rather “Please don’t”…

Children do not like being incompetent any more than they like being ignorant. They want to learn how to do, and do well, the things they see being done by bigger people around them. This is why they soon find school such a disappointment; they so seldom get a chance to learn anything important or do anything real. But many of the defenders of childhood, in or out of school, seem to have this vested interest in the children’s incompetence, which they often call “letting the child be a child.” ~John Holt

I totally believe this.

As Aboriginal author and researcher Tyson Yunkaporta writes in his book Sand Talk:

“Inspiration is something that has been relegated to the arts rather than the sciences, although stories of ‘eureka moments’ in scientific discovery are still celebrated . . . But creativity is now widely regarded as a vaguely defined skill set falling randomly on individual geniuses. Deep engagement encompassing mind, body, heart, and spirit has been replaced by a dogged ethic of commitment to labor and enthusiastic compliance with discipline imposed by authority. While it may be proven that internal motivation is more productive than external pressure, the uncertain and unsettling sources of this inner power are threatening to hierarchies, so intrinsic control methods of organization are generally ignored in both education and the workplace. Or they are co-opted into “self-management” protocols that involve internalizing our administrators and doing the job of monitoring or managing for them — an arrangement not unlike the child who always has the voice of an abusive parent in his head.”

and that…

The more I think about it, the more I think that the curriculum is the problem. I used to ignore curriculum. The NZ curriculum is hard to get worked up about, in a primary school context. It makes sense as it was designed with the ethos of Tomorrow’s schools – flexibility for individual schools… we were supposed to be reflecting the local community, not turning into competitive units vying for the best students. I did lovely retrospective planning. Look, my recent lesson covered L2 objective number X… etc. We now have another government set on the creation of auto bots that will be governed by their higher ranked children from private schools who don’t have to spend their joyless time at school doing structured maths (doesn’t exsist yet but I bet it is based on the falicy of building blocks) in their hour of maths (actually arithmetic) or read only to show comprehension and ability to churn out reports in their hour of literacy. Now we are to turn the curriculm once again into a series of boxes to tick, levels to reach, and things to fail at. There is a difference between creating an environment where it is okay to make mistakes and one that is threatened by failure.

I have been reading Twelve Thousand Hours – Education and Poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand, which is a series of articles by people much more academic than me. Articles with catchy titles like A suicide of the soul: Neoliberalism, the arts and democracy. (so love that title). I am even more committed to transforming education than before. The first thing I am getting rid of is the curriculum, all curriculums. I am going full Reggio Emelia. The kids can determine their own curriculum. It is a democracy issue. How can adults determine what children should learn when children have eyes, brains… and nobody can see the future. We made it up. We made up the curriculum why is it controlling us. I don’t want my child to be educated to get a job, especally a job as defined by history or my understanding of the world (she may want to be a content creator). I definitely have ideas about what she should learn, like speeches by Moana Jackson, Martin Luther King, Elsie Locke.. I have opinions on who I want her to idolise… but I know that she is her own person, I can preach the value of them to her but if I recognise her as another person I can no more tell her what to value than I can you the reader. I hope I can impart to her the value of questioning, of not accepting the world as it is and to be idealistic, hopeful even. I have to trust her. But I really do see her as a full on human being separate from my self. I want her to have the freedom to choose what to learn – even if her choices are something out of a classics novel, Shakespeare, grammar, logic, classical music and Latin. It is so much harder to become more human as an adult and have internalised “the rules” often lies, taught at school. Hard work shall be rewarded. Girls should be agreeable. You fail because you are dumb. Family poverty is irrelevant to achievement. Because someone else once achieved despite being poor IT IS YOUR FAULT….