the students, not the There are some obvious questions we should all be asking. A to E Will the retention rate for lower-ability students decline as they are locked into students themselves. a destructive cycle of failure? If it does, how will that help Australia as a nation? Who are they kidding? How does A-to-E reporting generate a positive learning climate for at-risk students who are already alienated by schools and systems? Whether we like it or How will A-to-E reporting engage at-risk students in the learning process? not, the students who Why would they want to come to school every day and do their best? How will this regime encourage at-risk Aboriginal students to engage in the struggle to learn will be learning process? What is the professional judgement of a teacher worth in Years Seven to Ten labelled as failures. when junior high school students are years away from seeking university entrance in their final year of high school? Are teachers really so hopeless that they need the Commonwealth government to determine this level of detail in assessment and reporting regimes? Are parents really demanding these A-to-E grades across Australia, or is this just the usual political rhetoric to justify a very political hands-on approach by the Commonwealth government, essentially using standover tactics to demand compliance from the states in return for federal funding? Where is the demand for A-to-E reporting really coming from? Why is there such confusion across Australia as different states interpret the demands differently? How has Julie Bishop, the Commonwealth Minister for Education, assisted in clarification by indicating that parents can reject the grade system if they so choose? If states are interpreting the descriptions of the grades differently, then what is the point of the Commonwealth requirement? Why is the wording of the Commonwealth’s guidelines more flexible than that of the NSW government? If the Commonwealth government has indicated that ‘the grades A to E or their equivalent’ are acceptable, why has the NSW govern- ment mandated A to E for Years One to Ten – but only for English and Maths in Years One and Two? Why do we have primary and secondary schools using the same reporting grid and the same descriptors when the learning programs in each really are quite different? How will this reporting regime further increase the gulf between public selec- tive high schools, where most students can expect to receive grades A and B, and public comprehensive high schools where the most students who find learning difficult are likely to be found? Will the grading regime offer new insights into the results-by-postcode phe- nomenon if the publicly-funded private schools of the leafy green suburbs allocate lots of As and Bs? Do politicians and bureaucrats without any teaching background have any understanding of the complex inter-relationship between effective teaching and learning, and quality assessment and reporting? Answers, please.

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 25 issues Letting students choose their own History

And why the Commonwealth government is all wrong about the teaching of History

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Professional educators today are constantly bombarded with radical policy Let students co-construct changes, at both the state and national level, that more often than not are driven their curriculum and by political opportunism and oversimplified media reporting of complex issues. Letting students That’s part of the reason there’s been a backlash against some curriculum innovation not only do you – especially in Western Australia. We’re facing Commonwealth and state require- empower and motivate ments to implement A-to-E reporting, more prescriptive content and assessment requirements under the guise of greater ‘accountability,’ and most recently a plan them in their learning, by the Commonwealth Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, but you also equip choose their to force all Australian students to study a course of History based fundamentally on ‘dates and facts.’ All this is happening while we face significant paradigm shifts them with the capacity in thinking about the learning process. to be independent, Research into teaching and learning, information processing and cognitive self-directed and development, as well as the social dimensions of education, is having a profound own History impact on the daily practice of educators. The reality is that current educational purposeful learners, research is challenging us to reflect upon and interrogate our teaching practice, says Joe Alexander. in order to provide environments that engage the wide range of learners in our classrooms and support their learning. In essence, that’s challenging many of the traditional practices of schooling, yet this profound paradigm shift in think- ing about teaching and learning is not particularly well reported or understood more broadly beyond the profession. Many people, including politicians, often rely on fundamentally outdated notions and assumptions about student learn- ing, often based on naive experiences of schooling dating back twenty, thirty or forty years. The fact is, says David Perkins, Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, many teachers, schools and schooling authorities are failing to make use of key research and developments in the area of education and learning. ‘In the age of CDs and VCRs, communications satellites and laptop computers,’ according to Perkins, ‘education remains by and large a traditional craft.’ (1992:3) The challenge for teaching professionals caught between conservatism and innova- tion, accountability and creativity is certainly a difficult one. If we’re to get beyond Perkins’s ‘traditional craft,’ however, we need to reflect on the ultimate purpose of schooling and indeed education. Is our purpose to produce students who amass a wide range of facts about a topic, say, or who develop a nar- row range of skills and processes relevant to various disciplines, or who gain high tertiary entrance scores, or who demonstrate competence according to outcomes across a range of curriculum strands? Or is our purpose to prepare students for adult life, as independent, thinking citizens of the future? As Perkins (1992:75) sees it, the hard-to-disagree-with goal for education is to help students to develop understanding and the active use of knowledge. For Perkins, this means learning goes well beyond just knowing about something; it’s about really thinking and applying the understanding that ensues to all sorts of situations. To help students do that, as Perkins put it at a conference at AB Paterson College in July, teachers and schools need ‘to walk on the wild side.’ One way to move beyond the traditional craft is to ‘re-think schooling’ accord- ing to Ron Ritchart’s idea that schools are ‘shaping’ their students’ intellectual character through developing ‘patterns.’ As Ritchart notes, ‘What stays with us from our education are patterns: patterns of behaviour, patterns of thinking and patterns of interaction. These patterns make up our character, specifically our intel- lectual character. Through our patterns of behaviour, thinking and interaction, we show what we are made of as thinkers and learners. Schools can do much to shape and influence these patterns.’ (Ritchart, 2002:8)

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The idea that schools shape ‘patterns’ rather than ‘bodies of knowledge’ in students can profoundly change our thinking about learning. It lets us see the value of what students learn not in the ‘content’ or ‘knowledge’ they acquire, but rather in the broader ‘patterns’ of thinking they develop. That’s why a ‘thematic’ approach to structuring the History curriculum offers more value to students than a content approach, typically organised according to a time and place. So, for example, instead of ‘studying World War I,’ students might think about the idea of ‘conflict,’ look at a variety of conflicts, perhaps including World War I, investigate their causes and consider how they might have been avoided. This broader thinking about concepts helps students to become active, informed and reflective citizens of the future, rather merely to be able to recite, say, fourteen causes of World War I, although the active, Using a Teaching informed and reflective student may well also be able to recite those. Other themes in Queensland’s Modern and Ancient History syllabi include studies of power, studies for Understanding of political structures, studies of change, even studies of hope. To take those themes framework for further, students might well choose their own case-studies within a theme. Beyond patterns, Ritchart (2002) also describes a range of dispositions that History at AB can be cultivated and developed to promote successful learning. Once we start Paterson College thinking about learning as developing ‘patterns of thinking’ and not as acquiring a ‘body of knowledge,’ we start to see that schooling is about developing ‘capacity’ • Overarching Goals or in students. As Erica McWilliam put it in her niftily-titled 2005 conference paper, Throughlines permeate ‘ The Yuk-Wow Generation,’ presented at a conference of the Queensland Studies all subjects in the Social Authority and elsewhere, ‘As a result of vast changes in the students we teach and Sciences and provide a the inevitability of continuous change in contemporary society, schools face a key series of familiar hooks to shift from delivering content to building capacity.’ Think about developing capa­ guide student learning in city and we start to see that schooling is about developing in students the capacity to learn, to understand, and to make sense of their own world, a world we don’t general terms about the yet know. The value of learning in this sort of paradigm lies in the deep thinking discipline. by students about an issue or concept, which includes thinking about how it may • A Generative Topic for relate to their own lives and future, which goes much further than the superficial each unit provides a learning, however exhaustive, made possible by the study of an arbitrarily-chosen starting point for students historical period. Put simply, it’s the development of capacities, not the acquisition to consider their learning. of content and facts, however rigorous, that schooling should be about. • Understanding Goals for A very different world each Generative Topic One of the significant challenges we face as educational professionals is the real- regulate the investigations ity that students in our classrooms will confront a very different world to the one pursued by students which we know. Profound changes in technology are dramatically changing the way and ensure the students’ we communicate, the way we locate information and even the way we occupy our learning is rigorous and time. Mobile phones, texting and email have all changed the way we communicate purposeful. with each other. The internet has revolutionised our access to information. Young • Rich Performances people today are armed with the ability to access information about anything at any time. That means that the need for skill in recalling or retaining information could of Understanding, fast be becoming obsolete. Our challenge is to consider how best we can prepare rather than traditional students for this world. Many of the educational and curriculum practices used in knowledge tests or other the teaching of History that are based on traditional notions of learning about the simplistic assessment world are not necessarily preparing students to face a very different kind of world. items, give students Kathleen McDonnell (2001), in Honey, we lost the Kids: Rethinking childhood in the the opportunity to truly multi-media age, argues that young people are, as a result of the world in which they demonstrate the richness are growing up, fundamentally different to those of earlier generations. She suggests young people of today are incredibly informed and aware, and yet, in so many ways, of their understanding. still denied access to adulthood and making meaningful decisions. As she puts it,

