Have we forgotten the yolk?

Many years ago, in the early 1980s, I was a principal who had been appointed to the largest primary school in the Northern Territory.

Nhulunbuy Primary School had a student population of 850 children and a staff close to 60. The majority, like me, were new to the school and its community.

Our staff believed that it would be appropriate to undertake a significant exercise of self-examination and reflection. Our community supported an extensive appraisal that would consider where the school had come from, where it was and where it might head in terms of establishing future educational priorities and directions.

At that time, school examination was being undertaken by many schools in the Northern Territory. Then (as now) there were new trends, directions and priorities to consider. Self-examination was a way of looking at the way in which schools might develop.

As a new principal to urban schools in the Northern Territory, I was anxious to get the process right. I telexed Geoff Spring, who was then the Director for Education in the Northern Territory, and sought his advice on process establishment. (Then, as now, we were blessed by being educators within a relatively small system, meaning that contact with upper echelon occupiers was not only possible but also encouraged.  That is an advantage of our system that continues to this day.)

Mr Spring telexed me back with several pages of advice and exhortation. In summary, he advised me that, in his opinion, appraisals often miscued examination priorities. He said that the focus tended to be more on how the school looked (environment), how the school felt (climate) rather than how the school operated (the teaching-learning nexus). His advice was that we ought not to look at our school from the outside in, but rather from the inside out.

That reminded me of the words of our founding director of education, Dr Jim Eedle. When the Northern Territory Department of Education became an entity in its own right (by separation from the Commonwealth and Canberra’s control) in 1978, he advised us never to forget that ‘schools are for children’ and that the prime function of education is to prepare tomorrow’s generation of adults and leaders. In this context, Dr Eedle told us that structure (organisational precepts) should be in place to facilitate function (teaching and learning) but should never become more paramount than function. This, he said, was necessary if educational priorities were to be maintained.

Our Nhulunbuy appraisal developed with these precepts in mind and was a highly successful exercise establishing and repositioning key priorities that translated into quality educational inputs and teaching-learning outcomes.

To me, in terms of educational principal and practice, these have always been motivating and underpinning strategies. I am a firm believer in the fact that if focus and concentration of schools is vested in teaching and learning, then the rest will follow. Climatic and environmental factors seem to follow logically.

Beware of distractions

I always felt that the implied advice offered by Mr Spring was that, in reaching toward the future, we should avoid being side-tracked  - that it was easy to allow elements that defocused us from the main purpose of education to creep into calculations. A purist approach was something he advocated, exhorting that we remain on track.

That ought not to take out the need to consider modern developments and trends. Indeed, we discount 21st century priorities at our peril. We need, as leaders, to be aware of the fact that there is always substantial resistance to change demonstrated by a significant percentage of people within any organisation, notwithstanding demonstrated or forecast benefits that the change may bring. By the same token, it is wise to progress or to move in terms of steady state building, in an onward and upward direction. Organisations that grasp new initiatives in a way that separates them from their foundations and history are organisations in danger of collapse.

A valued colleague, Dr Terry Quong, now a fellow principal at Millner School in Darwin, once wrote that organisations needed to move forward incrementally, accepting and digesting change in terms of ‘bite sized chunks’. Biting off too much could lead to organisational indigestion and possible ‘regurgitative chaos’ if the changes being ingested couldn’t be managed.

Another way of looking at that is to consider directions as being like going up a flight of steps. Going up one step at a time means that challenges and changes are manageable. An added advantage is that educators (and children) have a change to consider ‘from the base of a temporary platform’ both issues of growth and further need. The notion of going up steps, rather than trying to scramble up the side of a steep mountain, makes sense because what may seem unassailable becomes conquerable.

The danger of ‘bored’ attitudes

I worry that the road to educational transformation and system redesign sometimes happens because educators become disaffected with the notion of ‘steady as she goes’ development. Often, there impacts into the belief patterns of educators, a desire to ‘make individual marks’, earning individual recognition by doing something different, new, exciting and innovative. Whether this is or isn’t in the best interest of clients (children and students) seems not to come into the thinking of those connected with organisational decision-making.

In order to avoid the predictable and the mundane, educators can, and do, make changes. Whether these changes are necessary or not, whether they have been carefully thought through and whether they are in the best interests of children can be - and often seem to be - beside the point.

What seems to be necessary is for educators to make their mark, with change being attributable to those authoring the amendments.

