NESA

Curriculum review: where was NESA’s consultation?

This column by Debra Batley is the first of two columns discussing the recent NESA announcement.

NESA’s announcement on Monday 15th January that its curriculum overhaul was powering on into 2021 by cutting over 80 elective school developed courses not deemed “core” had several disturbing aspects to it. There was next to no consultation in this decision and it was particularly unsettling given that it followed closely on the heels of NESA’s December blanket dis-endorsement of all providers of professional learning in NSW (with the exception of DOE, AIS NSW and Catholic Schools). The decision around professional learning was also done in the name of curriculum reform, and was completely without consultation – the Professional Teacher’s Council lost endorsement, along with almost every professional teaching association in NSW. 

This is not what the Geoff Masters‘ review promised. This document was aspirational: it gave a reasonable time frame, talked of the importance of collaboration with key stakeholders in the writing of new curriculum documents, and left teachers with hope that the review process would be positive for both students and teachers. 

Unrealistic timeline

Instead, we have an unrealistic timeline. How can curriculum possibly be written, piloted, tested, sent out for consultation, adjusted, and teachers trained in the 18 month time frame that the Minister’s office has given NESA? The results of a short timeline are already emerging, with shortcuts in collaboration and consultation with key stakeholders being taken. Education is often a political football, however there is a growing perception that minority parties such as One Nation are ‘running the table’. It would be good to see the evidence basis for these latest reform decisions. 

Had teachers had been consulted on the culling of elective subjects, they probably would have replied that a large body of evidence suggests students do better when they are intrinsically motivated in their learning, have self-determination and autonomy. They maybe would have mentioned that researchers such as the late Sir Kenneth Robinson have found that educational outcomes are improved by learning across domains. 

Furthermore, they may have argued that school developed electives are particularly relevant to the school’s context. The culling of electives assumes a ‘one size fits all’ approach for their organisation (100 hours or 200 hours). Some schools in NSW take the opportunity to offer electives on a semester basis (50 hour courses). One well known Northern NSW School includes subjects such as Philosophy and Cosmology amongst their semester long elective offerings. Performing Arts High Schools have developed courses such as Circus Skills and Musical Theatre. Two of the biggest electives at my school are content endorsed courses; they are looked forward to by students, and I am certain they attract enrolments to the school. As a teacher I dread finding out that Year 9 Music has been placed on the same line as Outdoor Education – I know this means a small music class. 

Whilst the Hon. Sarah Mitchell may not see the value in these courses, for some students, these are the subjects that ignite their passions. 

It is somewhat ironic, that whilst the curriculum reform agenda is pushing for a depth as opposed to a breadth of understanding, the NSW Government is opposed to the idea of a child becoming an expert in printmaking – “this can be included in visual arts”. I would have thought that 100 hours of printmaking – which can include nine main types, and a multitude of subtypes – would actually model deep learning and provide students with practical skills. Disturbingly, even though the  Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration expresses a desire for “all learners to explore and build on their individual abilities, interests, and experiences”, the recent curriculum review decision seems to contradict this. 

What is core curriculum anyhow?

The elective decision also raises the question of what is ‘core’ curriculum. A blanket rule with this decision was that all languages were to be retained. The result of this is that some subjects with very low enrolments are protected (such as Sanskrit), whilst subjects with large enrolments (Physical Activity and Sports Studies – CEC) are potentially listed as electives to be ‘cleared out’. The weight of evidence supporting the idea that educational outcomes are better for students who have access to a broad curriculum is enormous. Furthermore, it is the students who need it most, who are the ones in danger of missing out. The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration states that students, whilst needing the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy, also require learning in other domains. The study of elective subjects can contribute to this learning. Often through the well-being and motivational benefits this brings, a student’s overall learning is supported. It is clear that there is an academic hierarchy in NSW; however, a blanket decision to remove electives won’t fix it. A better solution would be using the knowledge of teachers evidenced in designing and writing some of the outstanding Endorsed Courses available for everyone. Philosophy anyone?

Debra Batley is a high school music teacher in North Western NSW. She is a current doctoral student at UNSW and her research area is in educational equity and its interaction with creative arts curriculum. In 2017-2019 with funding from AIS NSW she completed a 2 year long school based research project, examining the impact school based music tuition could have as a remediation tool for older readers who were not meeting stage outcomes. Debra is also the Chair of ASME NSW and is a passionate advocate for high quality music education for all students.