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‘One of the few remaining ways we allow them any sense of power over their lives Schooling needs to is to give them the choice of what to buy and what not to buy. In a real sense, we’re be more concerned the ones who’ve made young people into, in Thomas Hine’s phrase, “the monstrous progeny of marketing and schooling.”’ (McDonnell, 2001:156) with thinking than just McDonnell further argues that students need more opportunity to make choices and be empowered to learn about adulthood. ‘Teenagers constantly com- knowing, yet at both plain that adults treat them like children, demanding to know: “When are you state and national going to start treating me like an adult?” Which raises the very questions we need to grapple with. When should childhood end? What is maturity? Just when does levels there seems to a person become an adult? A lot of problems stem from the fact that, too often, be a particular interest, the answer to that question is: never. A lot of kids never really step into adulthood. We don’t pave the way for them. We don’t initiate them. In many ways, we actively and indeed political thwart their efforts to grow up!’ (156-57) By allowing students choice and flex- pressure, to specify ibility in their learning about History, however, we are preparing students to make choices, and allowing them more opportunity to make decisions, to take risks, to what students ought experience success and perhaps even make some mistakes. Choice gives them the opportunity to pursue their passions, interests, and generally begin making real to know, across many decisions in the safe and structured environment of school. curriculum areas, as

The problem with ‘just knowledge’ recent comments by School authorities and teachers, traditionally, have made the key decisions about the Prime Minister and what is to be taught and how it is to be assessed, often guided by the belief that there was some body of knowledge that students needed to learn. Perkins (1993) argues the Commonwealth passionately that learning is the result of thinking, not just knowing. Indeed, in Education Minister Smart Schools: Better thinking and learning for every child (Perkins, 1993), he outlines how knowledge can be problematic and ‘fragile,’ since ‘Research shows that there regarding the History are many more problems of knowledge other than just plain not having it,’ because knowledge can be inert, naive and ritualistic. (31) He suggests further that much curriculum illustrate. schooling has been based upon the ‘Trivial Pursuit Theory,’ which sees learning as a matter of ‘accumulating a large repertoire of facts and routines’ (31), a way of imagin­ ing learning, he suggests, that permeates many school and classroom structures. ‘Educators do not argue that education is about accumulating large repertoires of facts and routines,’ Perkins points out, ‘But this is overwhelmingly what happens in classrooms, where, as in other settings, actions speak louder than words.’ (32) Schooling needs to be more concerned with thinking than just knowing, yet at both state and national levels there seems to be a particular interest, and indeed political pressure, to specify what students ought to know, across many curricu- lum areas, as recent comments by the Prime Minister and the Commonwealth Education Minister regarding the History curriculum illustrate.

Student choice in the History classroom What ought students to know in the History classroom? Well, over the last couple of years, since I’ve involved my students in choosing and negotiating their own learning, I’ve come to realise that that’s a question we answer together. Initially, I wanted to empower my students, to let them have some control over their own learning, but I’ve also seen the results of this sort of approach on students: I’ve witnessed whole classes of Year Ten students writing assignments at a Year Twelve standard. As a teacher of both Ancient and Modern History, I’ve always agonised over what topics, concepts and issues to teach, and I was always acutely aware that my selections were entirely subjective, and probably said more about me and my interests than the discipline of History, or other disciplines in the social sciences. I was also aware that there was no

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way teachers could ever begin to construct a program without feeling like they were leaving out something important. The solution I came up with was to encourage all of my students to choose areas of History that interested them, and to let them make the big decisions I had previously agonised over. I can’t say this approach was radical: students had always undertaken some form of research assignment in History classes, and the idea of empowering students is hardly new. Over the last few years, however, I’ve become increasingly aware that my approach to teaching History is indeed quite different to the way History is taught in most schools, particularly in the southern states, because it builds capacity and understanding, providing learners I’m sure some teachers with the opportunity to develop their own bridge to understanding. are happy to allow For many educators, there may be something scary if not terrifying about empowering students, handing over control of their own learning. Robin Grille students to negotiate ponders the possibilities. ‘Imagine for a moment, that your children were given some aspects of their considerable freedom to choose what to learn and how to learn, to some degree, even when to learn. What do you suppose would happen? Would they run amok, learning, but few would their academic performance wither as they romp into frivolous pursuits? Would they ever bother to learn anything worthwhile?’ (Grille, 2003: 5-6) Her students negotiate answer? What you find, says Grille, is ‘children in the active role, emphatically their own areas of drawing the learning from their teacher.’ How many teachers would genuinely allow students to negotiate their own investigation, their own learning and their own assessment in the classroom? I don’t imagine the idea of learning and their own allowing students the freedom to negotiate their learning and to investigate topics of interest to them would be particularly common in the majority of Australian methods of assessment. schools. I’m sure some teachers are happy to allow students to negotiate some Generally speaking, aspects of their learning, but few students negotiate their own areas of investiga- tion, their own learning and their own methods of assessment. Generally speaking, students are not trusted students are not trusted with making decisions about their own learning, yet this is what we expect students to do as they mature into lifelong learners. with making decisions The educational benefits of empowering students to make their own deci- about their own sions about their own learning have been clearly articulated across a wide range of educational and curriculum literature. Ritchart (2002) argues that providing for learning, yet this is what choice and independence in student learning is an important component of devel- we expect students to oping a culture of thinking. ‘Meaningful student choice and the accompanying encouragement of autonomy are important components of rich thinking opportu- do as they mature into nities,’ he states. ‘These factors not only support student engagement and interest lifelong learners. but also encourage greater independence and self-direction in thinking.... When assignments are truly open-ended and afford student choice, the required decision making is more likely to involve students deeply with the content in a way that encourages thinking.’ (Ritchart, 2002: 155) Many of the philosophies emerging out of research into the middle years of schooling have similarly emphasised the benefits of cultivating student interest and choice in teaching and learning. Robyn Barratt (1998), in her seminal report into the needs of adolescent students in Australia, argued that students need real opportunities to negotiate learning that is useful to them in the present and for the future. In Barratt’s view, ‘learner-centredness’ is an essential component of middle schooling. A ‘learner-centred’ curriculum, she explains, is a ‘coherent curriculum that is focused on identified needs, interests and concerns of students and empha- sises self-directed and co-constructed learning.’ (Barratt, 1998: 30) Over in the field of behaviour management, theorists like Glasser, Rogers, Adler and Dreikurs have argued that students need to develop a sense of real control over learning at school, and point out that empowerment ultimately motivates them

