Good Teacher''s Magazine - Jan, 2011

Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 1
New Zealand’s teachers magazine
Term One 2011
“The best teachers don’t give you the answers
They just point the way
and let you make your own choices.”
2 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
Priority Code:
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 3
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ISSN: 1175-5911

Index 3
Your Soapbox Dr John Edwards 4
Creative emergence or planning studies Bruce Hammonds 5
A Student’s Voice for the 21st Century Anna-Rose Davies 8
UK approach to degrees supports productivity 11
Taking Strategic Steps Towards a Focus on Learning 12
School’s in for finances Anneli Knight 16
Tools 4 Talent Development Elaine Le Sueur 18
Talent Spotting & Creativity Elaine Le Sueur 19
Big bang or slow burn Laurie Loper 20
Richerd Crypt’s Crossword 25
The History of St Valentine 26
Competition: You Can Win This book! 27
Responding to a Child in Crisis Gary Weber 28
Using Irrational Behaviour to Your Advantage Michelle LaBrosse 30
Changing Lives Bernie Hiha 34
Books and Things 36
Mark Wolfe Music Mark Wolfe 38
books and things 43
The amusing Mini story 43
Roger’s Rant 46
Education Resource Centre 48

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4 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
If you want to haveYOUR SAY please email your offering to:
Your Soapbox!
“
”
If I am always the one to think of where to go next
If where we go is always the decision of the curriculum or
my curiosity and not theirs.

If motivation is mine.
If I always decide on the topic to be studied, the title of the
story, the problem to be worked on
If I am always the one who has reviewed their work and
decided what they need.
How will they ever know how to begin?
If I am the one who is always monitoring progress.
If I set the pace of all working discussions.
If I always look ahead, foresee problems and endeavor to
eliminate them.
If I swoop in and save them from cognitive conflict.
If I never allow them to feel and use the energy from
confusion and frustration.
If things are always broken into short working periods.
If myself and others are allowed to break into their concen-
tration.
If bells and I are always in control of the pace and flow of
work
How will they learn to continue their own work?
If all the marking and editing is done by me.
If the selection of which work is to be published or evaluated
is made by me.
If what is valued and valuable is always decided by external
sources or by me.
If there is no forum to discuss what delights them in their
task, what is working, what is not working, what they plan to
do about it.
If they have not learned a language to discuss their work in
ways that are intrinsically growth enhancing.
If they do not have a language of self-assessment.

If ways of communicating their work are always controlled by
me.
If our assessments are mainly summative rather than
formative.
If they do not plan their way forward to further action.
How will they find ownership, direction
and delight in what they do?
If I speak of individuals but present learning as if they are
all the same.
If I am never seen to reflect and reflection time is never
provided.
If we never speak together about reflection and thinking
and never develop a vocabulary for such discussion.
If we do not take opportunities to think about our thinking.
If I constantly give them exercises that do not intellectually
challenge them.
If I set up learning environments that interfere with them
learning from their own actions.
If I give them recipes to follow.
If I only expect the one right conclusion.
If I signify that there are always right and wrong answers.
If I never openly respect their thoughts.
If I never let them persevere with something really difficult
which they cannot master.
If I make all work serious work and discourage playfulness.
If there is no time to explore.
If I lock them into adult time constraints too early.
How will they get to know themselves as a
thinker?
If they never get to help anyone else.

If we force them to always work and play with children of
the same age.
If I do not teach them the skills of working co-operatively.
If collaboration can be seen as cheating.
If all classroom activities are based in competitiveness.
If everything is seen to be for grades.
How will they learn to work with others?
For if they have never experienced being challenged in a
safe environment.
- have had all of their creative thoughts explained away.
- are unaware what catches their interest and how then to
have confidence in that interest.
- have never followed something they are passionate
about to a satisfying conclusion.
- have not clarified the way they sabotage their own
learning.
- are afraid to seek help and do not know who or how to
ask.
- have not experienced overcoming their own inertia.
- are paralyzed by the need to know everything before
writing or acting.
- have never got bogged down.
- have never failed.
- have always played it safe.
How will they ever know who they are?
The Things We Steal From Children
Dr John Edwards
One evening, on returning from lecturing to my students, my wife asked me: “And what did you steal
from your students today?” The question rocked me, and as I examined my practice under her skilful
questioning, I realized how much of the processes I kept for myself.

So we sat down and together we wrote the following:
/>Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 5
Creative emergence
or planning studies
Bruce Hammonds
Independent Education Adviser
The very young and adult artists and
scientists have the attributes of ‘life long
learners’ - to be ‘seekers, users and crea-
tors of the own knowledge’ as the NZC
states. As Professor Brian Cox , the UK
Governments Science Adviser, says , ‘
the point of science is to be comfortable
with the unknown’. Explorers of all ages,
to ‘ fly’ like an eagle, need to be both open
to new ideas and skeptical of authority.
The other day I was asked by a princi-
pal a of a small school if I had ‘any links
to research or examples of institutions
delivering a school curriculum over a
set number of years? By that I mean a
policy of integrated studies areas be-
ing comprehensively covered over
maybe 2-3 years rather than attempt-
ing to cover everything in one school
year.I would love to see any examples
of such a programme or even have links
to any research you may know of’.
I guess I was the wrong person to ask
because I believe such planning does

more harm than good because it discounts
the questions and concerns that emerge
from any group of curious children. As a
result students see school as something
that is done to them rather than some-
thing they learn to do for themselves.
The teaching profession has always been
full of ‘experts’, in the various subject
areas, who determine what content young
people should learn. Recently we have
had imposed on schools the idea of na-
tional standards that all students have to
achieve. As yet they have not ‘morphed’
into national tests but one doesn’t have
to have crystal ball to see what will
evolve. National Standards withstanding
current education is already infected by
pre-planned intentional thinking. Even
the most child centred classroom is really
students having fun doing what teach-
ers think they need to do. Literacy and
numeracy the two worst offenders. No
student, it seems, would ever learn to
read or do maths if teachers didn’t set
about testing and teaching them .
Socrates, two thousand years ago, worked
our what teaching was all about about;
listening to his students, their question,
and asking questions of them. He believed
his peasant boy Memo already had all the

geometry in his head - his role was to help
him clarify his ideas. Even his ‘mate’ Plato
Can life be planned or, in
an ever evolving world, do
we need to be equipped
with the condence and the
dispositions to learn from
whatever experiences we
encounter?
Traditional school people
seem to believe that, without
teacher planning, their
students would learn little. In
contrast creative educators
believe that it is all about
creating the conditions
necessary for students to
develop their innate talents.
The teachers who hold the
second view, of course, do
need to have considerable
knowledge (or know where to
point their students) to ensure
their students potential is
realized.
6 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
Bruce Hammonds has revised and
added to his previous resources to
develop a new 240 page book
’Quality Teaching and Learning’.

In this new book Bruce shares the
practical ideas gained from crea-
tive teachers he has worked over
the years.
Also included are ideas and quotes
from educationalists that contrib-
ute to what Bruce calls ‘A More In-
formed Vision for the 21stC’.
Simply this is a book that values
the ‘artistry’ of classroom teachers
and the need for students to ‘do
fewer things well’.
The ideas in the book align well
with the intent of the New Zealand
Curriculum.
To order book
Quality Teaching and Learning
wrote that ‘the task of the teacher is not to place knowledge
in where it does not exist, but rather to lead the minds eye
that it might be see for itself’.
And for two thousand years we have ignored their advice.
Experts, who know better than creative teacher, have no
faith in students innate ability to make sense of their own
experiences. They have pushed their lists of content , or
learning objectives, or standards, on teachers. And too
many teachers, believing in planning, have gone along with
them.
So back to the query from the teacher.
All I could do was share a few (diconfirming) ideas with him.
I wrote: ‘I have never believed it is important to define an

integrated inquiry program over a number of years.Just too
complicated and inflexible. The important thing is to develop
in students the dispositions, attitudes and competences they
will need to continue their life long learning quest. These key
competencies are outlined in the NZC and are similar to the
‘habits of mind’ of Art Costa , or the ‘powerful learning ‘ of
Guy Claxton.
With this in mind it is vitally important to develop the
‘seeking, using and creating knowledge’ asked for in the
NZC in the literacy block and, where possible, in the
numeracy block. All too often these are developed as stand
alone areas of learning. And worse still take up much of the
whole day!