Preparing children for work. Is this the best we can do for our students?

I am concerned that recent reforms to the NSW Higher School Certificate are based on a narrowly conceived vision for education which will see students graduating with a basic but limited set of workplace skills, largely incapable of developing aptitudes for life outside work as family members and members of the wider community.

The most concerning points

The narrow focus on workplace skills

The recent controversy in HSC English regarding the reduction in the number of prescribed texts to be studied and the optionalising of the study of novels and poetry in Year 12 – subsequently reversed by the New South Wales Educational Standards Authority (NESA) with regard to the study of novels – would have come as no real surprise to those who have examined the NSW Government’s “Stronger HSC Standards Blueprint” (Blueprint) released in 2016 as part of a series of reforms to the HSC to be implemented by NESA.

This government document has a narrow focus on workplace skills and ignores other important aims of education that seek to develop students into well-rounded individuals.

The Blueprint fails to ask the key questions “what type of people do we want our children to be by the time they leave school?” and “what qualities do they require in order to lead fulfilled lives as individuals and as members of the wider community?” I believe that such a ‘big picture’ document should be presenting carefully considered statements specifying the qualities we need to nurture in our students, such as critical and creative thinking and becoming active citizens of our democracy and empathic members of local and wider communities.

Do we want responsible, communicative individuals who can sustain rich and meaningful relationships within and beyond the family unit? As I see it, the Blueprint fails to mention the types of important human qualities that make us human and allow us to live harmoniously with each other.

Qualities such as compassion, consideration of others, perseverance, tolerance and the ability to act with dignity – a type of ‘cultivation of the self’, where reasoned, thoughtful actions form the basis of interactions with others – are not mentioned.

I believe these qualities are important for all individuals in everyday social situations, such as chatting over the fence or being a member of a political party or sporting club, but also crucially important in the workplace.

Beyond examinations and the future workplace, the document does not acknowledge in any detail, the wider life of the student.

The Blueprint promotes students as robotic automatons for the workplace

The Blueprint projects an Orwellian vision of education where students are cast as economic units – “the future workforce”. The HSC is described as a “platform” to “increase productivity”; the inclusion of buzzwords such as “agile”, “flexible” and “responsive” signal that the most important goal of education is to provide employers with workers who possess “transferrable skills” and a “solid foundation” of literacy and numeracy skills for jobs. The document seems to aim to reduce individuals to compliant workers, skilled for the workforce perhaps, but little else.

Educators Ivor Goodson and Scherto Gill point out that when learning is reduced to the acquisition of employability skills, “people are treated as economic objects”, reducing their capacity for positive social interaction and fulfilling relationships.

Other important personal qualities such as self-awareness, self-esteem, respect for self and others, as highlighted by the by the psychologist Carl Rogers, are also ignored in the Blueprint.

More testing

How much testing can our students take? Not content with NAPLAN testing for students in Years 3, 5 and 9, the Blueprint introduces the requirement that for students in Year 9 will be required to achieve a Band 8 in NAPLAN in reading, writing and numeracy from 2017. This means that 14 year olds – three years or so from sitting for their HSC, in the midst of adolescence and while establishing a sense of self-identity and membership in friendship groups and the wider community, will be saddled with the additional pressure of achieving this ‘benchmark’. And if they don’t meet this standard, they will have to keep attempting the test until they do.

This reform is all about competition, high stakes testing and national curriculum and assessment systems. It is not about what is best for our students.

The Blueprint ignores the federal educational framework

The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) states that syllabuses are developed “with respect to some overarching views” including those encapsulated in the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008). However, nowhere in the Blueprint is the Melbourne Declaration, of which all Australian education ministers were signatories, mentioned. This is an important omission because the Melbourne Declaration is a broad statement which seeks to develop students as well-rounded human beings through two main goals of schooling: the provision of “equity and excellence”; and the development of young people as “successful learners”, “confident and creative individuals” and “active and informed citizens”.

The Melbourne Declaration acknowledges the significance of the arts and the central role schools have in developing “the spiritual, moral and aesthetic dimensions of life; and open up new ways of thinking.” It’s a shame the authors of the Blueprint ignored this key national document.