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to engage in meaningful learning. The notion of choice and negotiation has also While the idea of been central to the growth of ‘Democratic Schools’ around the world. students negotiating Changes in History curriculum their own learning While the idea of students negotiating their own learning might be a hot topic, it’s likely to become very hot when you suggest students should negotiate their own might be a hot topic, learning in the field of History. That’s because, as Anna Clark explains, ‘History it’s likely to become and the way it is taught are hot topics for politicians, parents and educators, (even if) students continue to regard the subject as boring.’ (Clark, 2004: 7) very hot when you In the past, many have seen History syllabuses as a way of inculcating civic and suggest students should social values. Great moments in European culture were transmitted unproblemati- cally to students who did little more than memorise a large list of names, events negotiate their own and dates. Courses were structured around chronology, with an attempt to include learning in the field of every significant event. History as a discipline in Australia certainly developed from this tradition. As Gilbert describes it, History took a ‘traditional’ approach where, History. That’s because, ‘The essential core of the curriculum is the declarative or propositional informa- tion it contains, its social content; the curriculum is centrally prescribed; social as Anna Clark explains, values are seen to be universal and absolute and derived from perennial ideals; and ‘History and the way it knowledge is seen to comprise a series of fixed social truths.’ Gilbert (2006: 3) More recently, educators and contemporary historians have identified fundamen- is taught are hot topics tal flaws in such an ideological approach to History. Students are now encouraged for politicians, parents to investigate issues through their own processes of inquiry, to analyse and evaluate sources and to ultimately develop their own arguments, understandings and percep- and educators, (even tions of the past. The problem of trying to include every historical event in a course if) students continue to based on chronology has also been recognised. The reality is it’s impossible to include all historical events in a single course; and how do you decide what to include and regard the subject as exclude? The history we teach can no longer be seen as a series of absolute, universal and fixed social truths. The emergence of historiography has forced us to question the boring.’ ‘truths’ often embedded within versions of History, and opened up the whole process by which historical narratives are constructed and interpreted. What has since emerged is a ‘progressivist’ Social Science curriculum where, ‘The substantive essence is not predetermined but arises from an open inquiry process; the key content is based on student interest and contemporary issues; and the warrant for knowledge is seen to reside in this open process of inquiry.’ (Gilbert, 2006: 3) It’s this progressivist approach to curriculum in the Social Sciences that can accommodate student choice in the teaching of History, yet the problem is that many aspects of school curriculum are being driven back to a ‘traditional’ approach by external – read, political – interests that fail to recognise or imperfectly under- stand that contemporary teaching and learning is about building capacity and understanding, providing learners with the opportunity to develop their own bridge to understanding.

Tertiary ranking, old-fashioned examinations and History The reality today is that schooling authorities and tertiary ranking procedures have a significant impact on the type of History students experience. The requirements of government bodies that regulate, assess and rank students, particularly in the senior years of schooling, make it very difficult to incorporate student or even teacher choice and flexibility into teaching and learning programs. Indeed, many Australian states still require students to complete largely content-based external exams. The pressure that large external exams place on students is hard to justify, as Geoff Masters points out: ‘Learning research makes it clear the pressures of

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attempting to teach and learn large amounts of factual information are not con- ducive to the deep learning of subject matter.’ (Masters, 2004b: 23) Queensland is an interesting exception, where a school-based assessment approach has allowed for some flexibility, even if district and state panel require- ments still limit such flexibility. Since the release of the Queensland Studies Authority syllabuses for Ancient and Modern History in 2004, though, teachers have a real opportunity to allow students to negotiate aspects of their courses of study, including modes of assessment. Such opportunities for flexibility, however, still seem limited in most other Australian states. New South Wales seems to have regressed to a tightly controlled curriculum that requires all students to undertake a compulsory History exam at the end of Year Ten, in addition to its content-based Higher School Certificate examinations in Year Twelve. As Anna Clark describes it, ‘While numbers in the compulsory (Year Ten) New South Wales syllabus are How many educators obviously high, the syllabus has come under criticism for being too full of facts; still photocopy a class for rushing students through a curriculum and then expecting them to regurgitate key names and dates in the exam at the end.’ (Clark, 2004: 7) set of the same readings Should we worry? Well, it’s this model of History curriculum that the Commonwealth Minister for Education, Julie Bishop, appears to like, and appears and worksheets, and to want to replicate across Australia. expect students to read, Nutritious learning – or do you want fries with that? understand, remember Politics and other external influences aside, the inflexibility that’s typical in the History and merely transmit curriculum is a product of the fact that most teachers themselves believe, either con- sciously or unconsciously, that all students should gain the same understanding of a unproblematised topic or concept, and that concept or topic is often chosen only because it’s of interest information back? It’s to the teacher, or because it’s mandated in a curriculum document. By expecting the same outcome from every student, we soon find ourselves teaching – or just transmit- a kind of McDonalds ting – masses of common content. How many educators still photocopy a class set of the same readings and worksheets, and expect students to read, understand, remember approach to education and merely transmit unproblematised information back? It’s a kind of McDonalds – wherever in the approach to education – wherever in the world you buy your cheeseburger it should taste the same! Yet, as Geoff Masters points out, ‘Educational research makes clear world you buy your how inappropriate it is to treat all students of the same age or year level as though cheeseburger it should they are more or less equally ready to be taught the same material.’ (Masters, 2004a: 17) Providing choice, Masters points out, allows students to co-construct their own taste the same! learning path as they develop, expand and demonstrate their understanding of various key ideas within a discipline. This approach provides necessary opportunities for per- sonalised learning within a student’s school experience. ‘Personalised learning requires a view of learning as a continuous, school-long process through which learning expe- riences are tailored to the current attainments and interests of individuals, students are given greater control over what, how and where they learn, and are encouraged to plan and monitor their own learning.’ (Masters, 2004a: 17)

History and the Teaching For Understanding Framework The fundamental concepts underlying the Teaching for Understanding framework developed by Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education provide a structure for allowing students choice in their learning. Where I teach, at AB Paterson College on Queensland’s Gold Coast, the Teaching for Understanding framework has enabled us in our Social Science and History courses to work with our students to develop understanding and build capacity rather than getting them simply to send and receive a set of ‘facts.’ Conceptually, Teaching For Understanding’s focus