So the challenge is to ensure all students ‘learn’ through a
series of experiences how to ‘seek’ knowledge ( using their
own questions) to ‘use’ it ( not just cutting and pasting but
showing students ‘voice’ and opinions) and to ‘create’ (
products of originality in writing, art and project work).

To achieve such self motivated resourceful learners requires
them being involved in rich, real, relevant and rigorous
challenges. Some of these challenges might be part of self
contained language or maths topics but the best are
integrated and generative inquiry studies that spin out into
all sorts of curriculum areas’.
My advice to him was to, ‘each year to cover ( two a term
usually) a range of content area studies. These can be
developed by looking the various strands in the learning
areas ( excluding maths and language) and developing

eight or so themes to cover each year. The next step is to
ask the students themselves what they would like to learn
more about and the issues and concerns that worry them?
From such a process a teacher could co-develop a curricu-
lum involving their students. Any topics or questions that
‘emerge’ (‘teachable moments’) should be also be taken
advantage if - it is the dispositions that teachers need to
always keep in mind and the talents their students are
developing’.
‘As for the themes that need to be covered the ones that
come to mind are:
Environmental studies ( mainly natural science); heritage
study - European history; Maoritanga; Science technology
- physical science; a creative arts theme ( visual art, drams
or music in-depth study) etc. Make up your own list by
combining strands from various areas. Another thought is a
Communication ICT theme. A great idea is in term four, for
year 3 and above, for students to select and do their own
individual research study. This is a great way to assess if
students can use all the various skills you have hopefully
taught them during the year’.
‘Three points to keep in mind’.
‘At the beginning of the year plan out the eight or so studies.
Leave room for studies that just emerge. At the end of the
year make a record of what studies were actually under-
taken -as plans might have changed during the year. Use
these to see what areas have been missed to plan for the
next year and to ensure that students do not get involved in
repetition.
It is important to cover a range of themes to give every

learner a chance to find out what they like - their own
particular set of interests or talents ( multiple intelligences)
For each study plan three or for major outcomes to encour-
age depth of thinking and to encourage students to do fewer
things well. Each outcome will indicate skills that will need to
in place or to be taught to achieve quality results in literacy
time.
Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 7
Outcomes could be: a research presentation
where students answer three or four open
questions (this might be a PowerPoint but
usually involves research language work); a
piece creative or expressive writing based on
the theme; and a piece of creative art work’.
Finally
‘The studies selected must become the
driving motivation for the whole day as much
as is possible - and the reason to teach
reading and comprehension and presentation
skills in the literacy time (and as much as pos-
sible numeracy time as well)’.
The teacher thanked me for my advice and
said he would think about it. I think it was
probably both the wrong question and the
wrong answer.
Most teachers these days are avid planners
and data collectors - to concerned with
proving achievement to really trust them-
selves or their students. Technicians teaching
by numbers - imposing their intentions on

their students
Teachers in such a formulaic and dysfunc-
tional system are no longer creative.
NZ Glass Environmental Fund
Attention Teachers
Expressions of interest to make application for a grant from the
NZ Glass Environmental Fund are invited. Up to $25,000 will be available
in total for suitable environmental projects. For application forms and guidelines
see our website www.recycleglass.co.nz or contact:
NZ Glass Environmental Fund
PO Box 12-345 Penrose, Auckland 1642
Phone: 09-976 7127 Fax: 09-976 7119
Deadline for expression of interest is 31 March 2011.
Sponsored by O-I New Zealand.
0690-Good Teacher 1 14/12/10 3:09 PM
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8 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
Hello, my name is Anna-Rose Davies and I have
attended Taupo Nui a Tia College since year 9.
I am a year 12 student, and I enjoy subjects like
History, English, Economics and Photography.

I have also just gained my Grade 8 Classical Piano
with 84%. I play cricket and football. I would
consider myself a fairly academic person who
enjoys a wide range of activities and I try to be
well rounded and not single focused.
Learning of any kind is to me, the greatest thing
anyone can ever accomplish.
I love the fact that I can go to the library or go on
the internet and learn about something that I’ve
always wanted to.
Whatever knowledge we desire is right at our
ngertips in the Modern World and we should
take advantage of this.
The abundance and range of information in the
world today is astounding, and I want to be one
of those people who can talk and discuss
anything with anyone.
I want to learn about ancient Greece and the
dark ages but also computer programming and
atomic physics.
I want to be uent in 4 languages and be able
to tell you what kind of weather is desirable for
hot air ballooning, and I’m not the only one that
does! The world out there is so fascinating and
I want to come into contact with as much of it
as possible.
These days, there’s so much on offer in the way of
sport, education, travel and more for students and
most of us want to experience it to the full. Most
people have a natural affinity with some subjects,

like math, or the sciences, or like me with the
social sciences, and I find that the subjects that I
enjoy most are the ones where I get along best
with the teachers. The teachers that are the most
successful with my learning are the more humorous
ones, the ones that are easy to get along with,
whom with classroom banter is not uncommon, the
teachers who can laugh and see the lighter side,
and who are truly passionate about their subjects.
The vibrant, full of life teachers are those who
teach most effectively, and who students enjoy
the classes the most.
Students of today need teachers who are lively,
animated, and passionate about their subjects, who
can tell you about supply and demand curves with
zeal and obvious enthusiasm. We don’t want
teachers to come in, yell and scream at those who
Late last year a large group of
education advisers met. One of the
presentations was speeches from
secondary school students who
were asked to talk about what they
want from teachers and how they
‘see’ learning.
One of the amazing, condent,
erudite and perceptive speeches
was by Anna-Rose Davies
and Good Teacher Magazine
appreciates her permission to
repeat her speech here.

Remember that Anna-Rose was just
starting school at the turn of the
century.
How often do teachers or those
who advise them actually remember
to listen to student voice?
How often is that then translated
into meaningful changes to what
and how we expect our 21st
century learners to learn?
A Student’s Voice for the 21st Century
“
Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 9
Learning needs to be engaging, it needs to shake
my emotions, make me think. It can’t be something
I can sit through and not pay attention to.
What would happen if you asked students what
they wanted to learn? What a wide range of
answers you would get. From classical literature to
rock n roll to physics to woodwork.
What would happen if every student pursued their
own learning and learnt what they wanted to?
What if we had a class where we could study what
we wanted to at that very moment in time, like
great white sharks or photons or soil?
What would be the result if students were
encouraged to learn what they wanted, how they
wanted, when they wanted?
What would happen if school was more flexible
and less structured?

