Drama New Zealand

Trevor Thwaites, in the inaugural edition of the New Zealand Journal of Research in Performing Arts and Education: Nga Mahi a Rehia (2008: 20), draws our attention to “the educational space available to music education” which he describes as “confused, troubled and diminishing”. By “problematising” music education in this way, he hopes to “stimulate conversations”. I hope to contribute to these conversations by questioning some points made by Thwaites with regard to The New Zealand Curriculum (MOE, 2007) and suggesting a shift of emphasis to areas of more genuine concern. Through such conversations we should seek to identify our concerns clearly in order to take meaningful action.

I believe that many of Thwaites’ statements about the curriculum, and the conclusions he draws from them, are inaccurate, and will mislead those who have not read the document closely. Thwaites asserts, for example (2008: 16), that schools are left with “little choice at all” in developing their curricula because decision making must be underpinned by the National Education Guidelines (NEGs). This is a misrepresentation of the fundamental changes that have taken place within the New Zealand education system over the last fifteen years. Historically, New Zealand had no national curriculum: what was taught in secondary schools was determined by syllabi and examination prescriptions. The release of the Draft National Curriculum Statement in 1988 and The New Zealand Curriculum Framework in 1993 marked a fundamental change from a content-focused, syllabus-type approach based on what students should be taught, to a constructivist, student-centred focus on ‘outcomes’ or what students should be able to achieve. The implementation of the curriculum documents has created an environment that encourages teachers to exercise almost unlimited choice in developing programmes of teaching and learning.

Thwaites would have us believe that under The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) “school autonomy could become a fiction”. There is nothing in the curriculum document, specific or implied, to support such an assertion. It would be more prudent to ask whether school autonomy at the level undoubtedly endorsed by The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) is desirable. If we believe that all New Zealanders should be taught a prescribed body of knowledge and set of skills (a few ‘set works’ and a list of aural exercises?), we will find The New Zealand Curriculum’s lack of clearly defined teaching pathways disconcerting. The New Zealand Curriculum (MOE, 2007: 6) defines its function as “setting the direction for student learning” and providing “guidance for schools”.

I believe it is unlikely that most teachers in New Zealand, now accustomed (individually or collaboratively) to creating their own teaching and learning programmes, would welcome the return to nationally prescribed content. Nationally prescribed content, after all, means that the majority teach content dictated by the few. Teachers are likely to suggest that such syllabus-based programmes, assessed (as is usually the case) by external examinations, result in precisely the “technicist ways of teaching” Thwaites (2008: 16) warns us about. However, the fact that some schools have exercised their “authority … to design and shape their curriculum” (MOE, 2007: 37) by importing alternative, syllabus-based courses from overseas indicates that such a conversation is worth having.

Thwaites further suggests that “school autonomy” could become “a fiction” because “schools will continue to be monitored and funded according to their rates of ‘success’ as evaluated by the Educational Review Office (ERO)”. This is misleading. Schools are monitored by the Educational Review Office, but there is no connection between ERO’s evaluation of a school and the school’s funding. However, we could realistically expect ERO reports to reveal instances where schools are not meeting curricular requirements – for example, primary schools in which the four strands of The Arts are not receiving “due emphasis over the longer term” as specified by The New Zealand Curriculum (MOE, 2007: 38).

A significant (although understandable) misapprehension is revealed when Thwaites tells us (2008: 12) that The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) “removes the status of most Essential Learning Areas in the curriculum”: the evidence provided for this assertion is the removal of the word “Essential”, supposedly leaving the “bodies of knowledge as simply ‘Learning Areas’”. There is a simple reason for this change of wording. The addition of an eighth learning area (Learning Languages) in The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) necessitated the removal of the word “essential”, as (unlike the other seven learning areas) teaching and learning of languages is not (yet) compulsory in schools. Teaching and learning in the arts remains “essential”: the curriculum specifies that “Over the course of years 1 – 8, students will learn in all four disciplines”, and “Over the course of years 9 – 10, they will learn in at least two” (MOE, 2007: 38). The New Zealand Curriculum (MOE, 2007: 38) emphatically confirms the status of the learning areas:

The learning areas statements … describe the essential nature of each learning area, how it can contribute to a young person’s education, and how it is structured. These statements … should be the starting point for developing programmes of learning suited to students’ needs and interests.

