This week I was introduced to a rather long but relevant study by Wayne Freeth around the Reconceptualising of Leadership through the Revised NZ Curriculum.
Now the new curriculum has been in place a few years now, I personally have worked with this new curriculum for twice as long as I worked under the last one. But in reading this study I was once again reminded of the forward thinking that went into its concept. Thinking that has been somewhat forgetten.
Years ago when the NZC came back our school ran with it. We embraced change and looked at a new curriculum map for our school. We accepted the future focused themes, added our own communities values, and embraced the key competencies as important... And then got on with teaching units based on themes just like always. We simply headed the themes with the FF headings and tagged terms with a values and KC, like they are taught once a year and thats it.
Looking back, and looking at how our schools adoption of the NZC has developed since then, it seems we stopped thinking about the possibilities that had been opened up to us.
Reading this document reminded me of the importance of the few pages at the front of the NZC, the pages that seperate the skills learning from the competenices for life.
It is time to get back to looking at what the students need in skills AND competencies and working from them up towards the NZC objectives, rather than leadership picking topics they want our kids to do...
Its time to focus on knowledge as the verb... rather than knowledge as disconnected fragments of nouns.
What is our shared understanding of what a student in our school should be when they leave...
Is it only what they have attained academically that is valued - what about what they have become as a human...
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