What would happen if school were even more
structured?
These questions can and will be answered within
years, and that’s a good thing because we need to
find out what works best for the students of
today, the students right now, not the students
of 100 years ago.
A Student’s Voice for the 21st Century
are misbehaving, and then proceed to write up a
plethora of notes on the board that students are,
let’s be honest, not terribly interested in, and then
yell some more. The point of school is not to be
yelled at; it’s to be helped.
These days, it’s so easy for students to say “I’m
not academic so I don’t try in school’ or ‘I can’t do
math so I just talk in class’ because most of the
time, our teachers will let us do so. It’s so easy to
just switch off and text under the desk if we’re
not interested in a class and the material just goes
in one ear and out the other.
Sometimes I feel like teachers don’t engage
students enough or involve them in the class
enough, so they just switch off.
At the end of the year, some people can honestly
say they have not listened in one class, and walk in
and out of their exams with no study and no
preparation simply because their teachers have not
engaged or involved them enough in class and not
included them in this wondrous thing that we do at
school, called learning. These students fail their

exams and move on, having wasted their time at
school, thinking that they’re dumb or stupid, simply
because they have not been interested in what
their teachers have to say.
These people need teachers who are eager to
teach and eager to share their knowledge, and
share their passion for the subject. The subjects
best taught are those taught with charisma and
involvement of students in the lesson, we need to
be a part of the teaching.
Estrada once said ‘if children can’t learn the way
we teach, then maybe we should teach the way
children learn.’ Each student is different, and
needs to be catered to accordingly. It’s not simple,
but everyone always emphasizes how everyone is
different, yet as students we get treated exactly
the same in our schools. We’re told to be
individuals but we’re treated as a mass, and maybe
that’s something that needs to be changed.
There are so many things to distract students
these days, like the internet, cell phones, and
doodling. Or maybe we should look at that
differently. Maybe those things that are
supposedly distracting us are really capturing our
interest better than our teachers are. There’s no
reason that my English class can be any less
exciting than what happened last night on Friends,
it’s just that last night’s episode of Friends
surprisingly interests me more than the
complexities of torque that my Physics teacher has

been waffling about for the last 45 minutes.
10 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
any problem-every problem, and learning that
there can be infinite answers, and it’s okay to come
up with something different.
It’s important to do well now and succeed in exams
and what have you, but the point of school is not
only to succeed in the academic side of things but
come out of it being a better and well rounded
person. One of the main points of school is to
prepare us for a life fraught with difficulty and
heartbreak, to make sure that the we are prepared
for the real world, which is ultimately the bigger
picture. The picture never stops getting bigger, as
we grow up. We may be learning economics and
math now but who knows, we may be on a
completely different track in 5 years and we need
to learn how to handle that too! That is what I call
effective learning; learning that sets you up for
life.
Another way I see effective learning is learning
that creates passion. For example, if a student
walks into a class at the start of the year knowing
absolutely nothing about that subject, and walks
out knowing that they will pursue that subject in a
career, then I would see that as effective learning
because that is learning that encourages more
learning. That is learning how to love knowledge.
And that is what I think should be a priority in
schools, not perfect results, but instead creating

an atmosphere where it is encouraged to love to
learn.
Imagine if the majority of our schools were so
interested and passionate about education that
most of the students went to higher levels of
education, pursuing those subjects that they love
and achieving, not because they are forced to but
because they want to? And of course it’s not all
what is generally accepted as ‘academic’; we have
trade teachers at school for a reason. Everyone
likes different subjects for different reasons and
that includes metalwork and woodwork too. Our
students should be inspired by their teachers and
desire to learn as much, if not more than they did,
because the world they live in is dynamic and filled
with change, and knowledge helps us deal with that.
At the moment there is knowledge being
discovered at a faster rate than any other time
period in the history of mankind, and our students
need to be prepared to face an ever changing world
when they leave school; a world where growth is
explosive.
The world is changing everyday and we need to too.
We are fast approaching an age where
blackboards, white board, pens and paper are
desolate in education. That’s the reality we face
and the reality we need to embrace.
Yeats once said, ‘education is not filling a bucket,
but lighting a fire’ and I think that eloquently sums
up what effective learning should be. Students are

not at school to be stuffed full of knowledge, and
then when they’re at the limit are useless.
We, as people, have changed, we’re different now,
we live differently than we did when this particular
education system was created, and that change
that is so obvious in every aspect of our lives
except in our schools. This obvious change needs to
be acknowledged in the form of a revamp of the
way we learn.
Our teachers make all the difference. I truly
believe that whoever teaches you has a huge
impact on what you do later in life. At the start of
school, I had a huge passion for science, but in
year 10 I had a bad experience with a teacher who
would not allow me to ask questions. My interest in
science was all but quashed, and I don’t blame her
because I could have persevered and stuck with it,
but now my love for science is all but diminished.
It’s the teachers who I can see love their subjects
with all their heart, love their students and love
teaching in general are the teachers who I learn
most from. I look forward to the classes that I
can attend and have fun with my teacher. The most
memorable teaching is fun and full of energy, and
lasts a lifetime. I may not remember what I learnt
two months ago in Economics but I do remember
that my teacher is someone whom I admire, and
like, and look up to.
Students don’t want to be part of a pointless class
with a teacher who we can’t relate to and don’t get

along with. We want a dynamic, interesting,
structured, and flexible curriculum where learning
is desired by the students and that desire is
fulfilled. We want a teacher who is full of new
ideas and isn’t afraid of change, who is not afraid
to share their enjoyment of their subject with us.
That is someone who we could truly learn from.
Another way that some people see learning is
memorizing facts and figures, dates and formulas.
I, for one, am certainly guilty of panicking and
cramming on the night before an exam and
frantically learning how to calculate electric field
strength using final and initial velocities. But what
we have to remember is that there is a bigger
picture! There is more to life than this one exam.
Maybe exams shouldn’t be the most important
thing in schools, because the material we’re
learning now is most likely going to be irrelevant in
ten years.
Fifty years ago, they were learning about
electricity for the first time, now we have whole
subjects devoted to the matter. Our younger
siblings have grown up with iPods and computers
and do not find them daunting in any way. My
mother struggles to operate a Sky remote,
because she grew up with record players and
walkmans, so imagine what we’re going to deal with
when we’re your age!
Instead of rote learning, we need to learn
processes and thought patterns. It’s not about

knowing the answer to a very specific problem, it’s
about knowing how to find answers full stop, to
Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 11
Students should be at school to discover what
they’re good at, and be encouraged to pursue what
they dream of. We all agree that education is
simply not what we learn at school, but what we
learn in life as well.
Other things aside from the curriculum are
important too. To be uneducated is to be crippled
in the world we live in now, and the students of
today need knowledge to be successful. But it’s
important to consider what kind of knowledge we
are gaining from our schools, and is it going to be
valuable in our future. Our futures as young people
are undecided, they are vague and unforeseeable.
It’s scary to grow up and not know what’s going to
happen, and we need to be prepared for that
uncertainty. Our schools needs to teach flexibility
and how to deal with situations out of out comfort
zone, how to go with the flow and do what’s best
for ourselves.
I for one want to be prepared for a future that is
successful and not be on a back foot because my
school years were a waste of time. I don’t want to
watch Youtube videos about snakes and rhinos
fighting, no kidding I have watched my fair share
in my classes this year. I want a flexible school
life, one that changes just as much as I do, and I
want to get real value out of the institution I’m

spending about 30 hours a week at, not including
homework and study time. Thirty hours a week,
that is almost a full time job. And you’re asking us
why we don’t pay attention? Do you pay attention
all day everyday at your work? As students, our
feelings should be considered too, because we’re
spending so much time at school and we need to
get something out of it, otherwise we can and will
leave school.
Sometimes I get so fed up with teachers who
complain about how naughty or noisy or
unsatisfactory their classes are, maybe it’s not our
fault, maybe we’re just interested in learning a
different way than you are teaching us, because
there really is a bigger picture and it’s our future.
Teachers are literally shaping our future, are they
doing it well? Are they doing it so we can succeed
in today’s world? Because it’s today, it’s right now
that matters. School is about educating and the
things we learn there are life long, and what we’re
learning as well as how we’re learning it is a very
important aspect of effectiveness in the
classroom.
Work-Based Learning is being launched as Capable
Workplaces through Capable NZ at Otago Polytechnic.
The approach centres on using tasks and activities in
people’s working lives as material for their qualifications.
Explains Capable Workplaces project leader Kris Bennett,
this makes it ideal for organisations wishing to improve
their systems and grow, and for people moving into roles

