Teaching and Learning

We understand why the education system needs to change. As the Factory Model moves gradually out of our schools and we usher in a new era learning. As the knowledge curve extends upwards in our lives, the schooling system moves away from content transmission and moves towards using knowledge to create new knowledge. Developing skills of collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, problem solving... ...unless you're doing NCEA external exams. Exams are solely based on memorising information before you go into them, and regurgitating as much as you can onto the page, to be marked on how well you applied the knowledge you could remember to the problem given on the day. The exams create a need in schools for teachers to follow a syllabus. I lived with a high school science teacher for a while, and although she loved the idea of introducing modern learning principles into her classes, she struggled because of the amount of content she had to deliver to students to get them read...

As an outsider coming to Christchurch, I didn't know one area from another. You could say Bishopdale or Swanson, and it would mean absolutely nothing to me. But I'd heard of Aranui. The stigma of the East side of Christchurch travels far and wide, and is re-promoted continuously. Only at the weekend, an MC at a kapahaka event asked all the participating schools if they were here, and the schools would shout back that they were. When Haeata, the new school in Aranui shouted back that they were here, the MC responded "Oh good, then my car is still in the car park." The fact that this kind of stigma that people are working hard to remove is promoted by leaders in our community ensures that it is refreshed, reinvigorated and continued. This is not however, a single isolated event. It is a stigma that our students experience and have drilled into them over and over again every day. So are all the children in Aranui thieves and vagrants? No. Of course not. They are lovi...