[English] Now we're teaching on autopilot

[Scott Bulfin]

I'm sure some of you saw Graham Parr's piece in The Ed Age today.  
Great stuff. Thanks Graham.

Scott

Now we're teaching on autopilot

Opinion
Graham Parr
November 13, 2006

SARAH is a pre-service English teacher about to graduate. Like all  
pre-service English teachers she is developing a complex web of  
knowledge and skills, something she will continue to develop  
throughout her career.

Earlier this year, Sarah had a disquieting teaching experience. She  
taught the latest in "direct phonics" lessons to a group of secondary  
school students in Melbourne who were deemed to need remedial help.

The lesson was completely scripted for Sarah. In a foretaste of what  
is in store for students in the centralised curriculum model  
currently described by neoconservative politicians and media pundits,  
it was a one-size-fits-all lesson that could be taught anywhere  
across the nation, at any time.

In one 35-minute period of "teaching", every word that Sarah spoke,  
the precise time at which she delivered these words, and even the  
hand signals to accompany the words, were all tightly scripted.

When Sarah talked with me (her English education lecturer) some time  
after this experience, she had mixed emotions. After an exhausting  
week of planning, teaching, marking, staff meetings, in-service  
activities and much more, this scripted curriculum seemed a welcome  
relief. "I didn't have to think," she said.

She laughed, although it was clear she was still ambivalent about the  
experience. Then she asked: "But what sort of teaching is it when I'm  
not required to think?"

Indeed. At a time when neo-conservative commentators and politicians  
are touting the benefits of an efficient, centrally controlled  
curriculum, where decision making at the local level is taken out of  
the hands of teachers and schools, Sarah's story should give us cause  
to reflect.

Parents might well ask: Is this the sort of curriculum we want for  
our children? Do we want our children taught by a teacher who is not  
required to think?

In 2005, Professor Alan Reid (University of South Australia)  
published a report for the Federal Government, Rethinking national  
curriculum collaboration: towards an Australian curriculum. This  
report makes interesting reading in the light of recent debates about  
a national curriculum. Professor Reid's vision of a collaborative  
national curriculum, which still recognises the value of teachers'  
local knowledge, is a long way from the efficiency models being  
proposed.

Despite platitudes from politicians about teachers being "national  
treasures", it is clear the push for a restrictive national  
curriculum comes, in part, from a profound lack of respect for  
teacher professionalism. In short, teachers are not to be trusted.

As a teacher educator, I work with English teachers-to-be and  
practising English teachers across Australia. My knowledge of these  
teachers just does not square with the attacks on the teaching  
profession that have been launched by conservative politicians and  
commentators as justification for an efficient, restrictive national  
curriculum.

There is Natalie, an early-career English teacher, whose year 11  
class is studying William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.  
Building on the multi-modal texts (words and illustrations) that  
Blake originally published, Natalie's students have just submitted  
their own large-scale hypertexts. These hypertexts include  
interconnected biographical, analytical and creative texts that they  
developed in response to Blake's poetry.

Then there is Jessica, a pre-service English teacher whom I visited  
on a teaching round earlier this year. Jessica's year 8 students were  
engaged in work that combined the study of English with the study of  
history, visual arts and technology.

They were learning about World War I narratives, contemporary peace  
initiatives and more, through a critical study of picture storybooks  
and online texts. They eventually produced their own informed,  
imaginative PowerPoint presentations, which brought together  
historical and literary knowledge, human empathy, quirky humour and  
an earnest hope for a better future.

Whatever merits there might be in a national curriculum, it is clear  
that an efficient and restrictive centralised curriculum would not  
allow for curriculum initiatives by the likes of Natalie and Jessica.  
It's worth challenging the cool "commonsense" logic of an efficient  
national curriculum with stories like these that speak to the  
professionalism of teachers and the diversity of human experience.

I welcome any debate about a national curriculum that articulates  
shared principles and values, and that responds to concerns about  
teacher professionalism. I trust that such a curriculum will allow  
teachers to flexibly demonstrate their accountability vis-a-vis  
national frameworks and principles.

I also trust that teachers will be respected sufficiently to allow  
them to think critically and creatively about their teaching and  
their students' learning.

In the US, the "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) policy from 2001  
introduced a powerful and worrying model of centralised curriculum  
control. In this model, teachers were given little room for  
creativity at the local level. NCLB gave schools across the country  
no choice other than to commit to the sorts of phonics programs that  
I described above.

Five years later, groups such as the Carnegie Corporation, Northwest  
Evaluation Association, the RAND Corporation, as well as the National  
Council for Teachers of English, are reporting outcomes of the NCLB  
centralised reading curriculum as "abysmal".

According to the reports, American students are learning to sound out  
words fluently. The centralised testing regimes that are established  
to measure the learning in the centralised curriculum are showing  
that. According to these tests, the curriculum is working. However,  
other forms of assessment are revealing that students do not  
understand what they are reading.

As the evidence grows, the US is poised to do a U-turn on the  
centrally driven curriculum for the teaching of reading. The dangers  
of rigid centralisation are becoming all too clear.

As a parent, as much as an educator and researcher, I want teachers  
to have some scope to develop curriculum. I shudder at the prospect  
of a national curriculum that turns teachers into robotic  
implementers of an impersonal set of edicts.

Graham Parr is a lecturer in the faculty of education at Monash  
University and a member of the Victorian Association for the Teaching  
of English
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