where they feel they need some “new learning” to address
the challenges they face.
“Say, for example, you need to lead an organisational
restructure,” suggests Bennett. “Through Capable
Workplaces you would start with an ‘assessment of prior
learning’ where your existing level of knowledge is
assessed against formal academic standards. Capable
NZ would then provide you with the educational support
you need to perform this task, and a process for critically
reflecting on it.”
Programmes can also be developed to support particular
organisational goals, such as strategic management or
developing new technology.
“Capable Workplaces recognises that workplaces are
incredibly rich learning environments,” she continues. “All
the content you need for a higher qualification is right
there in front of you.”
The approach means people do not have to leave the
workforce to pursue a degree, further supporting
employment and productivity. Qualifications can be
developed for most roles and industries, and courses of
study are designed in partnership among employers,
employees and Capable NZ.
An impact study into Work-Based Learning in the UK
found the approach led to improvements in morale,
decision-making, innovations, service delivery and the
quality of end products. Benefits flowed through the
organisations and beyond, with employees’ confidence
improving both in an out of work, and a culture of learning
and critical reflection developing among organisational

divisions.
Now, to ensure the new programme meets New Zealand’s
economic and educational needs, a stakeholder forum –
Creating Capable Workplaces – will take place in
Wellington next month. The aim, says Bennett, “is to have
employers, human resources specialists and policy
advisors in the same room together, to explore how we
can make this work in New Zealand.”
Capable NZ at Otago Polytechnic has established a
reputation for developing innovations in delivering
education. For several years it has been a leader in
Assessment of Prior Learning, and has developed
sector-wide education in areas including technology
teaching and youth work.
Otago Polytechnic chief executive Phil Ker, who has led
the organisation’s commitment to exploring new
approaches to meeting learners’ and organisational needs
comments that Capable NZ has “enabled a rethink of how
we approach education”.
“By shaping degrees around the needs of the learners
and the needs of employers, we can be truly creative and
responsive as educators. It’s very liberating for everyone.
UK approach to degrees supports productivity

A successful UK-developed approach to delivering degrees and postgraduate qualications is to be introduced
in New Zealand, amid beliefs it may improve productivity and foster “a culture of learning” in workplaces.
”
12 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
Taking Strategic Steps Towards a Focus on Learning
Two UK Headteachers look back one year to their

schools’ approaches to learning at that time: “In
our school we had many teachers who performed
well as teachers but were not very good at
focusing on learning,” says Deborah Cossins,
Headteacher at Emscote Infants School in
Warwick, England. “In our school our curriculum
provision received ‘Outstanding’ from Ofsted,
but there was a niggle in the report; that our
children were a bit passive in their learning,” says
Gill Pursey, Headteacher at St. Hilda’s Church
of England Primary School in Oldham, England.
Since then, both Headteachers have started
working with a toolkit created by Fieldwork
Education to help them focus on learning
throughout their school.
St Hilda’s Oldham staff training
Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 13
Taking Strategic Steps Towards a Focus on Learning
The Toolkit for Leaders
The Looking for Learning Toolkit was developed by
Fieldwork Education as a leadership toolkit for school
improvement focused entirely on improving learning and
relevant for schools throughout the world. As a fully
comprehensive, action-oriented guide to improvement, the
Toolkit provides Headteachers with practical help and
advice to lead their teachers, step-by-step towards
delivering learning-focused lessons. In addition, it gives
Headteachers recommendations on how to incorporate a
learning-focus throughout every aspect of school life; from
classroom displays, assemblies and reports to staff

meetings and parents’ evenings.
For Sheila Dentith, Senior Inspector for the Primary Team
and Primary Strategy Manager for Warwickshire County
Council in England, the Looking for Learning Toolkit has
become a key component in moving her schools forward.
“We introduced the Looking for Learning Toolkit as a tool for
our Headteachers to work in a collaborative way to look at
learning in the classroom and to develop a greater
understanding of what learning is,” says Sheila. “We chose
the Looking for Learning Toolkit because I haven’t found
anything else that actually talks about learning in the way
that this does.”
What a difference a year makes
After a year following the Looking for Learning strategies,
Sheila says she can see a significant difference: “The
biggest thing that we’re seeing with all our schools working
with the Looking for Learning Toolkit is that everyone,
everyone is now beginning to focus on the learning; starting
with the learning and then and only then, going on to think
about the teaching. It sounds like such a tiny thing but it’s so
effective.”
The Toolkit is a boxed set of manuals and DVDs split into
two sections. The first two manuals focus on learning in the
classroom and include a properly structured action-research
process for teachers to help each other identify the learning
that is taking place in their classrooms. This empowers
teachers with information they have never had; immediate
feedback on how their teaching is influencing their children’s
St Hilda’s Oldham pupils learning with staff
Learning focused newsletter to parents

14 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
learning as it happens. These powerful, non-threatening
results lead to self-reflection, self-improvement and whole
school development. The second two manuals within the
Toolkit focus on identifying factors within a school that affect
learning and guide school leaders, through simple action
plans to make each of these factors more learning-focused.
This, as a result, enables them to turn their school
improvement plan into a learning-focused school
improvement plan, to turn their staff meetings into learning-
focused staff meetings, to help their teachers transform
displays into learning-focused displays and so on.
A change for the better
Deborah Cossins is convinced the Looking for Learning
Toolkit is helping her make a difference at Emscote Infants.
“The Looking for Learning Toolkit has transformed the way
our teachers think,” she says. “They now start with the
learning bit when they begin their planning. It influences the
whole thing they do.”
At St. Hilda’s Primary School in Oldham, Gill Pursey
believes that The Looking for Learning Toolkit has changed
the entire school’s focus on learning. “Looking for Learning
has drawn together all the strands that I wanted the school
to take forward including collaborative learning, and
planning and learning,” she says. “The Looking for Learning
Toolkit is the vehicle for me for school improvement and I
can see that this will continue. It’s also helping us to
develop our communication about learning with our parents
and that, for us is really important. Since introducing
Looking for Learning we’ve revised our learning intentions

to the children and we’ve revised our skills focus to put
more emphasis on skills. Already our children are
understanding that it’s not just about what they know but
crucially about the skills they need to find the knowledge
and apply that knowledge to help them learn.”
Gill offers some advice to other Headteachers considering
the Looking for Learning Toolkit: “Be prepared to do some
preparation work; the Looking for Learning Toolkit is not an
off-the-shelf CPD package, it’s not a quick fix; it requires
self-evaluation, whole school involvement, a complete
change in mind-set and to achieve that there needs to be
St Hilda’s Oldham collaborative learning
some pre-planning but it is definitely worth the effort. It gets
your teachers back thinking about the children and their
learning rather than just on their teaching. Looking for
Learning has helped us move the focus. It doesn’t sound
much but actually it’s making a huge difference.
Also, spend some time working with your staff on how the
brain learns. That was really helpful to everyone and it’s
helped us to think about our children and the way each
individual child learns.”
Ideas from the Looking for Learning Toolkit
There is now a great deal of philosophy available to schools
on becoming more focused on learning, but very little in the
way of easy, ‘how-to’ advice. The Looking for Learning
Toolkit aims to address this; packing its manuals and DVDs
full of practical ideas. Here are just three examples taken
from the Toolkit:
Have a ‘learning report’ in your weekly staff meeting - At the
beginning of each meeting, nominate one person to talk for

no more than five minutes about some learning that has
take place in their classroom over the past week.
Plan learning-focused targets - Learning improvement plans
should have targets that are explicitly about learning. If this
happens, a successful outcome will also be about learning.
So when writing your learning-focused targets, use
evidence, focus first and explicitly on student learning, think
about instructional and expressive targets, and use the
‘what’s the issue?’ question.
Write learning-focused newsletters - Talk about learning, not
just activities. For example, when reporting on an upcoming
trip, make sure your newsletter starts with a description of
the learning that will take place during the visit. The details
of the trip need to be known of course, but not at the
expense of learning. This will help parents to see that
everything the school does has a focus on learning.
To find out more about the Looking for Learning Toolkit or to
talk to a school working with the Looking for Learning Toolkit
call Isabel du Toit at Fieldwork Education at 020-7531-9696
or email or visit www.
lookimgforlearning.co.uk
Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 15
Observing learning progress
Looking for learning
Collaborative Learning
16 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
Children can no longer afford to be
ignorant of how complex nancial
products work.
The world of nance and money is

