Volume 9 Issue 9  October 2005
 

The Oral Tradition

Interviewer: in a recent presentation you told primary school principals that they were in for some drastic changes across a wide range of areas as the new education paradigm becomes a reality.  What do you consider to be one of the most important changes primary schools will face in this process?

Mark Treadwell: Much of what we learn from and through is oral by definition; oral language has resurfaced as the most critical skill in a first world dominated by the service sector and where oral language is a precursor to effective relationship building. To be independent learners, students will also need to be able to read and record what they know, to understand, to think, to desire to find out more, to be able to reflect on their own knowledge, understanding and learning limitations.  Learning is a complex task based on the capacity for oral language. With a complete flip in the employment base, moving from 80 percent of people working in the primary Industries (farming and industry) in the 1800s through to 80 percent of people working in the service sector at the beginning of the 21^st century, the requirement for oral language in both the workplace and the relationship place has overtaken written literacy as the primary literacy capability required by society.

This workplace requirement is backed up by the social changes that have taken place. In this new environment where people live in close proximity to each other the basis of our social structure is now necessarily and predominantly oral. Without good oral language people will find it hard to fit into any modern community and no matter how much they may text each other they will eventually have to communicate verbally. If I were to walk into any school and ask for a rubric that set out the parameters for effective oral language assessment, I would be met in most cases with blank looks. Written language has dominated our schools for so many generations that it has acquired a special status above all other language capabilities.

The replacement of the written word by oral language (speaking and listening) as the primary communication skill set taught in schools, along with the rise in visual language as a required taught set of skills is about to turn schools, (primary in particular), completely around in  the way they structure their teaching and learning programme.

Interviewer: Teachers presently spend up to two-thirds of their time teaching our young people in their primary school education to read and write, and now you are saying that oral language is superseding  these skills in importance.  Where will teachers find the time to teach oral language when there is so much content to get through?

Mark Treadwell: One of my great concerns is that currently primary schools send 10 years students old home with a periodic table to learn the names and abbreviations of the first 20 elements, and that algebraic equations are a key concept for 12 year olds. Both of these tasks along with other topics taught in primary schools are cognitively, way outside the child’s actual ability to process and understand the concepts involved.   A child of 10 years will really struggle with the challenge of developing a conceptual understanding of photosynthesis, how atoms combine and rearrange to form new molecules, moving in and out of cells and moving to different organelles within the cell, and learning the names of the molecules and the equations, all becomes a party trick because, in most cases the student wont have the cognitive capability to understand the concepts and see their relevance.  The same applies to the teaching of some geometry concepts in primary classrooms.  Mathematics is a language and should be taught as such. Conceptually much of the mathematics in current curricula has to be taught as a series of tricks in order to generate correct answers This very unfortunate situation arises from   an overemphasis on content with little focus on understanding,  the net result being that students see mathematics as either very difficult, or boring, and sometimes both.

Interviewer: So what is the solution?

Mark Treadwell: The cognitive capability to understand complex conceptual ideas really does not start to mature until the age of 12-15.  We would be much better off spending our time teaching our young people fundamental number concept and bedding this down in primary schools.

Interviewer: What about science teaching?

Mark Treadwell: As a secondary school science teacher, I would imagine that if my new class were fascinated with the world around them, intrigued by the unexplained, and curious about how things happened I would be ecstatic, far more so than if they knew the names of the first 20 elements or they could name all the planets. In truth we understand very little about the planet that we live on and the things we observe, and yet we teach as though we understand everything, that there is nothing more to discover, and that our young people are simply born two centuries too late to be real scientists and discoverers. In fact nothing could be further from the truth.

We know a lot about the world around us but we understand so little of it and many of the models that we have and use to explain what we observe are simply that; models. They are not truths, just representations that we use to try and help us explain what we observe.  No one understands gravity!  We have many mutually exclusive models that scientists use to try and develop further their understanding, but neither “warped space-time continuums”, “exchange of gravitons” nor “super string theory” actually explains everything that we see when it comes to gravity; they are simply models that assist us in explaining what we observe. Let us take the time to intrigue our young people with the world around them rather than trying to explain everything that they see.  Fascinated young people make wonderful scientists and teaching them concepts they are not ready for, along with tricks to remember names and numbers merely consigns science to the “boring and too hard” basket.

Interviewer: So we should be able to find some space in our day to focus not only on reading and writing but also on oral and visual language and reduce the content we try and deliver in the areas of maths and science?

Mark Treadwell: We must reduce content significantly and not only in science and maths! An audit of what content is really necessary is critical and needs to be done strategically.  What knowledge do students require in order to underpin the development of the concepts we wish students to develop in the different areas which we have identifies as being critical?

Interviewer: So what else needs to change?

Mark Treadwell: Parents/caregivers have increasingly chosen for both partners to be in a work-force where working hours are extending considerably.  What  they have learned from their workplace experiences is that if all tasks cannot possibly be completed in a set time ‘the powers that be’ can resort to a technique called “outsourcing”.  To achieve targets they simply find someone else to do the jobs that the present workforce does not particularly want to do or is not adequately skilled to complete.