There’s more to life than work

While no one would argue that high order literacy and numeracy skills are essential for every individual, what is the point of highly literate and numerate individuals who lead unfulfilled lives? Individuals whose identities and creative outlets are linked to nothing but the workplace, where their capacity and desire to communicate and express themselves is diminished by a school career that at best, operated at a functional, instrumental level, aiming to slot them into jobs and little more? What are the future social ramifications for such a narrowly conceived education?

I guess we will find out over the next decade or so.

Apart from stating the obvious regarding the importance of literacy and numeracy, the worthwhile inclusions are few and far between in the Blueprint. For example, the “character attributes” of “curiosity, flexibility and resilience” are commendable inclusions but are not explicated to contexts beyond the workplace. The document does not attend to any substantial degree current geo-political events, seismic shifts in immigration and fails to acknowledge the subsequent challenges for education systems. Unfortunately, it accurately reflects the NSW Government’s blinkered vision of education – just take a look at the Government’s ‘Premier’s Priorities’ where the sole aim for education is to … wait for it … improve test results.

Says it all, really.

 

Don Carter is senior lecturer in English Education at the University of Technology Sydney. He has a Bachelor of Arts, a Diploma of Education, Master of Education (Curriculum), Master of Education (Honours) and a PhD in curriculum from the University of Sydney (2013). Don is a former Inspector, English at the Board of Studies, Teaching & Educational Standards and was responsible for a range of projects including the English K-10 Syllabus. He has worked as a head teacher English in both government and non-government schools and was also an ESL consultant for the NSW Department of Education. Don is the secondary schools representative in the Romantic Studies Association of Australasia and has published extensively on a range of issues in English education, including The English Teacher’s Handbook A-Z (Manuel & Carter) and Innovation, Imagination & Creativity: Re-Visioning English in Education (Manuel, Brock, Carter & Sawyer).

The four challenges Australia faces to improve the digital literacy of new teachers

The digital literacy of pre-service teachers was put in the spotlight recently. A report on the review of teaching information and communication technologies in initial teacher education received considerable media attention when new NSW education minister, Rob Stokes, released it.

The 49-page report, if you’d like to read it, is largely positive. However when Minister Stokes announced the report he spoke about “the need to better prepare teachers for an increasingly digital and online world.” So discussion that followed in the media quickly degenerated into conversation about the deficits in teacher education in NSW.

I wish we wouldn’t do that. Why is there always a need to lay blame, and why is initial teacher education often the scapegoat?

The report makes seven recommendations for initial teacher education. They are full of jargon and the language quite dense to any non-teacher. But suffice to say the review recommends that teacher education institutions should give priority to the digital literacy of their pre-service teachers as well as teaching them how to integrate technology into the curriculum. It emphasizes mentoring, and the provision of examples of best practice.

I am not here to critique those recommendations in particular (although I do wonder who sat on the ‘expert panel’ that made them, as the review does not tell us). What I want to do – as a former teacher in schools, researcher in classrooms and frequent teacher educator in universities in the field of technology enhanced learning – is talk about some of the challenges faced in teaching digital literacy skills to pre-service teachers and more generally to students in NSW schools.

The four challenges

Connectivity

Connectivity is still not consistent in many NSW public schools. Being able to connect every time, and quickly, is difficult. When I taught in a rural university in the US in late 2015 and visited various schools this was not the case. It was, to use a favourite word from the review, “seamless”. It must be easy every time in our schools.

Until having a seamless connection in every school is given proper attention and becomes a funding priority, teachers (especially new graduate teachers) will continue to be reluctant to base their lesson on something that depends on being connected. The fear, of course, is of their lesson falling apart. Some new graduate teachers do risk it and succeed; others try it but have a back up plan if they can’t connect readily the first time. But really, this should not be an issue in 2017.

Funding for professional development

Each large rollout of technology in NSW public schools (I am thinking of the Connected Classrooms Program in particular) was not accompanied by adequate funds for teacher professional development. There were newsletters with school-based case studies and some online materials. However, schools/teachers/principals were left to search for what they needed.

In the case of the federal government’s Digital Education Revolution (DER) there was hardware and a technical support officer but no dedicated funds for professional development or ongoing teacher professional learning.