Part of this seems to be a need - in some cases a craving - by individuals to be so recognised. This flies in the face of the fact that change negotiated within groups can be more beneficial because it emanates from collective wisdom.

I am a believer in building on what has gone before and would affirm that basic and key learning needs ( the three Rs) can be excitingly taught in a way that satisfies both children and teachers. There is a danger that the issues of excitement can discount basic learning needs, in order to overweight exciting peripherals. Holistic education needs to take account of all key and extension subject areas, in order to guarantee that literacy and numeracy are not undervalued.

Watch the knee-jerk reaction

‘Resilience’ is an oft-touted value that schools is urged to practice and to inculcate into the thinking of children and students. To me, this infers a need to carefully consider change agents, including the careful ‘pros and cons’ evaluation of suggested alternatives. At times (and in company with the notion of organisational ‘sameness’ and boredom), we react to change suggestion in a very knee-jerk manner. We need to more carefully consider the consequences of likely change, without jumping in with unrequited and premature enthusiasm.

An element of this is a need for practising educators to challenge suggestions made for change, so that healthy debate takes place. It seems that a great deal of change channels from the top-down, with schools meekly agreeing to absorption and implementation without debating the significance and the consequence of these changes.

Two key examples applying within the Northern Territory illustrate this point. In the mid to late 1980s, the concept of ‘devolution’ was handed down from above and embraced by schools, without any meaningful debate on the process, consequence and likely outcomes. After this, changes were made to the way in which students with special needs would be accommodated in mainstream classes, again with fairly minimal consideration of the likely impacts on the operations of children and classes. At times, assumptions are made but are not tested before becoming fully incorporated into educational practice. I could offer numerous examples to illustrate this particular point.

Educators generally feel more comfortable about change if they have a chance to discuss and to assess likely impacts. They certainly need to be involved with principals and leadership teams in considering likely change to school operations. In turn, leadership groups need to engage staff in meaningful discourse, rather than accepting change on behalf of schools without this consultation taking place. I would go so far as to suggest that change propositions be discussed within school communities and with school and student councils. Change is always significant and it is essential that a conversation around change and implementation of change processes takes place.

System demands and compliance requirements

Within the Australian (Federal) Government context, more and more change is being required as part of the compliance requirements of state and territory governments and education departments. 

Increasingly, funding allocated to states and territories to meet educational needs is attendant upon systems signing-off on having met compliance requirements and benchmarks. Compliance has been with us for the past three years and will probably extend to encompass more and more aspects of accountability.

While it is accepted that governments can, and do, impose requirements on systems, I think it important that these requirements are not mutely accepted and endorsed without debate taking place. Schools within systems and teachers working within those schools deserve respect and trust. At times, carte blanch accountability requirements, particularly elements arbitrarily imposed without discussion; infer that trust is not offered and that educators don’t have the capacity to make decisions about outcomes that are not absolutely imposed. I have overheard conversations and discussions about schools and teachers which are offered in this manner.

Redesign is fine but the status quo is important

I am not against system modification and refinement. In that context, redesign is important. However, in the Australian context at least, the teaching profession seems to be one increasingly plagued by dissatisfiers. Many teachers are voting with their feet, moving from teaching to other professions and occupations that are less societally demanding and more financially satisfying. In Western Australia, teachers in their droves (some quite senior in length of time and status) are quitting teaching to involve in industrial, particularly mining, occupations. This is also happening in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Teaching, which once was considered an occupation encouraging long-term career commitment, is no longer so regarded. In the Northern Territory, a 2007 estimate was that well over half of the beginning teaching force of that year would be gone within six or seven years. Coupled with the notion of age (the average age of the teaching force in Australia is reported to be well above 45 years), together with a tendency toward earlier rather than later retirements, we contemplate a profession where commitment is lessening while demands on that profession are increasing .

System redesign must take account of these issues. Content redesign and methodological reconfiguration is well and good but if teachers are lost then restructuring becomes destructive and empty. To return to Jim Eedle, that would probably represent an over-commitment to structure with educational function being devalued and despoiled.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mr Henry Gray commenced his teaching career in 1970, having entered training college as a mature age student. He has taught in remote, town and urban schools, in both Western Australia and the Northern Territory. His principalship in WA and NT schools encompasses the past 35 years and he holds several degrees. Mr Gray is a member of various relevant professional associations and was president of the Northern Territory Principal’s Association from 1992 until 1996. His concern is that the human side of education always remains at the forefront of teaching and learning. Schools should always be for children and students. They should be the focus of humanist endeavour.

 

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