Parents/caregivers are so busy now that they cannot possibly carry out all the tasks that are expected of them as parents and so they have unconsciously (giving them the benefit of the doubt!), outsourced the role of parenting to their local school. The ensuing results are featured in the media on a regular basis.  Schools are being asked to teach children to drive, teach them about sexuality, teach them to pat dogs correctly, use the telephone correctly, instil morals, ethics and values, teach them to watch their weight, keep fit and healthy and how to practice “safe sex”. These are all primarily parental duties and parents, having brought these children into the world and enjoyed the privilege of doing so . . . . must accept the responsibilities that go with this choice. If schools are going to take on the responsibility of all the traditional parenting roles then there is no way they can still deliver the same amount of content. Parents/care givers must also appreciate the magnitude of the job that they are now asking schools to take on board, and ask themselves whether they consciously desire this role to be carried out by schools, and schools must evaluate and debate their role in society and clarify their purpose and subsequent mission.

Interviewer:   Schools teach many other things that were not within their brief 20 years ago.  I recently visited a school where “thinking” was taught. Is thinking something that should extrinsically be taught in schools?

Mark Treadwell: Yes, it is quite common now for principals to refer to their school as a thinking school.  Being somewhat flippant one could presume this means that the school across the road is a non thinking school or that the students arrive without the capacity to think, a problem that the school is now in the process of rectifying!  Actually despite the labels used I hardly think that schools see themselves in this light . The teaching of thinking really means the provision of a set of thinking skills that can be used to try and overcome, in certain circumstances, the natural human disposition for irrationality, lack of logic and  the tendency for passion to override “commonsense”. .   Despite the fact that there are times when being rational, logical and sensible is extremely useful and indeed, absolutely necessary, consider what a boring species we would be if we were all logical sensible and rational and who would we talk about?

Interviewer: So the teaching of thinking skills is a way of overcoming a lack of commonsense?

Mark Treadwell: No. the teaching of thinking skills empowers us to come up with new ideas, to reflect on our own understanding and realise its limitations and possible barriers to better understanding and it also opens up new horizons and opportunities if used well.  The teaching of thinking is about strategies to better allow us to be able to comprehend and understand the world around us.  It does not mean that we will all (men and women!) stop wanting a red Lamborghini sports car parked in the garage or lose the desire to be wealthy or to exchange places with our heroes, film and sports stars or politicians; okay maybe not politicians. Teaching thinking also includes setting goals and building strategies to meet those goals, recognising the talents and gifts with which we and others have been born and being empowered and empowering others  to  make the most of these.

Interviewer: At least we don’t need oral language to think!

Mark Treadwell: Quite the contrary! If you reflect for a moment on the meaning of thinking, it is really talking to yourself. If you cannot talk to yourself, then it is very difficult to reflect on your own learning since metacognition is the basis for good thinking.  The capacity for reflective oral language is fundamental to successful thinking.  You can of course really confuse yourself by reflecting on whose voice it is that you hear when you talk to yourself, or why you can still hear yourself think when your fingers are in your ears? These are some of the fascinating aspects of thinking that science is struggling to explain.

Interviewer: I can see that some schools will take a long time to make some of these huge changes.  Have you any suggestions as to how they can be effectively made and what barriers might impede the successful transition for schools to this new education paradigm?

Mark Treadwell: One of the temptations that will face every school in making this transition will be to iterate (make incremental changes) their way slowly from the first book based  to the second Internet-based education paradigm because we first have to accept that the book based education paradigm has reached the upper limits of its efficiency.  If you attempt to iterate your way from the first modern paradigm to the second many staff will fall away in the process and schools will end up with a range of different capabilities.   What we suggest as an alternative and this is to accept, as a staff, the inevitability of the second education paradigm. Once accepted draw a figurative or real “line in the sand” defining the end of the old paradigm and then set in place 2-3 years of strategically identified professional development in the areas of need. Then after completing this process hold hands (figuratively or real) and then step over the line and together

To paraphrase Robert Branson [http://www.icte.org/T01_Library/T01_257.PDF]: It does not matter how much more money or effort we pump into the first education paradigm this education model simply cannot improve despite the best efforts of governments , administrators, teachers and communities as it is already operating at peak efficiency. Accepting this is the first step in building the second education paradigm. Once we move into the second education paradigm based on “NET” technologies the possibility for efficiency gains are once more available.

The truth is that our students have already moved to the Net based paradigm while we are still delivering a book based one and we wonder why they are largely disengaged from the learning process. Have a look at the downloadable PDF book “Educating the NET Generation” www.educause.edu/EducatingtheNetGeneration/5989  to see just how far wide of the mark our education system is now.

Interviewer: I hate to interrupt, but surely if we decreased class sizes and increased the number of computers in classrooms this would have a dramatic effect on the efficiency of schools in any paradigm?