becoming rapidly more complex and
requires an integration of education
and safe nancial products to ensure
children grow up knowing how to
manage money and debt.
From this year, nancial literacy will
be included in the national school
curriculum and will be rolled out across
a range of subjects during the next
three years.
Maya Moses is about to start year 10 at her high school in
northern NSW and says she hasn’t learnt much about
managing money at school.
“I have a bank account that I save my money from work in,”
says the 14-year-old, who has been working in her parents’
cafe in the school holidays and saves money through
babysitting jobs.
“I guess around here if the parents don’t teach you, there’s
not a lot of info at school they give out. You see all those
ads on TV about banks helping at schools but we don’t
really get any of that and that would be useful.”
Moses has a mobile phone and shares the purchase of
phone credit with her mother. She says some of her friends
struggle with their mobile bills.
“A lot of them get into trouble,” the teenager says. “They go
through $30 of credit in two days or they’ll exceed their limit
by twice as much on their plans. I know a girl who can go
through $200 of credit a month and she gets in heaps of
trouble from her mum all the time and gets her phone
confiscated.”

ASCD Worldwide Edition SmartBrief:
School’s in for finances
Anneli Knight
Money matters Maya Moses wants to
learn more about finance at school.
Photo: Olivia Texier
Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 17
Moses says it would also be useful to be taught about
shopping deals offered through television or online, as a few
of her friends have felt scammed after making purchases.
Poor Understanding
Youth financial literacy was a headline forum at the Citi-FT
Financial Education Summit held in Sydney in December
last year, with discussion ranging from Australia to abroad.
The chairman of Australia’s Financial Literacy Board, Paul
Clitheroe, says the board has successfully lobbied for
finance education to be embedded within the national
school curriculum and that people often ask him: “Are you
doing this stuff [financial literacy education] in Australia
because human beings, and Australians in particular, are
dumber about money?”
We’re not dumber about money, he says, it’s just that
money has become more complex. “Thirty years ago, you
only had one debt, you had a mortgage, and you’d pay it off
over 30 years. Credit cards didn’t exist. Mobile phones
didn’t exit. Thirty years ago, only 3 per cent of the Australian
population owned a share and you needed a referral to see
a stockbroker.”
Parents aren’t able to teach their kids about smart ways to
manage their money because many parents are struggling

themselves, Clitheroe says.
“The system is significantly more complicated - money is
nearly invisible. In particular, you can pre-spend your
savings, you can spend money you don’t have for three
years on [store card] credit. That’s really what the system
allows you to do and I think a lot of the kids are probably
learning mixed messages at home.”
Basic Terminology
Clitheroe says many Australians don’t take part effectively in
the financial system because they don’t understand the
words used and the Financial Literacy Board is working to
have financial literacy incorporated not only into maths but
also English and social-science subjects in the curriculum.
“What we are asking for is that at an age-appropriate time,
as well as having ‘koala’ on the spelling list they also have
‘compound interest’ and ‘salary sacrifice’,” he says.
While a key component of financial literacy is to emphasise
the benefit of saving over spending, Clitheroe says the
messages must be delivered carefully.
“When I’m banging about not getting ripped off - or that if
[an investment] is very high risk, it’s very likely you’ll lose all
your money and you shouldn’t do it - we need to be careful,”
he says.
“These aren’t retirees, they are young Australians and we
want them to be excited. We want young Australians to be
risk-takers.”
Entrepreneurial skills and using debt to fund investments
are important components of financial literacy education
and Australian youths have much to learn from international
micro-finance initiatives, Clitheroe says.

Pocket Money
Global social entrepreneur Jeroo Billimoria, whose
enterprise ChildFinance is pushing for financial education
and access to safe financial products for children, also
addressed the forum.
Billimoria is working to establish Australia as one of 10
model nations for ChildFinance, which is creating global
January 26, 2011 Sydney Morning Herald
financial education frameworks with the United Nations
International Children’s Emergency Fund and the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The group aims to educate 100 million children in the next
decade and is pushing for nations to legislate for financial
products that protect children’s interests.
While much of ChildFinance’s work is aimed at helping
children in developing countries to break out of the poverty
cycle, she says there is one resounding global issue. “With
children and young people the world over, the issue is
mobile phone debt,” she says. “The main reason is that
children don’t recognise they are getting into debt.”
This issue highlights the urgent need for education and
legislative protection for children, she says.
The research undertaken by ChildFinance recommends
children are able to open low-fee accounts in their own
name, with minimum deposit amounts and limited
opportunities for withdrawals. Safety recommendations
include having a 100 per cent guarantee on the funds
through deposit insurance or other government guarantees
and ensuring parents can’t access accounts.
Clitheroe has his own wish-list for all Australian children.

“We would love [a government initiative] of $1000 to go into
an account for every Australian born and it basically
becomes that child’s lifetime savings account. Parents,
grandparents and pocket money could add to that and they
can’t access it until they’re an adult. Then they can go
through the school system learning about money.”
Educating your children about cash
It’s important to not only teach your children how to
calculate dollar values and handle money but also the time
cost of money and how to save it, says a financial planner
from WLM Financial Services, Laura Menschik.
“When parents spoil their children and just give them an
allowance willy-nilly from no input, they may not be doing
their children a favour,” Menschik says .
“It’s very good for children to be taught lessons such as: ‘If
you wash the car, I’ll give you $5.’ So they understand it
takes two times car washes to earn $10. They can
understand the effort they put into it — it takes them two
hours to earn $10, which they can blow in 10 minutes at
McDonalds,” Menschik says.
Another opportunity to teach kids about money is to
encourage them to save up for an item that they strongly
desire.
“If you can teach children to save for the rainy day or for a
special purpose, that is wonderful. Everybody nowadays
wants that thing now: ‘I want that CD now; I want that new
iPhone now.’ If you think back to your own time, when
you’ve had to save or wait for something, you usually
treasure it that little bit more,” she says. One approach is to
offer to go halves with children for these items or match

their savings dollar for dollar.
Menschik recommends the DollarSmart program that has
been developed by the Financial Planning Association to
give school students from year 10 to year 12 advice on
managing money.
The free DollarSmart CD can be ordered through the
Financial Planning Association website: fpa.asn.au
18 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
The tools in the Tools 4 Talent Development manuals
are designed to give teachers a range of strategies
that will support able students in the regular classroom
but have a broad general appeal. The greater the
capability of the student however, the more essential it is
for appropriate challenge with everyday activities.
Teachers are encouraged to adapt the ideas exibly
to create learning opportunities within a wide range
of curriculum areas matched to their students’ ages
and experiences. They can be used systematically or
individually by picking and choosing as the need arises.
In addition to the two NEW book titles (above),Elaine has
published a number of book resources designed to assist
teachers to promote high order thinking in the classroom.
These are available through www.thinkshop.org
Provocative Questions: Expanding horizons for
thinking. Questions and activities on twenty different
topics to provoke students to expand their thinking.
Big Contexts for Inquiry Learning (Eight authentic
problems to encourage student understanding)
H.O.T. units! Higher Order Thinking Units ready to
plug in to your classroom.Three books of unit ideas

based on Bloom’s taxonomy.
Read & Think about Series of differentiated thematic
reading units covering Humour, Animal welfare, Our
environment, Conict, Heritage, Courage, Adversity and
Cause and effect.
Using Sophisticated Picture Books. Individual reading
challenges based on sophisticated picture books for
upper primary able readers
Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 19
Talent Spotting &
Creativity
This is the fifth article in a series examining ways for
teachers to spot talent through becoming aware of student
strengths in a variety of situations focuses on students who
demonstrate imaginational fluency.
Creative students are individualistic. They produce ideas
based on basic themes and known approaches and create
new products of their own choice. One idea leads to
another and is often the response to ‘what if ’ thinking
involving playing with ideas.
Creatively gifted/talented children have the ability to make
connections and develop new relationships between
hitherto unrelated ideas. They are discovery learners who
often have difficulty with the compartmentalising of school
timetables.
Some see things as they are and say, “Why?”
I dream of things that never were and say, “Why not?”
George Bernard Shaw.
Robert Sternberg (2004) outlines a number of
characteristics of creative people that teachers can use to