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on developing understanding rather than mere knowledge forces students to develop References their own understanding of key ideas. Understanding and knowledge: what’s the dif- Barratt, R. (1998) ‘Shaping Middle ference? As Tina Blythe explains, ‘When a student knows something, he or she can Schooling: Principles and direc- bring it forth on demand. Understanding is a subtler matter.... Understanding is the tions.’ Shaping Middle Schooling in matter of being able to do a number of thought-provoking things with a topic, such Australia: A Report of the National as explaining, finding evidence and examples, generalising, applying, analogising, Middle Schooling Project. Canberra: and representing the topic in new ways.’ (Blythe, 1998: 12) Australian Curriculum Studies As students develop their own understanding of key ideas, the components of Association. the Teaching for Understanding framework provide the necessary structure. The Blythe, T. (1998) The Teaching Overarching Goals or Throughlines of the faculty permeate all subjects in the Social for Understanding Guide. San Sciences and provide a series of familiar hooks to guide student learning in general Francisco: Jossey-Bass. terms about the discipline. The Generative Topic for each unit provides a starting Clark, A. (2004) ‘Who was Edmund point for students to consider their learning. To provide opportunities for students to Barton, and who cares?’ EQ. Winter: investigate issues independently, these Generative Topics need to be truly generative, 7-8. presenting questions and possibilities for students to investigate. The Understanding Gilbert, R. (2005) ‘Social Science Goals for each Generative Topic are a vital means by which to regulate the inves- education and curriculum form: tigations pursued by students and to ensure the students’ learning is rigorous and Issues in selecting and articulat- purposeful. Finally, the use of rich Performances of Understanding, rather than ing curriculum.’ Paper presented traditional knowledge tests or other simplistic assessment items, gives students the at the National Conference of the opportunity to truly demonstrate the richness of their understanding. Australian Association for Research In Years Seven, Eight and Nine, the Social Science curriculum is structured in Education. to cover some of the big ideas in History, Geography and Civics. Students often Grille, R. (2003) ‘Democracy Begins have choices with the topics they choose to investigate, the nature and type of at School: A new world trend in edu- their performance, and even their timelines for the completion of work. In Years cation.’ Connect. April: 5-8. Ten, Eleven and Twelve, students select specific disciplines as subjects like Ancient McDonnell K. (2001) Honey, History, Modern History or Geography. The real challenge in implementing a We Lost the Kids: Re-thinking Teaching for Understanding approach lies in adhering to the senior syllabus childhood in the multimedia age. requirements, but the 2004 Queensland Studies Authority syllabuses for Ancient Toronto: Second Story Press; and and Modern History have made this easier, since they’re structured using concep- North Melbourne: Pluto. tual themes, rather than rigid units based upon particular periods. McWilliam E. (2005) ‘The Yuk-Wow We’re finding that the teaching and learning of History through a curriculum Generation.’ Paper presented at the that’s flexible and negotiated is an exciting venture. You never really know where you or Queensland Studies Authority Senior the student are going to end up, but you do know you’ll see students exercising control Phase of Learning Conference. over their learning and taking responsibility for developing their own understanding. Masters, G. (2004a) ‘Personalised If we want students to be motivated and excited about fields in the Social Sciences Learning: the challenge.’ Education like History, then we need a negotiated and flexible approach to learning. There’s no Review. 7 (6). doubt the provision of a robust and stimulating curriculum that is flexible and largely Masters, G. (2004b) ‘Promoting steered by students presents a real challenge for teachers and school structures, but by Deep Learning.’ Education Review. providing students with real opportunities to make choices about their learning, we are 17 (7). equipping and preparing students for a world that is unknown to them, and to us. Perkins, D. (1993) Smart Schools: Better thinking and learning for Joe Alexander is Head of the Social Science Faculty at AB Paterson College on every child. New York: The Free Queensland’s Gold Coast, president of the SOSE Association of Queensland, a Press. member of the Queensland Studies Authority Social and Environment Syllabus Ritchart, R. (2002) Intellectual Advisory Committee, and District Panel Chair for Ancient History. He is also a Character. San Francisco: Jossey- sessional teacher in the Faculty of Education at Griffith University. Bass.

This is an edited version of a paper presented at the Teaching for Understanding conference, hosted by AB Paterson College in July. A version of the paper was also presented at the History Teachers Association of Australia national confer- ence in Perth this month.

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 33 issues Academic prose It’s not academic; it’s boring

I downloaded Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: a book for all and none (1881-1885) because I’d always been curious about this philosopher’s influence on colloquial conversation. In my time, I’ve been subjected to random citations of his work and the works of others that have similarly infiltrated under- graduate education, which made me think that he must have been an impenetrable Since, from a thinker, since those who quoted him did so often for that effect. As I had also studied History at school, and because Hitler’s Nazi regime had led my family to semiological point of relocate from central Europe to Britain, I was interested to find out why Nietzsche’s view, academic prose Übermensch or Superman was linked to Nazi ideology on a super race – the Aryan race. On reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, though, I found the biggest surprise, just operates according like my surprise when reading Francois Voltaire’s Zadig, L’ingénu and John Dewey’s to the syntactic and Experience and Education (1916), was the simplicity of the prose. semantic modalities that Both Nietzsche and Voltaire used storytelling and the persistent use of meta- phor to communicate a deeper philosophical discussion, and their prose, it seems, govern the particular has transcended time and influenced the thinking of the masses – and when I denotative and say masses, I’m thinking of the masses of academics across the world. Given that mass influence, however, I’m left with a question: why do so many academics and connotative discourses lecturers write in a style that is not only impenetrable, but also plagiaristic in style of particular academic and devoid of the particularities of human consciousness? Let me come clean: when I read an academic paper that I think may be of communities, its relevance to my thinking or research I struggle to read it from beginning to end; sociocultural function and, sadly, I have to admit that the same can be said of my own earlier writings. My is a sociological struggles are not, I should point out, the consequence of my dyslexia, but are the result of a much more disturbing fact: most academic prose is intensely boring. marker, embodied in The fundamental ‘rule of the game’ is that academic prose must be stripped the work of academic of the quirkiness of individual thinkers and, having been stripped of that, must then subscribe in a wholesale way to a generic form of phrasing and structure to communities as a code. communicate ideas – just to fill the gaps by the stripping out that’s been required Lost already? That, says in the first place. From an intellectual point of view, I wonder if this lifetime’s subscription to a set of generic forms, when ‘writing for academic purposes,’ is a Zofia Pawlaczek, is failure to convey the beauty of one’s own argument, and inspiration, as it emerged as much as to say that in a particular context. It’s as if inspiration and emotion are unnecessary facets academic prose has in the reporting – or should that be conveying, or maybe narrating or, let’s admit it, the pure and simple telling about research related to intellectual stories. My become impenetrable deep concern is that the fundamental ‘rule of the game’ when writing academic – and just plain boring. prose will turn away creative thinkers, which means we could lose a generation of potential academics. Worse, the fundamental ‘rule of the game’ that affects academic prose doesn’t just affect the written word. The spoken word also often suffers, horribly. I’ve seen many academics – from postgraduate students to professors – bumble their way