Mark Treadwell: Nothing could be further from the truth! I understand that this defies what we would normally call common sense but the research of John Hattie from New Zealand (Auckland University: School of Education) http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/staff/index.cfm?P=8650 clearly shows that reducing class size has a negative correlation on student performance!  Compare that with the effect size of providing effective feedback to students of 1.13, equivalent of improving education outputs by over 50%. If we wish to make systematic improvement in the education system and at the same time provide our students with the skill sets for the 21^st century we must adopt the new education paradigm in its entirety and in one go.

Interviewer: I appreciate your passion for this Mark but I simply can’t imagine schools suddenly changing everything, overnight.

Mark Treadwell: What we are suggesting is that schools “rule a line in the sand” indicating the close off point for the first education paradigm; maybe even have a wake to celebrate its passing. The second requirement is to set a strategic professional development pathway for the next three years that will efficiently and effectively provide teachers with the skill sets they require in order to make this transition.  At the conclusion of those three years schools will once again “rule a line in the sand” and together as a team (in each school) they will hold hands take a deep breath and cross over the line into the new paradigm and do so consciously, purposely and completely.  I do not imagine that the transition will be 100 percent for anyone let alone everyone but the culture and expectations will be clear. I believe that the slow iterative pathway is simply not an option as we will lose too many people along the way. To achieve a successful transition everyone has to be committed with no-one taking the “let’s see how it goes” approach.

Interviewer: I can see several major problems here Mark. For example - in order to make changes on this scale the curriculum would need a massive overhaul.

Mark Treadwell: Correct!

Interviewer: And what about the parents/caregivers? I can see them out on the streets with placards and burning effigies of both you and the local Minister/Department of Education head.

Mark Treadwell: Correct again! Unless we communicate extremely clearly and logically to our communities why these changes are necessary I will have to increase my life insurance considerably! Our only logical approach will be via an effective mass media marketing campaign, the budget for which will be considerable. Taking on a task of this proportion without bringing on board our communities would guarantee its abject failure.

Interviewer: What if we simply continued as we are at the moment; what would be the result for our young people, our community and our country?

Mark Treadwell: The result would be catastrophic and I do not use this word lightly. Our young people have already made the transition to the new paradigm and we refer to them as the “net generation”.

Coincidentally or not, it is becoming clear that our greatest challenge within the school sector will be the increasing disengagement of our young people from learning. Unless we also adapt and become second paradigm teachers and schools our students  will become increasingly more disengaged, providing us with customised, downloaded assignments from www.schoolsux.com and saying “whatever!” as they drift back to their i-pod/MSN world. 

The 21^st century requires a large number of innovators, lateral thinkers and ingenious people who can create employment opportunities through the export of new ideas, products, systems and environments. Due to the high labour cost in first world countries we are no longer able to compete on quality or mass production volumes, with countries with low labour rates. Instead we must strongly brand our countries in order to attract a premium price for their goods and services and we will need innovative ideas, products, systems and environments which people overseas and within our own country are willing to pay a premium for.

 This is going to be possible only if we teach our young people to understand, not just “know stuff”. You can only be innovative if you understand the underlying concepts about which you are trying to be innovative. The end point of the learning process in the first paradigm was primarily “knowing”. Exams tested what student knew and rarely what they understood.  This has to change in order for our country to remain a first world country and retain the living standards to which we have become accustomed.

Interviewer: Is school then about creating a useful work force?

Mark Treadwell: Absolutely not! Personal fulfilment and a sense of purpose would provide even greater reasons for teaching our young people creative thinking skills and to be creative it is imperative to have an understanding as creativity is a form of innovation.  Those who feel that they are contributing to their communities in innovative forms are held in high esteem and are valued for their contributions, whether artistically, creatively, socially or within the business world. They live fulfilled lives with their rewards coming from a sense of personal fulfilment and appreciation from their communities.   Preparing our young people to lead fulfilled lives is one of the highest callings possible. To fulfil this mission teaching must attract our best, brightest and most passionate who are then able to create the best possible learning and teaching environments, motivate and inspire our young people .

Interviewer: Do our teachers have the passion, the ability and the know-how to make these changes?

Mark Treadwell: They all have the possibility of making the transition and the potential is increased by making sure the environment for success is maximised.

Interviewer: Really? 

Mark Treadwell: Yes, those teachers, and I would venture to say they are in the majority,  who have a “constructivist” approach to their teaching, those who are willing and able to become lifelong learners, those who have the best interest of students in mind and those who are passionate about the potential of this paradigm will react with enthusiasm to these changes and as a consequence  will enjoy a brighter future within a system that is better equipped to meet the challenges demands and expectations of the 21^st century.  This is the most exciting time ever to be a teacher; yes the challenges are great but the opportunities to carve out a new education system have never been presented as they are today.

Interviewer: And what is the environment for success that you mention?

Mark Treadwell: Unless the capability is in place for teachers to make the transition then the uptake will be greatly reduced. Some teachers who are natural innovators are already experimenting with the transitions and they will work their way through the issues, problem solving and enjoying the challenges and the experiences but for most

Comments and suggestions to

Mark Treadwell

Teachers@work.co.nz

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