New Zealand Engineering 1998 November
New Zealand Engineering
School
Daze
| I have come to the highly unfashionable conclusion that
learning by rote was not necessarily such a bad way to run education at
all. That's not to say that I think that's all an education system should
promote, but I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that there isn't
enough pain in the way New Zealanders go about learning and we are getting
more sugar than medicine.
There has been a lot of criticism of our schooling systems bandied about
lately. One of the more interesting critics is Dennis Chapman of Swichtec
in Christchurch who has been championing the cause of the Technology Curriculum.
His point is that the Technology Curriculum isn't a curriculum at all but
the foundation of an entirely new teaching strategy. He contends that the
way the secondary school is configured, with its periods, its trooping
students from room to room, and its teacher focused methodology is the
complete antithesis of successful learning and the strengths of the Technology
Curriculum.
|
Peter King
Managing Editor |
In many respects the Technology Curriculum borrows a great deal from the
ideas of Dr Maria Montessori who founded the Montessori school system.
The Montessori school is focused on the learner and the role of the teaching
staff is to provide an environment which coaches students to try things,
research things and pursue their interests as far as they can. In some
schools overseas, for instance, students not only run small market gardens
and power generators but also build the school and interface with the commercial
world their parents live in.
Unfortunately, to run a school like this you need teachers who can build
power generators, construct classrooms, and run market gardens. In short,
you need people who not only can do but can also teach. People who, typically,
would not be interested in taking on the heavy workload and low pay the
state offers secondary school teachers. The suggestion by ACT of a voucher
scheme at least has the merit of putting inspiration back into teaching.
However, it fails to address the fundamental problem: as the global information
economy gets more complex so we need more sophisticated, clever people
in our work force to keep up with the play and deliver value. In short,
just as with medicine, education is just getting more expensive.
All of this is lovely bleeding heart liberal stuff, so where does the
rote learning come in? Well, there are many things in life which are unpleasant
but vital. Rote learning isn't pleasant, but there are many fundamental
things that just have to be packed into the brain for later use. It is
impossible to learn a language, for example, without sitting down and learning
the words. Mathematics without multiplication tables, or chemistry without
the periodic table are similarly hampered.
People like Dennis Chapman are dead worried about the product our education
system is producing and are getting out and doing something about it. Perhaps
more engineers should follow his lead.
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