34 australian college of educators • acer issues

through oral presentations. Not only do they fail to convey in spoken words the Let me come clean: writing style that they have adopted, they are also generally just plain inarticulate. when I read an The shame is that as academics we still speak more than we write, yet we allow our individual spoken style to be supplanted by a conventional template that removes academic paper that the inspiration, the emotion and essentially the person from the spoken delivery. Are we really so afraid of rejection and failure that we cannot permit the essence I think may be of of our own particular style to infuse our work? Have we forgotten how notable relevance to my thinking forefathers and mothers have bucked this trend? Or is it just me? Or is it just me, and most of my students? Or is it just me, most of my students, and all my col- or research I struggle to leagues attempting innovation and creativity? read it from beginning As a dyslexic working within higher education I have for over a decade been trying to find my voice as a writer. I’ve gleaned many subtleties, and sometimes to end. My struggles obviousnesses, from reading the brilliant turns of phrase, styles and structures of are not, I should point others, and applied them in my own writing while also applying what can safely be described as academically-appropriate prose, rattling along the conventional train out, the consequence track of particular disciplines and technical terminologies, and generally becom- ing over-awed by the grand inscrutability of the language. It’s a process that’s been of my dyslexia, but are mentally draining, creatively speaking, or else wholly inappropriate for the range of the result of a much ideas I’ve wanted to express. In fact, I’ve stifled myself by falling into the trap laid by my insecurities. It’s a trap in which I’ve tricked myself into believing that the more disturbing fact: more impenetrable was my prose, the more intelligent was my point. My failings most academic prose is as a writer early on in my forays into research made me question the relevance of much research. Luckily, I think, in the course of my professional development, intensely boring. that’s led me to write in a more honest style; perhaps even storytelling. In fact my aim here, finally, is to write as I speak, to apply the kind of mental fluidity that is captured in my speech but has long been lacking in my prose, to capture the ways in which I articulate things in real conversations and teaching contexts in real-time – in the hope that I won’t bore you, or me, off the page. Maybe I’ll be accused – the common knee-jerk reaction – of being a heretic. Maybe I’ll be accused – a common reaction to fluent argument – of seeking out popular approval. Yet all I’m trying to achieve is a writing space that is full of the inspiration that is supposed to accompany the craft of writing. The literary world regularly jolts itself by asking if the novel is dead. Is it not worth asking ourselves similarly and on a regular basis whether academic prose is dead? It would be easy to say that I ask this question because I do not understand the beauty of impenetrable academic prose. The truth is that I’m not the only one who fails to understand it. The bulk of the literate population is not hooked on academic prose. It’s not that the readers of academic prose do not understand the structure of the language or the use of terms, since these can be acquired through Zofia Pawlaczek is a senior lecturer dedicated study and application. The heart of the matter is that the readers of in the Faculty of Education at academic prose do not understand the motivations behind the style. the Gippsland campus of Monash Is there a defence for academic prose by those who write like this? If there is, I’d University. like for once to hear or read it – if not penetrate the inscrutable argument I’m likely to find – but let’s not judge hastily. If the defence is that academics write academic References prose as they do because that’s the way academics think, I’d like to know why Where’s the reference to Friedrich academics don’t speak in real conversations and teaching contexts, not bumbling Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: lectures, the way they write. Perhaps you can’t hear yourself bumble? a book for all and none? Where’s the If poetry is a form that is intentionally a concentration of an idea, of language reference to Francois Voltaire’s Zadig, working under maximum pressure, a case of extreme abstraction, what does that L’ingénu? And where’s John Dewey’s make an 8,000-word academic paper? If the aim is to communicate an extreme Experience and Education? Why abstraction, the result is certainly not poetry. aren’t they listed? Where are they?

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 35 teaching and learning

Classmates Preparing a new generation of teachers

A new pilot program The big question when it comes to teacher supply is this: how do you fill a bucket may hold the key to with holes in it? The answer? Stop the holes. One pilot project that’s doing exactly that is Classmates, a unique collaboration between the University of Western boosting teacher Sydney (UWS) and the South Western Sydney region of the New South Wales retention rates in south- Department of Education and Training (DET). So what is Classmates doing? Delivering and keeping new teachers where they are needed most. western Sydney, as Professor Margaret Vickers and Dr Tania Ferfolja from the UWS School of Suzie Vlaming reports. Education are leading the pilot program, which involves fifteen students in the Bachelor of Teaching (Secondary) at UWS working in schools which are typically hard to staff. ‘The Classmates initiative is designed to operate in schools which are typically hard to staff,’ Vickers says. ‘They often have a disproportionate number of begin- ner teachers and high rates of teacher turnover. Recent research has shown that beginner and early career teachers will only remain in these schools if their initial preparation is matched to the challenges they will face. ‘The high schools of Sydney’s west and south-west play a key role in “making or breaking” beginner teachers as they are responsible for inducting about thirty per cent of new teachers,’ Vickers says. The Classmates project sees pre-service teachers combine their studies with practi- cal on-site training, allowing them to become immersed in the school environment and develop professional relationships with other pre-service and qualified teachers. ‘Classmates is an option within the UWS Bachelor of Teaching (Secondary) degree, which links UWS students to a particular school in south-western Sydney as part of their teacher education,’ Vickers explains. Trainee teacher Khadijah Chami-Batch is over the moon with her teaching experience at UWS – entering the classroom sooner than usual and enjoying the support of supervising teachers as she learns.

36 australian college of educators • acer teaching and learning

Twenty-two-year-old Khadijah completed her undergraduate degree in infor- ‘The high schools of mation technology at UWS and then realised she’d like to be a high school Maths Sydney’s west and teacher. ‘A teacher plays such a special role – there’s an important welfare side to it and it’s about understanding the students,’ she says. south-west play a key ‘My very first teaching experience involved a thirteen-year-old boy who broke down in tears because I gave him a yellow card for poor behaviour. I later discovered role in “making or he came from an abusive family and just didn’t know any better. breaking” beginner ‘I’m there not only to teach about Maths but to help foster a positive and fair learning environment within the school.’ teachers as they are The pilot project is currently operating in four Priority Schools Program responsible for inducting (PSP) high schools – Punchbowl Boys High School, Belmore Boys High School, Merrylands High School and Holroyd High School – as well as Concord High about thirty per cent of School, which is not a PSP school. new teachers.’ Khadijah’s practical teaching at Concord High School has offered her con- centrated experience over two terms. ‘I feel like a first-year teacher who is already professor margaret vickers, comfortable in the teaching environment. It has really boosted my professional university of western sydney and personal confidence levels and the students treat me differently as a result,’ Khadijah says. Classmates ‘Once you walk into the classroom – and you have the posture and confidence of a teacher – then you’re on your way. Ultimately, that’s what we gain – the theory Preparing a new generation of teachers helps you with the knowledge and skills for classroom preparation, and the con- fidence built on real experience helps you learn to work on your feet and adapt quickly in the classroom. ‘Teaching is all about preparation, and Classmates has been the best preparation of all. It’s preparing us for the realities we’ll face at school,’ she says. ‘I’ve seen all the aspects that teaching involves – not just the inside of a classroom, but sport activities, exams and administration. I’ve also learned about classroom management, how to deal with difficult situations and how to help students with individual needs. ‘Classmates is a demanding program as there’s a big commitment to face-to-face teaching, but it’s worth it because teaching plays such an important role in society. Even though it’s an accelerated degree, you’re eased into being a teacher, and you can apply what you learn on a day-to-day basis in a supportive environment. It’s helping me develop strong professional relationships and support networks with early career teachers and other Classmates students.’ Khadijah, who hopes to teach in south-western Sydney when she graduates this year, wants to help students shine – and to lift the way they view themselves and how people see them. ‘If I make a difference in one student’s life then I’ve chosen a worthwhile career,’ she says. According to Vickers, the retention of teachers in the first years of teaching is heavily dependent on the best preparation and training in the right context. ‘In the hurly-burly of life in the classroom and playground, much is done on the spur of the moment and often this intuitive action is not transparent,’ Vickers says. Pictured, Classmates student teacher ‘UWS students who take part in Classmates have access to experienced teach- Khadijah Chami-Batch at left with ers who can help them navigate their way through the day-to-day challenges they Concord High School student Mustafa will face. Albayati. Photo by Sally Tsoutas cour- ‘For the first time, student teachers have the chance to be an integral part of tesy the University of Western Sydney. their host school like practicing teachers – allowing them to develop sound relation- ships with students, colleagues and the broader school community.’ Suzie Vlaming is a Senior Media Vickers says the collaborative initiative between UWS and NSW DET also Officer at the University of Western provides a host of networking opportunities for the students. Sydney.