A more specifically semantic confusion is revealed in Thwaites’ reading of the curriculum’s vision statement: The New Zealand Curriculum (MOE, 2007: 4) envisions our young people as “lifelong learners who are confident and creative, connected, and actively involved”. Thwaites (2008: 17) equates the word “connected” with “the ability to engage with new technologies”, or as synonymous with “wired”. Thwaites would have us believe that the curriculum “subscribes to a fantasy of the free market economy” by training people to be “connected, or wired, to the web in the service of the knowledge economy”. This is a misleadingly narrow interpretation of a broad concept, and ignores the explication provided in The New Zealand Curriculum (MOE, 2007: in which “connected” students are described as:

Able to relate well to others
Effective users of communication tools
Connected to the land and environment
Members of communities
International citizens

Thwaites (2008: 23) urges educators to “reintroduce the senses into education through more embodied forms of teaching and learning”. Teachers of performing arts are unlikely to disagree with this sentiment: they are likely to regard such thinking as manifestly integral to their practice. It is unclear why Thwaites regards the key competencies articulated in The New Zealand Curriculum (2007: 10-13) as contrary to such practice. According to Thwaites (2008: 23), schooling is moving into a “new era, one dictated by the training of behaviours called ‘key competencies’”. In the next paragraph, he reflects (2008: 24) that “as a result of the technological revolution, the physical world is no longer necessary”. This seems to be a leap of logic as well as a misrepresentation of the intent of the curriculum.

The New Zealand Curriculum (2007: 12) identifies five key competencies as follows:

• thinking
• using language, symbols, and texts
• managing self
• relating to others
• participating and contributing

There is no suggestion that the key competencies are “new” – quite the reverse: learning has never occurred without them. Thwaites himself (2008: 20) points out that “for the performance arts the key competencies appear as a gift, for the arts can easily deliver on each and every competency”. But this statement is in itself a distortion of the intent of the curriculum. The key competencies are described in The New Zealand Curriculum (MOE, 2007: 12) as “the key to learning in every learning area”. They are “the means by which other ends are achieved”. It is missing the point to refer to the arts as “delivering” the key competencies: rather, by explicitly drawing attention to the development of these key competencies, the curriculum supports the type of teaching and learning practices already evident in the best arts practice. Teachers of all learning areas cannot fail to improve their practice by bringing the key competencies into the foreground of their thinking: this is why the key competencies are identified in the curriculum. It is difficult to understand why Thwaites refers to them (2008: 17) as “control maxims”.

The New Zealand Curriculum (MOE, 2007: 10) also identifies the following values to be “encouraged, modelled, and explored”:

• excellence, by aiming high and by persevering in the face of difficulties;
• innovation, inquiry, and curiosity, by thinking critically, creatively, and reflectively;
• diversity, as found in our different cultures, languages, and heritages;
• equity, through fairness and social justice;
• community and participation for the common good;
• ecological sustainability, which includes care for the environment;
• integrity, which involves being honest, responsible, and accountable and acting ethically;
• and to respect themselves, others, and human rights.

The curriculum document (MOE, 2007: 10) stresses that these values are listed because they “enjoy widespread support” but the list is “neither exhaustive nor exclusive”. Thwaites (2008: 17) objects to the promotion of these values “if the only purpose” is to “make the individual a marketable commodity”. In this context, he envisages “individuals … reduced to a disposable nothingness – faceless and with a commodified shelf life”. Thwaites’ image of individuals “reduced to a disposable nothingness” is bleak, but it is not an image that resonates with, or appears to have any connection with, The New Zealand Curriculum (2007). On the contrary, the curriculum document emphasizes that the purpose of developing “values, knowledge, and competencies” is to enable individuals to “live full and satisfying lives” (MOE, 2007: 8).

It may be true, as Thwaites asserts (2008: 2), that in “globalised educational setting the language of culture is increasingly taking second place to the language of commerce”: we can be thankful, however, that this is clearly not the case within The New Zealand Curriculum (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum (MOE, 2007: 20) recognizes the arts as “powerful forms of expression” and affirms that “learning in, through, and about the arts” is compulsory for all children in New Zealand.

I suggest that arts education in New Zealand is indeed facing significant problems, but we need to identify those problems and their causes accurately and clearly before we can take action. And I believe that our problems lie not in the curriculum document, but in the gap between the curriculum and its implementation in schools.

At the heart of all education lies the individual teacher with his or her students. Are our primary teachers equipped to teach “in, through, and about the arts”? Are we attracting, and keeping, fine teachers in our classrooms? Is the training we offer teachers appropriate and effective? (Thwaites (2008: 10) rightly expresses concern that “teacher education courses offer less and less curriculum time” in the arts.) Are we offering sufficient ongoing support for teachers? I suggest these are questions we should be asking as we work together to ensure that all our students have access to the arts education the curriculum states they are entitled to.