assist with talent spotting. According Sternberg (2004)
creative people
• Redefine problems for themselves. This means
that they can see the problem from a different
point of view and react accordingly.
• Analyse their own ideas in terms of risk,
challenge and worth
• Challenge the accepted view
• Are knowledgeable and have established a
broad information base from personal interest
• Are persistent in overcoming barriers to their
learning
• Show willingness to take calculated risks
• Are flexible, playful and open to novel, complex
and interesting ideas
• Demonstrate the ability to tolerate ambiguity
• Believe in themselves and are independent and
autonomous
• Are passionate about their creative talent.
Look for the student who has an unusual capacity for
seeing new ways of thinking about ideas, processes and
materials. Creativity brings its own special excitement and
feeling.
Teachers can do a lot to provide opportunities that support
and foster creative behaviour through allowing students to
test their ideas and discover through an inquiry approach,
allowing student choice wherever possible, asking open
ended questions, valuing innovative student ideas and
solutions and accepting error as part of the creative
process.

Teachers can also stifle creativity through insisting on one
way being the ‘right’ way, discouraging curiosity, and
devaluing their imaginative attempts in favour of conformity.
Which teacher type are you ?
For heaps of ideas and further strategies to support able
students in the regular classroom see Elaine’s new books
published through: www.thinkshop.org.
Elaine Le Sueur is an experienced classroom practitioner
with expertise in the education of high ability children.
Over many years she has worked within schools and in the
community, building opportunities for educational and
emotional advancement for our able students, sharing
successful classroom strategies that she has used for
students and teacher professional development courses.
Elaine operates her own consultancy offering structured
assistance and programme advice to schools and families
www.giftededucationservices.co.nz and is an Executive
Principal of www.universityonwheels.org.
Elaine Le Sueur
20 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
Big bang or slow burn: Nada, let it be too hot to touch
Are we ever going to see the
promised land?
– the one National Standards
would have us believe it can
deliver
– of improved across-the-
board learning outcomes,
and an uplifted bottom fth?
Or is National Standards the

sort of initiative that, despite
its bumpy start, will end up
being the real deal?
Or is it like what the Beatles
and others say, it will never
be, it’s all too hot to touch,
let it be, it’s all too far out in
M-Theory land?
Or is there a much better
option awaiting discovery?
One that’ll ensure the
education sector does
actually deliver stunningly on
equity?
If so, a good place to start looking
would be at something that’s old news
– ten years old in fact, though it’ll be
new to most everyone – telling us that
all but a handful of children are born
with a “remarkably similar” capacity to
learn. This and other findings by the
late Graham Nuthall – the result of a
40 year classroom learning
research career at Canterbury
University – provide the sort of
breakthrough evidence that would
have egalitarians agog with
anticipation. Were they aware of it,
that is, it’s had less publicity than most
state secrets.

Nevertheless, it provides the education
sector with the chance to ditch
its incredibly inefficient, myth-based
learning process, offering the
opportunity of a replacement that
would be based on the most solid
evidential foundation
ever. Unfortunately, the sector’s been
slack in keeping itself informed on
such issues and appears more than
happy with the old inefficient
process. As matters stand, then, this
offer – holding as it does extraordinary
promise – is unlikely to be taken up.
Complicating things further,
acceptance of the Nuthall findings
themselves is coming hard, especially
in this country, overseas it’s a different
story. Fortunately, other similarly
impressive, parallel research has just
come to light. Concerning the physical
basis of memory, progress is being
made at a surprising pace.
An Otago Medical School research
team, led by Professor of Psychology,
Cliff Abraham is involved. Abraham
has told me that Nuthall’s discoveries
are very much in line with the research
findings being made by his team.
Abraham’s team is targeting the

plasticity of brain functioning on into
later life, so conditions like
Alzheimer’s, not education, are the
focus.
Notwithstanding, to do what they’re
doing, they’re having to build an
understanding of learning in terms of
the biochemical and electrical activity
that goes on at synapse level.
This research couldn’t be more
independent. Abraham had never
heard of Nuthall. With supporting
evidence of this calibre, you’d think
Nuthall’s acceptance problem might
soon be history. But don’t bet on it,
the education sector is nowhere near
enough aware of what’s involved here
to be convinced it needs a better
understanding of the learning process.
In fact, that amazing British theoretical
physicist, Stephen Hawking, has far
more chance of understanding what’s
involved in developing an eleven-
dimensioned theory of the cosmos – a
unifying theory of everything – than the
education sector has of achieving an
evidence-based understanding of the
learning process. Hawking recognises
he has a task of understanding on his
hands; the education sector’s saying:

what’s to understand? As said, it’s
more than happy with it’s present,
patently erroneous understanding of
the learning process. It doesn’t care
to be told that its understanding has
serious shortcomings. It doesn’t see
there’s anything wrong with the basic
way learning is currently being
practised.
Unlike Hawking, who has still to nail
down this theory of everything, the
education sector has already been
gifted a proven theory about how
learning works in classrooms, courtesy
of Nuthall, a decade ago. With it being
ignored by the Ministry of Education,
there no understanding in the sector of
Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 21
Big bang or slow burn: Nada, let it be too hot to touch
Laurie Loper
Psychologist
what benefit it could bring. That’s
tragic, for there’ll be no support to
demonstrate what a viable means of
significantly lifting across-the-
board learning outcomes it could
be. There’ll be little chance of showing
that doing this would be a far better
option, policy wise, than continuing
with interventions that are based on

variously concocted versions of that
patently flawed understanding of
learning it currently values. Given the
failure of past policy to significantly
and sustainably raise across-the-board
achievement, future interventions need
to be developed off evidentially based
theory, not off myth, as currently is the
case.
Now it’s known that virtually all
students share a very similar capacity
to learn, any learning process adopted
surely has to be capable of delivering
near-even and high-ended
achievement levels for virtually all of
them. Nothing else is going to ensure
the delivery of those significantly
improved across-the-board learning
outcomes everyone’s crying out
for. Nothing else is going to make our
near world-worst achievement gap
disappear. What’s pressing the urgent
button here is that the only learning
process known to teachers is the
current fundamentally flawed one, the
one Nuthall rather understatedly
describes as being “inherently
inefficient”.
Do you see the picture building
here? Certainly Hawking is working in

a context where there’s long and
intense scientific interest in
understanding the mysteries
involved. The education sector has no
history of being interested in
understanding learning as a process,
it’s never seen any mystery to it, the
act of learning itself has always been
taken for granted. In spite of the very
uneven and patently discriminatory
outcomes that flawed process
produces, it sees no problem. Its
mantra remains unchanged, it has this
illusionary thing it calls “good teaching”
that it implies will take care of all those
uneven results. The bad news is that
this hasn’t happened in living
memory. So while discovering the
nature of the cosmos occasions
Hawking and colleagues intense
inquiry, as implied, nobody’s expecting
there’ll be any inquiry into that
universally used, inefficient learning
process any time soon.
Nobody’s aware, either, that the major
thing choking off all such inquiry is a
culture that’s protected the errant
status of those learning beliefs and
practices for all of human
history. Known as “teaching culture”

– the name Nuthall coined – it’s now
becoming recognised as being one of
the most change-resistant cultures
known to mankind. In the monitoring
of progress towards the gaining of
those significantly better across-the-
board outcomes, the litmus test will
always be how well that influence is
being countered.
It’s into this belief-strewn arena that
National Standards – along with its
own myths, assumptions and political
agenda – has been thrust. Itself born
of “teaching culture”, it has no
understanding of its own
history. Neither does it see it has
that errant culture written all over
it. You see, how learning happens, is
promoted and measured are questions
that have suffered over the years from
a level of familiarity that’s long ago
seen the beliefs and assumptions
involved get syphoned off into the
collective unconscious. There beyond
awareness they lay, immune from
scrutiny, but playing a remarkably
active sleeper role, influencing
everyday practice, decision making,
and of course, policy. Hence, giving
rise to things like National