This is critical in the tech space as obsolescence arrives fast and the ever-evolving state of tech means you must continually keep up to date.

Many tech companies have come into schools sold their products and left. There was scope in these two technology programs to work with teacher education; several did it quite well providing skills training for interactive whiteboards for pre-service teachers and some in content management systems. And of course, many of the larger tech companies did iPad deals with universities. But initial teacher education was peripheral to most of the exchanges.

The latest report seems to call for more ‘clinical training’. This could and does occur within preparation in subject disciplines. However in initial teacher education we not only teach with tech in our courses/units but we must also model it in terms of how pre-service teachers can construct deep learning alongside content for students in schools.

In the unit I am teaching at UTS this semester, in the Master of Teaching Program, I am reaching out to ‘teachers in the field’ to share what they do in secondary English. We connect via Skype or a Google Hangout each week. My students perfect and share a new tech app/tool/device that pedagogically fosters learning within their discipline. I prototype other technologies in unit content and last semester in the Digital Learning for a Digital Generation unit we focused on theory and effective technology enhanced learning practices in subject disciplines. We concluded the semester with a series of TeachMeets with excellent local in-service teachers as keynote speakers.

Develop digital fluency

A third challenge for initial teachers education is around suitable frameworks to develop pre-service and in-service teachers’ digital fluency. At the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE) conference in Austin, Texas two weeks ago I learned that initial teacher education colleagues from a university in The Netherlands are using case studies to build confidence in digital skills and teaching practices in their pre-service teachers. They too found their teachers unable to connect digital literacy skills with theory and practice in classrooms in Dutch schools.

The case studies being used are those of some exemplary teachers from NSW public schools. Data collected in research over two years for these Dutch pre-service teacher cohorts shows this approach has impact. I can certainly enable access to the papers if people are interested.

In addition, a draft document detailing 12 teacher educator technology competencies was previewed. These are well worth consideration. Another peak technology in education association in the US with whom our local computer in education associations work, released a set of teacher standards in 2016. You could check these out.

In the digital literacy report, in addition to mentioning the technology framework of TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) and SAMR (Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition ) there is scope to include the framework of High Possibility Classrooms an Australian example of a robust, validated pedagogical scaffold for technology enhanced learning for pre-service and in-service teachers. Several NSW public schools have High Possibility Classrooms in their strategic plans and in Victoria and the ACT; primary and secondary schools are finding it fills a much-needed gap in the how and why and why not of technology enhanced learning.

Educators involved with initial teacher education need continuous hands on experiences in schools

 The fourth challenge is to find a way for those involved in initial teacher education to spend time in contemporary classrooms. Many do and I acknowledge that.

Here is a radical idea: the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) could work with initial teacher education institutions to find placements in schools or classrooms for teacher educators for a minimum of five days in every year. It would be an internship of sorts. Or is that one step too far?

I believe initial teacher education is doing its work in NSW but, yes, there is more to do. It is an important conversation for us to have.

 

Dr Jane Hunter is an education researcher in technology enhanced learning the School of Education, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. She is conducting a series of STEM studies focused on building teacher capacity; in this work she leads teachers, school principals, students and communities to better understand and support education change. Jane was a senior education officer/advisor in the NSW Department of Education for seven years, and in her work in initial teacher education at three NSW universities has received national and international teaching awards for outstanding contributions to student learning. She enjoys writing and her research-based presentations at national and international conferences challenge audiences to consider alternate education possibilities. This Wednesday evening at the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences she is a NSW finalist for STEM communication in FameLab.

You can follow her on Twitter @janehunter01

The study of novels and poetry is essential for senior secondary students

The serious dumbing down of the senior English syllabus in NSW will have significant repercussions for students, employers, writers, poets, and Australian culture.

The changes have been widely criticized. The worst ones are the reduction in texts to be studied, the study of both novels and poetry becoming optional and the formerly non-ATAR English course now becoming assessable for the ATAR. My colleague Don Carter, who in a former role led the team developing the non-ATAR course, is greatly concerned by how this will affect students, as is Jackie Manuel, who has examined these changes in detail here on this blog.

Yes we understand the importance of STEM education and why it needs special attention these days. Also it can’t be denied that film, media and digital texts are part of today’s technologies so should be studied. And bottom line, these changes to HSC English will save money by cutting marking time.