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 37 national perspective National perspective

‘Teachers should be able to measure their competence against national standards that could herald a new era of performance-based pay, according to the author of a report on the profession.’ At least, that’s how the Age reported the publication of a report for Teaching Australia by Lawrence Ingvarson and Elizabeth Kleinhenz in August, and the floodgate on performance-based or merit-based pay was opened – again. The story gave new impetus to the ‘incentive fund’ to reward high-achieving teachers proposed by the Commonwealth Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, which, according to the Daily Telegraph in August, would lead to cash bonuses to teachers of high-performing students. Performance-based Jennifer Buckingham from the Centre for Independent Studies pointed out in an opinion piece in the Courier Mail that ‘In almost every profession, people pay, merit-based pay, who are good at their job are paid more. This makes perfect sense as it helps to incentives for high- keep good people in their jobs and it is an incentive to work hard. In the teaching profession, hard work is not rewarded with higher salaries. Instead, teachers get achieving teachers, a small salary increase each year for the first ten years they are in the classroom.’ incentives for teachers Buckingham called for a ‘merit pay scheme (that) must include some measure of student performance.’ Maralyn Parker in the Daily Tele, meanwhile, insisted that of high-achieving ‘We should never pay teachers simply on their students’ results.’ Whether you measure teacher quality or student outcomes, the problem, students or just a as Australian College of Educators CEO, Cheryl O’Connor, pointed out in the storm in a teacup? Adelaide Advertiser and Canberra Times, is that ‘great teachers rarely say their successful teaching is the result of their individual effort. Whatever the skills of Steve Holden reports. particular teachers, they say, much of what occurs in classrooms depends to a con- siderable extent on the talents and professionalism of a team of people who teach students. The most talented teachers are amongst the first to recognise this, and many of our best hesitate to seek recognition for individual excellence, whether by way of seeking an award or financial reward.’ It was all very exciting, but a careful reading of the report, called Standards for Advanced Teaching: A review of national and international developments, indicates that the descriptive report was a few steps short of making any recommenda- tions about anything. According to Ingvarson and Kleinhenz, there are two broad purposes for standards, each of which serves different audiences or groups. ‘The first group of purposes, such as performance management, is unquestionably the responsibility of employing authorities.... This is based on the undeniable require- ment that teachers should fulfil their contractual duties. The second is where professional bodies develop standards for the purposes of professional learning and recognition. This purpose is based on the expectation that teachers should keep up with developments in research and knowledge in their area of teaching and work toward standards for accomplished practice.... This report focuses on the second purpose.’ The authors scrupulously avoid the word ‘pay’ in any sentence where the word ‘performance’ is used. And then there was Australian History. Participants at the Commonwealth- ­government-hosted Australian History Summit recommended that Australian History should be an essential and required subject for all students throughout primary and secondary school and should be a distinct subject in Years Nine and Ten.

38 australian college of educators • acer in brief

In brief In your state Victoria The Victorian branch of the Australian College of Educators Transforming education announced its 2006 Fellowship How can we re-imagine the transformation of teacher education in order to support Award winners in Melbourne in the ongoing transformation of schools? That was the question posed to university August. They were Bert Van Halen, Deans of Education, teacher educators, principals who are members of iNet, and Graeme Lane, Geoffrey Haw and teachers at ‘Teaching: Twenty-first-century imperatives,’ a forum held at Eltham Geoffrey Ryan. The Media Award College of Education in August. The forum resolved that: widespread reform was awarded to Erica Cervini from requires pilot initiatives between universities and schools; a clear framework to the Australian Financial Review. help universities and schools to work together needs to be defined, informed by Elida Brereton was awarded the Sir those pilot initiatives; and progress will be reviewed in early 2007. Resolutions James Darling Medal. aside, the most telling aspect of the forum was the fact that it was hosted by a school. It’s about time. Western Australia The ‘outcomes’ and ‘levels’ of the Education journalism Western Australian high school The Commonwealth Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie curriculum ‘can only be useful as Bishop, announced the winners of the Australian Council of Deans of Education organising principles governing Excellence in Education Journalism Awards in Canberra last month. The win- teaching, learning and assessment at ner of the Minister’s Award for Excellence was Courtney Trenwith from the the same general level, and not for Illawarra Mercury for ‘Top Dad.’ The Best News Report winner was the Daily determining assessment at a much Telegraph’s Bruce McDougall for ‘Top Class.’ Annalise Walliker and Jane finer level of precision necessary Metlikovec from Melbourne’s Herald-Sun were highly commended for ‘Big for tertiary selection,’ according to Squeeze.’ Winners of the Best Feature were Rebecca Leech from the national an independent report for the WA monthly magazine, Teacher, for ‘Inverse attraction,’ and Poppy Masselos from Curriculum Council by Murdoch Brisbane’s Courier–Mail, for ‘Games based learning.’ Elizabeth Bellamy from University professor in education, the Canberra Times was highly commended for ‘What Price Schools?’ Martina David Andrich. The report, released Simos from Adelaide’s Advertiser was also highly commended for ‘Opening last month, says Year Eleven and doors.’ Steve Holden from the national monthly magazine, Teacher, won the Twelve students should be given a Best Commentary, Opinion or Critique award for his regular column, ‘The score out of 100. Last Word.’ Amanda Dunn from the was highly commended for Sunday Age Queensland ‘Education is a journey, not a commodity.’ The awards recognise the highest A new approach to Indigenous quality journalism which provides a deeper understanding of significant edu- education in Cape York aims to lift cational issues and celebrates the work of educators in any of the educational student attendance, achievement sectors. and completion rates. Launching the new program, called ‘Bound ACCC says no to AHISA deal for Success: Education strategy An agreement between members of the Association of Heads of Independent Schools for Cape York,’ Queensland’s of Australia (AHISA) has run foul of the Australian Competition and Consumer Education Minister, Rod Welford Commission. The agreement advises schools not to make direct approaches to staff said that, while there have been from other independent schools and prevents schools from interviewing a teacher some encouraging gains in student for a job until the applicant’s principal is informed, ‘in the interests of collegial- achievement on the Cape, there’s ity.’ The agreement stipulates that, ‘If an applicant for a teaching, administrative ‘still a long way to go.’ or ancillary staff position is already on the staff of another AHISA school, no appointment may be made until the applicant’s present head has been informed.’ According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, that could Make sure In Brief really covers be in breach of the Trade Practices Act. AHISA national chairman, Geoff Ryan, what’s happening in your region. told the Australian, the aim was to prevent schools from ‘headhunting’ or target- Email editor.profeducator@acer. ing applicants. edu.au

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 39 interview

How do you make sure your students love learning? By listening to your students’ questions and giving them the opportunity, and guidance, to find their own answers. Steve Holden spoke with Andy Flouris to find out how. Love learning