Standards. Hence also spawning
pseudo theories of learning – these
operating as validity-free zones –
between which teachers chop and
change as they see fit.
Giving rise, also, to smuck research
and to reputations that flourish
because the sector’s as yet lacking a
sufficient quantum of evidence-based
understanding of the learning process
from which might be raised
informed critique. One can only
imagine what all this contributes to
learning, and to the measurement
thereof. But let’s not forget, it’s against
the sort of background described
herein that all assessment takes place.
In such a scenario, science is leg
roped. It has little option but to work in
a context that’s laden with all the
assumptions that makes learning
ineffective. Tasked to study what’s
happening, it’s having to make do – as
Nuthall found – with data that’s
insufficiently indicative of what’s
actually going down. No surprises,
then, that it has yet to discover that
“best practice” – for all that that is
claimed to be evidence based – is
itself born of “teaching culture”. It

therefore carries the same destructive
virus of inefficacy as does all other
mythical and common sense based
practice. No surprises either that this
science contributes nothing to building
a clear picture of how the learning
process works in classrooms. Rather
than helping to serve up viable
solutions, in effect, it reaffirms
everything that’s holding progress
back. Meanwhile, back in the
classroom, that achievement gap
22 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
understood, supporting it would
become untenable. After all, why
would anyone want what’s patently
the main barrier to students achieving
equitably as the cornerstone of an
improvement initiative? If such a
campaign proved too difficult to get off
the ground, maybe what would supply
the necessary seismic grunt for
change would be something much
more easily arranged, a class
action brought by a knowledgeable
group of disgruntled parents.
When setting performance standards
for an activity like learning, you cannot
disregard the efficiency of the learning
process being employed. If you act

as if the process involved is efficient,
when in fact it isn’t, all you end up
measuring is the response of leg-
roped learners. Since the efficiency of
the learning process all schools use is
known to be low – Nuthall’s
discoveries make that clear beyond
doubt – failing to take the learning
process into account makes a
nonsense of the whole assessment
procedure. Not only that, should any
students have unsatisfactory aspects
to their performance, routinely
addressing these as if they’re a
student issue and not a teaching/
learning process issue, hardly seems
ethical, anymore than does using the
data collected as a basis for decision
making.
Furthermore, as Nuthall has shown,
the teaching model being used acts to
prevent teachers from knowing a
considerable amount of both what
students know and about what’s going
on as students learn. Like, for
instance, what goes on in students’
heads as they process
information? Like what impact prior
knowledge plays? Like where do
students source their

information? Like how much do
different students already know of the
topic under study? Like what impact
does students making sure their social
lives are not compromised during
class time, have on their
learning? Like who/what determines
the motivation of any given
student? Like who is it that
determines what’s “true” about
information being taken on
board? Like how unique is each
student’s understanding of any given
learning experience? Like how many
experiences of any new concept/idea/
topic it takes to produce a fully
operational understanding of
them? And so on.
Given there’s so much teachers just
don’t know of what individual students
know, assessment is not – neither has
it ever been – the straight forward
thing most people seem to think it
is. Contrary to what almost all would
expect, teachers simply don’t know
enough about what students know so
are poorly situated to either assess
learning, or to provide needed
help. Not being au fait with what
Nuthall’s discovered about learning,

teachers are seriously disadvantaging
all students, and of course,
themselves.
To me, assessment practice also
seems to be responding to
the increasing pressure there is to
include more and more subjects in the
curriculum. This is pushing
things ever nearer to a gulp-and-
regurgitate view of learning such as,
for instance, Singapore seems to have
embraced. Over stuffing the
curriculum creates pressure to get
everything “covered”, how well is an
entirely different matter. It inevitably
heads teaching practice in the
direction of prescriptiveness both as
regards content and assessment
practice. Operating in this fashion, it
violates the three times at two day
intervals rule needed to make certain
all new ideas/concepts/topics
“stick”. It’s in fact a recipe for student
failure.
Another major drawback I see with
assessment is that there’s relatively
little attention directed at the act of
learning. Nuthall’s findings suggest
the act of learning is an improvement
gold mine. Currently, the focus

appears largely to be on what’s been
ingested by way of information or
“knowledge”. To get the focus more
on the act of learning itself would
require that teachers have a much
better understanding of the nature of
hasn’t closed any in the last 20 years.
Occasionally an intervention comes
along that shows itself to be more
promising than its
predecessors. Understandably, the lift
in hearts this produces sees
continuing support forthcoming, not
always, it would have to be said, in
proportion to gains made, the costs
incurred, or to the potential of the
initiative to be scaled up. With regard
to any gains made, evaluative
attention is almost always referenced
to how much better the obtained
results are than previous
ones. Nobody judges them against
the criteria of how much better they
would need to be if they were to
match the fact that practically all
students, as Nuthall has found, share
a “remarkably similar” capacity to
learn. Needless to say, nobody
makes decisions on their future use
on that basis either.

Given this is the situation being faced,
nothing short of a big bang event is
going to shake loose the
understanding around learning from
the shackled perception that
continues to imprison it. The
education sector and the public are
even more stuck in their errant beliefs
than were the followers of Ptolemy
when Copernicus discovered the
Earth moved round the Sun. In the
field of learning, the late Graham
Nuthall has already made discoveries
of comparable significance to those of
Copernicus’ – but so far that hasn’t
caused things to move either.
National Standards might well yet
prove to be what sparks off that big
bang of understanding of the learning
process. At least it has provided an
opportunity to put the learning process
under scrutiny, an opportunity that
ought not be passed up. Given the
motherhood-and-apple-pie appeal
National Standards has for some
people, what might detract from that
enough to see a greater call for it
being discontinued, would be a public
education campaign showing that the
backbone to it just happens to be a

very ineffective learning
process. Once that’s more widely
Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 23
learning and of the learning process
than any teacher education
programme currently supplies. It’s
hugely ironical that in a profession
whose core business is learning, no
teacher currently has an evidentially
based understanding of it and of how it
works. But the whole of the education
sector needs to understand it too, as
do parents and indeed the general
public as well.
Bringing the spotlight on to
learning would also require that
teachers and parents have a better
understanding about what learning
skills consist of and of the ways
they’re best promoted. This isn’t to
imply that teachers, or for that matter
parents, give no attention to learning
skills. It’s just that the ones, for
instance, teachers know about and
promote – many being merely aides to
the orderly management of the
classroom setting – are by no means
all that are required.
It should be remembered that there
are far too many New Entrant students

starting off with way too few learning
skills and who never really catch up.
Nuthall discovered that the difference
between students who learned and
those who didn’t, turned precisely on
who knew how to orchestrate the skill
demands of classroom tasks and who
didn’t, the capacity to learn or even if
you like, what people call intelligence,
didn’t even enter into it. Nobody is
aware enough of this to even think
about whose responsibility it is to do
something about it, let alone consider
how that might be done. The New
Entrant level student is the most
critically needy in this regard, though
that said, I’d say the need is pretty
much across the board. There are
ways of helping students grow these
skills but they’re not ways the sector
knows anything about as yet.
Assessment practice that pays only lip
service to including the learner as a
member of the assessment team is
loosing the input of the one person
who best knows what they know, and
who most needs to know how to
improve. Assessment practice that
relies on the “standard routines and
rituals” of testing, as Nuthall has