So why worry about our HSC students skipping novels and poetry in their final year of school? What have novels and poetry got to offer in today’s world?

So much, so very much.

Why studying  novels and poetry should be compulsory

The intensive study of multiple texts, written from diverse points of view and cultural heritages, gives a vicarious glimpse of the worlds of others. Literature is the ultimate virtual reality.

Novels

In a novel, and without fancy gaming scenes and movement, sound effects, actors and cinematography, literary worlds (and plot and characters) are built by a writer using one simple tool, the infinite arrangements of an alphabet consisting of a mere 26 letters, and are then sustained and grown by readers’ imaginations.

Intensive study of novels grows awareness of how words can be used and manipulated, in both positive and negative ways, and helps us learn how we, and others, respond to such words, as well as how we can use them. Forensic study of novels, delving beyond the top layer and investigating how language creates characters and conveys feelings and emotions somehow sparks all senses; hearing, seeing, feeling, touching, smelling. Observing and studying people both like and unlike ourselves in crafted case studies in a created world provides resources that mature our understandings of our own world.

Exploring how novels and poetry (I’ll come to poetry in a minute) work, not only breeds creativity, that highly sought-after attribute when everyone is talking ‘innovation’, it also expands awareness of other perspectives, ways of thinking, and needs and problems. A novel can change cultures and bring about social change. Think about the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Abraham Lincoln is reported to have said on meeting author Harriet Beecher Stowe, ‘So this is the little lady whose book started a big war.’ He was of course referring to the American Civil War.

This lowering of standards by NSW represents a lowering of expectations and is a sad reflection of our impoverished educational philosophy. It’s a scary repeat of the scrapping of grammar decades ago.

In a few years we’ll (suddenly!) discover that Australian students are lagging behind world standards not only in literacy and reading and writing skills but in cultural literacy, creativity, nuanced thinking and the ability to critically analyse language.

The more people and experiences we are exposed to, actually, and virtually (and I repeat, literature is of course a virtual reality), the more we learn to respect others and respect difference. As David Parker notes, novels are ‘sites of the culture’s deepest moral questionings’; Simon Haines writes that they are sites of ‘ethical reflection’.

This is the ethical reflection of deep literacy, not just respect but a generous and intimate understanding of others that makes us hope for their wellbeing. Writing about the novel, Martha Nussbaum says that ‘respect for a soul’ is ‘built into the genre itself’. In other words it makes us more empathic, more collaborative, better teammates. It makes for more flexibility in thinking, more agility in considering how things can be done.

And some of our most beautiful novels can be challenging and need a guide (good teachers!) to introduce us to them. I’m thinking of Tim Winton’s opening lines in Cloudstreet – ‘The beautiful, the beautiful, the river’, and David Malouf’s description of the sea in Remembering Babylon:

It glows in fullness till the tide is high and the light almost, but not quite, unbearable, as the moon plucks at our world and all the waters of the earth ache towards it ….

Extended exposure to creative imageries such as these encourage a similar ache, and the capacity to listen with the mind as well as the ear, to see with the spirit as well as the eyes. Creativity is contagious; it jumps from one thought to another, from one imagination to another, from one mode of expression to another.

Poetry

Poetry is the literary genre that first attracts children into language. Think of ‘Round and round the garden/Dancing teddy bear’ and ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’: rhythm and rhyme, sound and imagery. Poetry is important both for philosophical and pragmatic reasons, both for self enhancement (life enhancement) and for the skills it grows.

Poetry breeds and cultivates and demonstrates succinctness of expression, depths of thinking that generate a creative climate of shared human-ness – humanity. It uses words like Russian dolls; open up one word and another one tumbles out, wrapped in thoughts and feelings and scattering other images along the way. Advertisers and jingle writers know and love this, and we need our children to understand how it happens.

Poetry is like a theorem; a few words can express a deep thought. I’ve used this example before, but it’s just so apt:

露の世は露の世ながらさりながら

This world of dew

is but a world of dew,

and yet …oh, and yet.    

Koyabayashi Issa (1763-1828)

The words are so simple, we know what each one means. But what is this famous haiku actually saying? It feels repetitive, unfinished. It’s like saying an apple is an apple, and the ‘and yet’ repeated at the end means – what?

