Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Kelvin Smythe on Nat Stds and PAct

A refreshing viewpoint that rings bells with me as we continue to feel 'weighed down ' by National Standards.

The focus of principals in curriculum leadership should not be on the learning dead-end of national standards but on the joyously open-ended encouragement of creativity and imagination.
That means the focus would be on teaching children to read in a way that is consistent with getting children to want to read – to become independent readers; that books are the staple of children’s reading (that is, not bits and pieces from computers or journals), and especially fiction books (which are important to children becoming emotionally sensitive and mature). That means that the main aim in expressive writing is writing with sincerity; and in expository or argument, writing clearly and logically – which means a significant amount of time is needed to motivate children to care about their writing, to think deeply about it; it also means expressive writing should be the emphasis in primary schools, not expository, because primary children, in particular, are naturally motivated to write about themselves and their world. That means that drama, dance, and the arts are everyday parts of the curriculum, sharing the same main aim and purposes as expressive writing. That means that mathematics extends far beyond numeracy to a curriculum area based on solving problems, genuine problems. That means that science is a continuous experience for children based on science events around them – the purpose being to establish the connectedness of science phenomena. That means that social studies is about real people in the past, the present, and from New Zealand and elsewhere – with connectedness established by developing a feeling for the people being studied. And in all curriculum areas that means that the knowledge gained and the skills to be developed are learnt in the course of pursuing the main aim – and genuine thinking is encouraged though open-ended activities taken in an open-ended way.
Principals should be at the centre of curriculum leadership like this not wallowing in the bog that is national standards.