found, tells us more about individual
motivation and the testee-tester
relationship than it does about what
students know. Or indeed about which
student knows what, or about which
students can learn and which at this
point cannot, and why. In the light of
Nuthall’s evidence, the belief that test
scores accurately reflect, or indeed are
a reasonable facsimile of what
students know, is becoming
increasingly more difficult to sustain.
With such things in mind, let’s turn
briefly to the teaching of reading. The
amount of reading practice I’ve seen in
classrooms involving beginning
readers varies so much that this
variation alone most likely accounts for
a sizeable chunk of performance
differences. Not only that, the amount
of practice that has far too little
feedback related to the skills involved,
is also a concern. It’s possible to
remedy both concerns by teaching
Pause Praise Prompt (PPP) – aka the
3 P’s technique – as a whole class
approach.
Trained to use PPP, children aged 6 -
7 in a decile one school of mainly
Maori students I worked in – them

working in pairs, teina-taina style –
successfully provided each other much
practice in, and appropriate feedback
for, their daily reading. Doing their
reading this way became their
favourite activity. Six Maori children
from this class, were used to
demonstrate the PPP technique, at a
district professional development
course, their expertise being a
revelation to the 20 teachers
involved. Post course, this sparked
widespread use of the approach. As
an aside, having students teach their
parents this technique would be the
ideal extension.
Though there’s already been criticism
about teacher variability in relation to
the making of judgements about
performance requirements that’ll meet
a given National Standard, curiously
the main concept involved, the Overall
Teacher Judgement (OTJ), has drawn
little criticism. Judging by the
information on the Ministry of
Education’s website, no matter how
you dress it up, the amount of
subjectivity involved in how the OTJ is
supposed to operate makes it
unnecessary to even raise the

question as to whether it’s a valid
procedure. Besides, as Nuthall has
shown, teachers as it is don’t know
with much certainty or exactness what
students have learnt, so using
something like that OTJ is tantamount
to adding yet another invalid layer on
to what’s already a questionable
procedure.
An even more glaring omission from
the list of criticisms so far levelled at
National Standards is the fact that
nothing proposed has any chance of
influencing the “inherent inefficiency”
of the everyday learning process used
in all classrooms, something well
documented by Nuthall. Since those
pushing National Standards don’t
really understand what’s causing
underachievement – being wedded to
common sense understandings of
learning – you can readily see why any
criticism based on grounds that the
learning process in use is
fundamentally flawed will go
unheeded.
Ignoring Nuthall’s discoveries is never
going to render them invalid. The fear
factor in change is understandable, but
the power shifts and role changes that

would be involved in implementing his
discoveries – occasioned mainly by
the amount of control that would have
to pass to the student doing the
learning – are things that can be
worked through. Anyway, isn’t there
already a trend in this direction? The
same can be said about any
consequential infrastructure
changes. The message the sector has
to hear with crystal clarity is that
unless and until it gets to grips with the
issues involved, every student will just
go on being disadvantaged – you can’t
keep on using a learning regime that’s
as flawed as is the current one, and
expect anything different. At the very
least that means finding a new
teaching/learning model – as said, it’ll
have to be one much more student
centred than any existing – and the
24 Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011
whole question of assessment needs
a rethink.
To put things bluntly, the evidence is
that the practice of teaching has
evolved over a long time such that,
through no one understanding the
nature of what’s involved, it’s become
more about managing a bunch of

students in a classroom than it has
ever been about ensuring maximum
learning is happening, or has taken
place, for every student. In fairness to
teachers, Nuthall reported there’s no
research saying that, under current
learning protocols, one teacher is
capable of guaranteeing the learning
of 25 - 30 students. At present, then,
what they’re attempting is mission
impossible. The uniqueness of each
student’s response to any learning
experience added to the inability of
teachers to be able to ascertain with
any certainty or exactness what
learning, if any, has occurred, makes
the whole process little better than a
lottery. If anyone wants an explanation
of why student’s don’t learn, just look
to “the standard routines and rituals” of
teaching practice as they have evolved
throughout the course of human
history.
Obviously something much better is
needed. But finding a solution is going
to be – as a respected friend earthily
opined – “harder than finding the clean
end of a turd”. Given that we’re in this
extraordinary pickle – the nature of
which few are but even dimly aware –

what’s to be done about it? I quote
some other things that same friend
said in his effort, it seems, to stop me
beating my head against the proverbial
brick wall over this issue: “But, I offer
up the solution. It is the solution that
Hemingway offered going back 60-100
years ago: ‘nada’. Don’t think about it.
Bob Dylan said, ‘some things in life are
too hot to touch, the human mind can
only stand so much.’ McCarthney
called it ‘Let it be.’ There’s your article
- Nada, let it be, too hot to touch.”
Whilst I’ve enormous respect for his
opinion, based as it is on wide
experience and rich, lifelong learning, I
hold desperately to the possibility that
he’s wrong. Besides, building on
what Nuthall has bequeathed, I’ve
already developed and trialed a bevy
of the sort of approaches it’ll take to
achieve equity improvements on the
scale needed. Given their task is
eliminating the current waste of one
half of the capacity to learn of the
nation’s young – the unwanted
millstone that’s been for too long
around education’s neck – they’ll need
to keep on living up to the early
promise they’ve shown. So I can’t

give up now. Besides, there’s no way I
could repay the many friends who
have sustained me to this point by
quitting. I’ve no intention of doing so,
convinced to the point where I’ve
already put a tidy sum where my
mouth is.
There’s much to be learned from the
mistake that the National Standards
scheme surely is. Since it raises
important issues round the nature of
learning – classroom learning in
particular – it’s crucial these be dealt
with while they’re topical. Treat this as
an unlikely to be repeated opportunity,
one that won’t hang around long,
“teaching culture” will see to that. For
the truth is we can ill afford not to take
advantage. For what’s at stake here
isn’t just the loss of the bottom fifth the
Minister of Education keeps on about,
the loss is across the board. We’re
talking around 50 per cent of the
learning capacity of our nation’s young
and all of the flow on benefits
recouping that amount of lost potential
would bring.
(Note: Quotes are from the 2001
version of Nuthall’s seminal paper:
“The cultural myths and the realities of

teaching and learning”.)
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Good Teacher Magazine Term 1 2011 25
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8
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11 12 13
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17

18 19 20

21 22
23 24
25
26
27

Richard Crypt’s Crossword
Across:
3 Debts following clergyman enjoying another’s
behaviour (9)
8 Eggs left egg shaped (4)
9 Two donkeys, one pointsm reveal killers (9)
10 Picasso was not a square (6)
11 Right cut gag (5)
14 LittleJosephine is not allowed a plucker (5)
15 Some must ask to reveal a job (4)

16 Implied one in diplomacy (5)
18 Cowardly name (4)
20 Oh, very loud metal is gutsy (5)
21 See 9 down
24 South Africa, five worker-scholar (6)
25 Most certainly untrue (9)
26 A relative related by blood (4)
27 crash former spouse in light puzzled (9)
Down:
1 Mistress, lag small wolf in point (9)
2 Laugh, right excessive drinker (9)
4 In road this month (4)
5 Rock and entrance (5)
6 Fly, fashionable group (6)
7 Some unusual nations provide arms support (4)
9,21across Scarce oats could possibly affect
performance at these (5,5)
11 Potassium and sulphur back climbing dog, heels
the ball (5)
12 They usually stand behind 11 (9)
13 Cupboard scandals (9)
17 To tally partly (5)
19 Dob in friend upset computer (6)
22 Green, French article and school (5)
23 Metal point, point (4)
24 3 points with a sound mind (4)
Cryptic crosswords are crossword puzzles in which each
clue is a word puzzle in and of itself. Cryptic crosswords
are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they
originated, Ireland and in several Commonwealth nations,

including Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Malta, New
Zealand, and South Africa. In the United States, cryptics
are sometimes known as “British-style” crosswords.
Cryptic crossword puzzles come in two main types: the
basic cryptic in which each clue answer is entered into the
diagram normally, and the advanced or “variety” cryptic, in
which some or all of the answers must be altered before
entering, usually in accordance with a hidden pattern or
rule which must be discovered by the solver