These words stand on the surface of a complex thought, above not just one idea but many (philosophical, creative, intellectual, universal, particular) that may provoke, delight, and/or unsettle. We know what ‘dew’ is ( the dictionary says it is ‘moisture condensed from the atmosphere especially at night’) but this simple definition unravels into other ideas pertaining to moisture; water, morning, dawn. These in turn tumble into thoughts about dawn as being a new day, as being either a fresh start or a despairing start (or both), and moisture and water as both that which assuages thirst and as the moisture of tears and sweat, sorrow and exhaustion, or sometimes of great happiness and pleasure.

So, almost subliminally, this invites the reader to take a thought plunge into both the profound delights and the profound sadness of the world and indeed of human existence. And whichever way we read this, as delight or sadness, or both, or neither, there is always the ‘and yet’, the something else, the other side, the perhaps holy or perhaps unholy concomitance.

Poetry – using the magic of sound as well as sense – energises rigour of thought and the imagination that recognises and engages with the enigmas and the puzzles of the ‘and yet, oh and yet.’ It acknowledges and accentuates the wondering (and the wonder).

And Australian poetry! The line of a simple ballad is with me every time I look up at a starry sky: ‘And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars’. Simple, some say trite, I say tapping into and enlarging the experience of being human, of being part of a mind-staggering universe.

If young Australians don’t have to study it, will they know such poetry exists? They may miss John Shaw’s Nielson’s delicate ‘Love’s coming’ (a wonderful antidote to the current deluge of lovers on reality TV); and Judith Wright’s “five senses’ that ‘gather into a meaning/all acts, all presences’; and Lionel Fogarty’s ‘sweet peace crowned country’ and Martin Harrison’s morning song, ‘As early as this – it’s just after dawn – you’re overwhelmed by the glimmering of things’; and Paolo Totaro’s cry against war when a child picks up something that looks like a pomegranate: ‘Where did it come from, that winsome hand-grenade?’

Studying novels and poetry is needed in this new global world

Most of all, intensive study of novels and poetry grows a willingness to engage with ambiguity. Think of that ‘world of dew’ again. We haven’t got all the answers and our point of view is not always right. And the idea of ‘right’ may always be ambiguous.

Think about quantum theory and the theory of relativity. The position of the observer is always disruptive and time is not absolute.

I have heard whispers of the idea of ‘unknowing’ creeping into educational discourse, and applaud this. Part of deep engagement with novels and poetry helps us to understand that we just don’t always know and that we need to acknowledge our unknowing. This is not a deficit, but a part of growth. Life is profound and mysterious; in philosopher Cora Diamond’s words:

There is far more to things, to life, than we know or understand. Such a feeling is tied to a rejection of the spirit of knowingness often found in abstract moral and social theorising.

It is this that helps individuals to commit to a moral order beyond the self and to connect, with integrity, to community.

By cutting the need for high-level study of a range of novels and poetry are we really equipping our students for global futures?

NESA, please rethink this decision, which is not grounded on pedagogical principles or research, and is contrary to the feedback received from so many experts.

Our students are worth more than this.

 

Rosemary Ross Johnston is Professor of Education and Culture at UTS, and is the Director of the International Research Centre for Youth Futures. Her latest book, Australian Literature for Young People, is currently in press with Oxford.

 

 

 

EDITOR’S NOTE

Last week (end of March 2017) NESA did a back-flip and announced a new ruling “to clarify the requirement to study a novel in Year 12 in English”.

Read about it here.

Why is NSW dumbing down HSC English? ( no novels, no poetry required)

I am deeply concerned about changes to the HSC English syllabus. Contrary to public statements by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) about increasing rigor, I believe the changes dumb-down the senior English curriculum in alarming ways.

The most concerning changes

Students will no longer be required to study a novel and poetry

Prior to the changes all students in NSW were required to study a novel and poetry in Year 12 English. All students had the opportunity to engage with ‘great literature’ and the big ideas about the human condition that it invites. But now, for the first time in the history of HSC English in this state, the study of novels and poetry is optional.

NESA claimed that the works of Dickens, Austen and Conrad would now be mandatory, heralding a return of ‘great literature’. NESA President, Mr Alegounarias was reported as saying, “in English, for example, Shakespeare or the equivalent other aspects of great literature will be mandatory.”