How do you stimulate students to learn about Science? Surprisingly enough, through question-and-answer, says Andy Flouris, a Science teacher and coordinator from Niddrie Secondary College in Melbourne’s western suburbs. Questions and answers, she says, are at the heart of her innovative and curiosity-driven approach to Science teaching and learning. And Flouris is not just winning the hearts of her students – she’s also $10,000 the richer as this year’s winner of the University of Technology Sydney-Holmes à Court Eureka Prize for Science Teaching for her work to inspire and motivate students to become involved in student-centred investigations in Science. A Eureka Prize is a great reward, but the fact that there are now more Year Twelve students doing Science at Niddrie Secondary than before is another. If you think Flouris’s question-and-answer refers to a form of chalk and talk, though, think again. Flouris makes learning fun and interesting by listening to her students’ questions and giving them the chance, and guidance, to find their own answers – and by making the most of opportunities as they arise. ‘One unit that I taught my Year Sevens in 2005 was purely developed from the students’ interest,’ Flouris says. ‘We were studying cells at the time, and had briefly discussed the role of the nucleus which led on to a discussion about DNA and genetic inheritance. This discussion took off because the newspapers at the time were publishing stories about cloning pets, so the students had a lot of ques- tions.’ Using their interest, she quickly planned, developed and implemented a genetics unit that covered not only genetic inheritance, but also stem cell research, cloning and other related concepts. ‘This unit was developed with their English and Mathematics teacher as well, and finished with a parent-versus-student debate on the topic of designer babies, in which parents were provided with a CD that offered them information to prepare for their debate. To support that, in English students ran their own debates on their chosen topic involving genetics. My Maths colleague spent his time teaching the students about pedigrees and the probability of particular genetic outcomes actually occurring.’

40 australian college of educators • acer interview

At its heart, Flouris’s approach is to start with what students know, integrate Everyone’s heard of the disciplines and then push her students – hard. ‘My Year Sevens have each created teacher as the guide a webpage for a new species that they’ve designed. They needed to classify it according to different trophic levels and design it by using adaptations specific by the side, but Andy to the environment in which their organism would be found. In studying Forces, my Year Seven students investigated the forces behind different circus acts, start- Flouris says guidance ing by finding out about things like hula hoops. They’ve never considered the really is the key to all different forces acting on acrobats, but when they do they develop higher-order questions to do with both Maths and Science. They had to research and then her planning. ‘My aim present their findings to the class using an oral presentation. That was pretty for teaching really is to hands-on because they needed to perform the circus act they chose and explain the forces behind them – to their parents at a parent evening. In Year Ten, where be a guide, someone we study Evolution, I asked my students to create and role play a courtroom who points out important drama. As lawyers arguing the merits of the theories of Darwin and Lamarck, they were required to present their findings with evidence so we could make a information as my judgement as to which theory was the stronger, depending on the evidence that was presented. I’ve even asked my Year Eleven Biology class to perform a cell students progress along division dance about meiosis and mitosis. Working on chromosomes really lends their learning journey. itself to dynamic approaches.’ Here’s another one. Flouris provides seven envelopes with chromosomes in Wherever possible, I them for seven groups. The students have to karyotype the chromosomes and, make sure my lessons using a list she provides, identify the genetic abnormality of their chromosome set. Students then do a short research activity in which they collect information are student-centred.’ about that genetic disorder and present that information to the class in a role play. ‘The activity makes them address the class as if they are genetic counsellors offer- ing information to parents about the disorder, and the options the parents have,’ Flouris says. ‘This activity always leads on to a great discussion about the ethics of genetic pre-natal testing – which is certainly topical at the moment. Most of my units of work have been related to what is current in the news.’ All this fun and interest-based learning sounds great, but what happens in Flouris’s classes when it comes to assessment and exams? ‘One way I do revision,’ she says, ‘is to break students into smaller groups and ask them to come up with a short statement based on a particular key word or idea from the topic we’re revis- ing. Somewhere along the line, the students have to include a lie or a fallacy in their statement. If they’re caught out with their lie, the person that corrected the statement receives a prize; if they’re not caught out, the students presenting to the class receive the prize, so they need to think very carefully about their lie or fallacy because they don’t want to make it obvious to the other members of the class. That encourages deeper thinking, even in revision.’ Everyone’s heard of the teacher as the guide by the side, but Flouris says guid- ance really is the key to all her planning. ‘My aim for teaching really is to be a guide, Andy Flouris is a Science teacher and someone who points out important information as my students progress along their Science coordinator from Niddrie learning journey. Wherever possible, I make sure my lessons are student-centred. Secondary College in Melbourne’s Effective guidance is critical, in that it offers students the opportunities to find western suburbs and this year’s win- out important information that interests them. Offering positive and sometimes ner of the University of Technology critical feedback is also a necessity,’ she says, ‘to ensure students learn and reflect Sydney-Holmes à Court Eureka on any errors they may have made along the way.’ Prize for Science Teaching. Picture By thoroughly auditing what her students know and where their interests courtesy Andy Flouris and Niddrie lie, then building on that through good planning and preparation to stimulate Secondary College. further curiosity and interest, Flouris experiences very few management issues in her classes. Best of all, she says, her students love learning. Links: www.amonline.net.au/eureka

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 41 reviews

Beyond the Reading Wars

Beyond the Reading Wars is aptly titled. The ‘reading wars’ refers to recurrent debates about the teaching of reading using either ‘whole language’ or ‘phonics’ approaches. As the title emphasises, there’s much to be gained by looking ‘beyond’ that reductive either-or approach, and quotations at the beginning of each chapter offer signposts to show some ways forward. Without doubt, the literacy demands of twenty-first-century society are com- plex and challenging. Everyday life involves talking, listening, writing, reading and viewing in many different contexts. Literacy is important, and is frequently the subject of intense public, and often highly politicised, debate. Nowhere is this debate keener than when it concerns the teaching of reading. Public attention in Australia was focused on the teaching of reading late

edited by in 2005 when the report of the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, Robyn Ewing Teaching Reading, was published. Beyond the Reading Wars reflects the professional discussions that ensued. In editing the collection, Robyn Ewing has captured a ISBN 1 875 622 667 variety of insights into ways in which theory and research relate to what happens RRP $32.00 in Australian classrooms. Some of the contributions to the ongoing professional discussions about the published by teaching of reading directly address the Teaching Reading report. In his contribu- PETA tion, adapted from a paper presented to a 2006 conference, Future Directions on Literacy, at the University of Sydney, Derek Armstrong notes that, ‘for the most reviewed by part, the report merely affirms the practice of teachers of language and literacy in Marion Meiers our school,’ but suggests that the report missed opportunities to affirm the signifi- cance of literacy in a democratic society, and that a wider discussion is needed to move debate beyond the ‘reading wars.’ Brian Cambourne examines the explicit and implicit messages in a key recommendation of the report relating to the teaching of phonics, and how teachers might implement this in non-toxic ways. Beyond the Reading Wars is, however, much more than a response to the report of the national inquiry. It addresses significant issues, and teaching approaches and strategies, in relation to teaching reading, and in so doing enlarges professional discussion, and offers practical support for classroom teachers. There’s also plenty of common ground amongst contributors, for example, in the multiple references to the Four Resources model developed by Allan Luke and Peter Freebody that shows that decoding is a necessary but not sufficient aspect of reading. The contributors draw extensively from a wide range of research, including classroom-based research, to explore: multimodal texts and how children learn to ‘read’ images; how children learn to read in different contexts; assessment and the teaching of reading; approaches to teaching reading that meet the diverse needs of students from different language backgrounds learning English; reading and comprehension strategies for students in the middle years; drama strategies that support the development of critical literacy. All of these key aspects of teaching literacy, including reading, are explored in this book. I was struck by the inclusion of a chapter that vividly shows how history plays a role in understanding the teaching of reading, although too often the complexi- ties of this history are overlooked. Jo-Anne Reid’s historical account of the rise Marion Meiers is a Senior Research and fall of a method for teaching reading was, for me, a powerful reminder that Fellow at the Australian Council there is never one right way that teachers can rely on in their work of teaching for Educational Research. children to read.