These claims are simply inaccurate. Here’s why.

Prior to the changes announced last week, the study of prose fiction was indeed mandatory for all students in ATAR HSC English courses. Until the changes announced last week, this mandatory requirement has been the case in NSW English for over 100 years. Similarly, Shakespearean drama has been mandatory for all students in Advanced English. No change there.

But now, the study of prose fiction – ‘great literature’ – is optional. Now, no student is obliged to read a novel anymore to fulfil the requirements for HSC English.

Before these recent changes, all students had to select a prose fiction text from the prescribed text lists accompanying the syllabus. These text lists included the novels of international authors such as Dickens, Austen, Conrad, the Brontës, Shelley, Lawrence, Hardy, Twain, Steinbeck, Orwell, Huxley, Fitzgerald, Woolf, Bradbury, Salinger, Calvino, Dessaix, Lahiri, Le Guin, Haddon, and Ondatje. Just to name a few.

These examples of ‘great literature’ have populated the English text lists for generations. Suddenly, they have been stripped of their core status and rendered optional. Likewise, the ‘great literature’ of Australian writers such as Patrick White, Tim Winton, Peter Carey, and David Malouf, or poets such as Wilfred Owen, WH Auden, William Blake, Banjo Paterson, Judith Wright, and Oodgeroo Noonuccal. They are all now in the options basket.

So, regardless of what authors may be on the prescribed text list (which has yet to be released), there is no requirement to select a single novel or a single set of poems from the text list, because novels and poetry are now an option.

The long-standing requirement, in place since 1911, for all final year HSC English students in NSW to engage with novels and poetry, has been scrapped. I believe this change will send a strong message to students, teachers and the community that fiction and poetry, two of the most sophisticated forms of human expression in language, do not really matter. This change undermines the potential for enhancing higher-order, transferrable critical thinking, language, writing, problem-solving, and analytical skills that such engagement with literature promotes.

Reduction in texts that need to be studied

There is also a reduction in the number of texts for study in English. The mandatory requirement has been reduced from four to three texts for Standard English, and from five to four texts in Advanced English.

In Standard English, for example, students can now select to study a film, a play and a set of speeches in their final year of English. Novels and poetry are no longer mandatory. In Advanced English, students must study a Shakespearean drama and can then select to study, for example, a film, speeches and drama to fulfil their four text requirements. They can simply avoid selecting novels and poetry, because these are no longer mandatory.

It is easier for students wanting an ATAR to take the less demanding English course

The status of the previously non-ATAR English Studies course has now been reversed. Any student can now enrol in this far less demanding English course ( designed for students not wishing to proceed to university) and receive an ATAR.

The McGaw Reforms in the 1990s were prompted by this very issue of students electing to enrol in far less rigorous English courses. The McGaw reforms were all about raising expectations and encouraging enrolment in more rigorous courses. Now, 20 years on, the floodgates have been re-opened to allow any student to take the less demanding English course to maximise their marks in English.

Educators want to know why NESA has made these changes

The question of course is ‘why’? Why and on what basis have these ill-informed decisions been made? Where is the research-based evidence to justify such a watering-down of HSC English? Where is the evidence from consultations with the profession and community that a majority called for the ditching of the requirement to study novels and poetry?

Since when, and why, did the obligation to ensure our young people in Year 12 engage with Australian and international novels and poetry cease to matter?

My colleagues and I, including former Chief Examiners of HSC English and members of syllabus and text list committees, raised these and other critical matters with NESA during the consultation period. The NESA Consultation Reports do not include any reference to these submissions and the key concerns raised. Likewise, there was widespread concern in the English teaching community about the potential optionalising of fiction and poetry. The Consultation Report on Advanced English, for example, notes teachers’ view that “text requirements should include a requirement to study a drama text other than Shakespearean drama and film, digital and multimodal texts. Prose fiction and print non-fiction should be uncoupled.” (p. 14). This concern has not been addressed, nor even recognised, in the ‘action’ column of the Consultation Report.

Those of us who continue to value the place of literature and the arts, in schools and in the broader community, are appalled at the prospect of our Year 12 students completing their HSC in English without having read a novel or a single line of poetry.

Erasmus, way back in the 1400s, and countless others before and since, noted that the path to finely-honed literacy skills and critical thinking is (in part) through exposure to the masters of the language, including our novelists and poets.