42 australian college of educators • acer the diary

Want to know about professional development opportunities, conferences and just plain useful stuff? The Diary tells you what’s on.

27 October contact Renee Hoareau January; and 14-20 May, ‘Global event World Teachers’ Day phone 03 9495 6836 peace,’ deadline for papers 2 April. focuses attention on the extra­ email [email protected] Find out more at http://www.ssat- ordinary contributions and achieve- web www.vitta.org.au/2006 inet.net/Default.aspx?page=55 ments of you and your 250,000 or contact Online Conference so colleagues working in and beyond 3-8 December Manager, Debra Brydon schools across the government, event Australian Institute email [email protected] Catholic and independent sectors. of Physics Congress The AIP web www.cybertext.net.au/student­ web www.ei-ie.org/worldteachers- Congress is for all people with reg2.htm day/en/index.php physics-related interests, includ- ing students, teachers, researchers, 17-19 May 2007 13-19 November industry and academic physicists event ‘Middle Schooling: event 2nd ACEL/Microsoft and other professionals working in Reaching New Heights, Building Online Conference 2006 ‘So disciplines in which physics plays Our Future’ 5th International what is the future of school?’ an important role. The program Conference of the Middle Years and ‘What is a future school?’ includes the 2005 Nobel Prize of Schooling Association Increase The Australian Council for winner for Physics, Professor John your knowledge and understand- Educational Leaders and Microsoft Hall. ing of adolescence, and of positive online conference invites educators place Brisbane Convention & learning environments to help and their students to write about Exhibition Centre build bright and rewarding futures the future of school. contact Conference Office for young people. contact Online Conference phone 07 3844 1138 place Conrad Jupiters, Gold Coast Manager, Debra Brydon fax 07 3844 0909 phone 07 3844 1138 email [email protected] email [email protected] fax 07 3844 0909 web www.cybertext.net.au/acel2_ web www.aipc2006.com.au email [email protected] 06.htm web www.mysa2007.com.au 11-17 December 20-22 November event Global citizens. Are you 29 July-1 August 2007 event ICT: Imagination a global citizen? iNet is hosting event Directions for Catholic Creativity and Thinking The four online conferences, beginning Educational Leadership in VITTA 2006 annual conference with ‘Global citizens. Are you the 21st Century: The Vision, for ICT educators from primary a global citizen?’ in December, Challenges and Reality 4th and secondary schools, tertiary which will allow students around International Conference on institutions, sector authorities, the world to learn about global Catholic Educational Leadership business and industry focuses on: issues, as well as provide them with hosted by ACU will focus on new ICT and the Victorian Essential the opportunity to share their ideas leadership views and paradigms for Learning Standards; digital con- with other students and develop a a globalised and rapidly changing tent and creation for the classroom; global perspective on life on our world. ACU is calling for papers ICT leadership; e-learning for planet. The deadline for papers for – for a thirty-minute presenta- teachers and students; VCE IT; the first online conference is 23 tion or sixty-minute symposium curriculum and applications P-10; October. This will be followed in by members of a group – by Technology; VET in Information 2007 by: ‘Global equality,’ from 5- 31 October. Technology; and ICT and Careers. 11 February, deadline for papers 11 email [email protected] place Flemington Race Course, December; 12-18 March, ‘Global web Submit 200 word abstracts at Melbourne resources,’ deadline for papers 29 www.acu.edu.au/conferences

professional educator • vol 5, no. 4 • october 2006 43 as i see it

No matter what the school, what the city, what the decade, you’ll always see kids in bobby-socks dancing to Doo Wah Diddy, kids in footy outfits singing an Aussie sports song medley, and little kids doing ‘The Chicken Dance,’ with two strips of crepe paper for wings, and beaks made out of paper cups, held round their heads with underwear-waistband elastic. So I thought this might be the perfect opportu- nity to share some recollections of my own illustrious school concert career – just a few extracts from my soon-to-be published showbiz memoirs... Broadway Danny Katz, We Hardly Knew You, from Allen and Onion. 1968: Hard to believe, but my showbiz career began right at the bottom.... way off to the side...... in the Prep Recorder Choir, playing ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight.’ I didn’t even get to play the melody, just the ‘wim-a-way wim-away wim-a-way wim-away’ part for a solid twenty-nine minutes. Devastated and disillusioned, did not attend the after-show cast wrap-party behind the shelter shed. 1969: At last my talents were getting recognised. After a slap-face epidemic swept through Grade One, I became a last-minute inclusion in the highly-experimental but triumphant performance of ‘Tie me Kangaroo Down, Sport’ using painfully dissonant harmonies that rode the cutting-edge of avant-garde choral singing. 1970: Successfully auditioned for the small but pivotal part of the Wren in our acclaimed production of Who Killed Cock Robin? The dancing was intricately School choreographed so that every child was doing different actions to every other child: some of us flapping, some of us stamping, and one girl standing centre-stage, staring off into space, picking her nose with precise movement and rhythm. concerts 1971: My star was rising, and fast! Offered the plum role of the third little pig in The Three Little Pigs. Plunged myself into the character with great gusto, using acting techniques developed by Lee Strasberg of the New York Actors Studio. I Every year, at exactly actually attempted to BECOME a pig – I behaved like a pig at home, spoke in oinks all day, and even bashed up a prep kid during playlunch when I saw him opening this time, school a packet of Lane’s Bacon In A Biskit. students across the 1972: Was now being hailed as the Al Pacino of the schoolyard, following my dazzling portrayal of a world-weary squid in ‘Octopus’s Garden.’ Singled out in the nation prepare to face school newsletter, for my ‘Excellent acting effort, and getting a pen licence.’ the most daunting and 1973: Work offers flooding in. Given top billing for my role as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. Amusing backstage anecdote; my tail wouldn’t stay up difficult challenge of and just dangled lifelessly between my legs for the whole performance, and after their entire school life: the show Paul Downey said my tail looked like a willy, and I said it didn’t look like a willy, and he said it did look like a willy, and I hit him on the head with an a challenge of mental oversized lollipop from the Lollipop Guild. Ha ha! Such splendid memories! ability, emotional 1974: My directorial debut: the highly-controversial and much-misunderstood ‘We’re All Going On A Summer Holiday.’ Never before have so many stage con- stress, and physical ventions been shattered in one performance piece; several kids actually broke the stamina. It is, of fourth-wall-convention and waved at their mums and dads in the audience – it was a profound moment that sent contemporary theatre hurtling into the future. course, the annual 1975: Highschool begins, and my Legendary Golden Age arrives. Played Fagin end-of-year school in Oliver! I was the only schoolkid equipped to play the part, because of my beauti- Danny Katz ful singing voice, my fabulous onstage charisma, and also I was the only boy with concert. my own Jewish nose, and the prosthetics budget was very small. remembers. 1976: Played Fagin again. This time in West Side Story. 1977: Fagin in Oklahoma..... ‘Oklahoma vere ze vind goes rushin down ze plain....dee di deeee di.....’ 1980: Back row of the Year Twelve Recorder Choir: ‘a wim-a-way wim-away wim-a-way wim-away...’

44 australian college of educators • acer