The growing evidence from educational and neuroscientific research not only confirms but also deepens the argument for the myriad of cognitive and affective benefits of reading literature. There is a relationship between the engagement with literature and the development of ‘multiple complex cognitive functions’ and empathy.

As professor of English at the University of Kentucky and well-known author Linda Zunshine puts it: ‘if you want nonstop high-level socio-cognitive complexity, simultaneous with nonstop active reorganisation of perceptions and inferences, only fiction delivers’.

PISA results confirm that the more a young person reads long-form literature for pleasure, the better they become at higher-order critical and creative thinking. Evidence from the OECD tells us that regardless of background and parental occupational status, those students who are highly engaged in reading achieved reading scores that were the equivalent of one-and-a-half years ahead of the OECD average.

The opportunity to read literature in English is not merely a matter for philosophical debate: evidence points to its vital role in raising all students’ educational achievement and life-chances. This is what author Janette Winterson describes as the capacity for literature and the arts to feed the ‘inside’ of life. To ‘change the way we think and feel.’ To stir us to imagine that life can be ‘otherwise’ – for better or worse. To foster imaginative and creative thinking. To generate the impetus for change on the ‘outside’.

So when it comes to the HSC English syllabus, NESA can’t have it both ways. It cannot in one breath make claims for maintaining or increasing rigour, and at the same time dumb-down the pre-existing content requirements in HSC English. It is either committed to stronger HSC standards in English through the requirement to engage with literature in its key forms, or it is not. The new syllabus, by any measure, indicates it is not.

Only through the restoration of the requirement that all of our young people engage with novels and poetry in Year 12 (and we’re talking about just one novel and one set of poems) will NESA have any justification for its claims for rigour and stronger HSC standards in the HSC English syllabus.

 

Jackie Manuel is Associate Professor in English Education in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. She is the Program Director for the Master of Teaching (Secondary), coordinator of secondary English curriculum and an Affiliate of the Department of English.

Jackie has published widely in the field of English Education and her research interests and projects include new teacher motivation; teenagers and reading; creativity in English education; and the history of English curriculum. She has been Chief Examiner of NSW Higher School Certificate English (Standard and Advanced), and a member of the former NSW Board of Studies (2007-2013) where she was Chair of Board curriculum and text list committees.

 

EDITOR’S NOTE

Last week (end of March 2017) NESA did a back-flip and announced a new ruling “to clarify the requirement to study a novel in Year 12 in English”.

Read about it here.

The NSW Education Standards Authority responds to Charlotte Pezaro’s post: Specialist maths and science teachers in primary schools are part – a key part – of the solution

This blog post is a response to Charlotte’s Pezaro’s post Specialist science and maths teachers in primary schools are not the solution

To support the teaching and learning of STEM, and specifically mathematics and science, NSW has taken a number of deliberate actions and decisions.

  • Minimum entry standards have been set for teaching degrees and teaching graduates need to pass literacy and numeracy tests to ensure quality teaching.
  • New K-6 syllabuses in English, Mathematics, Science and Technology, History and Geography have been developed and are currently being taught in schools.
  • Primary teachers working in our schools can specialise in mathematics and science.

This NSW initiative for primary teachers to specialise in mathematics and science does not replicate the high school teaching model.

Primary teaching students completing a specialisation will undertake additional courses in mathematics or science, and in how to teach these subjects.

This gives initial teacher education students the opportunity to undertake a more extensive focus in these areas.

Primary teacher graduates with a STEM specialisation will have broader employment options and be available to lead efforts in primary schools to strengthen student’s knowledge, skills and confidence in mathematics and science from Kindergarten.

These specialists will help give young students more confidence in mathematics and science, so they’re well prepared for high school and future careers.  

The NESA specialisations policy does not compromise preparation of all primary teaching graduates to effectively teach across the key learning areas from K-6.

NESA continues to ensure that all NSW primary teaching degrees require discipline knowledge and pedagogical skill development in each of the key learning areas in primary.

This formal recognition of primary teaching specialisations is one of a suite of measures to enhance the teaching of STEM in NSW schools.

 

Peter Lee is Inspector, Primary Education, at the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA). The NSW Education Standards Authority replaced the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW (BOSTES) on 1 January 2017.