Education Gap

Every now and then our community goes through a witch-hunt about education standards. The critics claim school leavers can’t read. They can’t write. They can’t do their sums. Actually, most can. The international evidence is clear - our best are up to the world’s best. But unfortunately, we do have a long tail of - in the jargon term - under-achievement. There is no magic bullet, no quick fix for this problem.

For it is not just an education problem. As the gap between rich and poor widens, this rift is reflected in our schools.

Year One teachers are well aware of the huge learning gap amongst their charges. Some youngsters come from homes where curiosity has been fostered, books cherished and used, and stimulating and challenging experiences provided. Other kids are not so lucky. They arrive at school way behind in their prior learning. Teachers do their best but what happens in their classroom cannot be divorced from what is happening in the rest of the community.

That gap is likely to continue to widen if those children arrive at school hungry and/or emotionally distressed. A hungry child is not interested in learning. He or she needs food. A battered child will not be interested in learning. She or he needs assurance, comfort, love. Schools do their best but they cannot supply those things single-handed. Teachers are aware of the importance of continuity for such pupils. Many of these children constantly shift from school to school which upsets the attempts to improve their learning.

I am not parent-bashing. What I am saying is that the children of marginalised parents are at risk when it comes to learning. Marginalisation has various causes, but many stem from policy decisions made by central and local government and private enterprise.

There are other factors. Throughout their schooling, but especially in their teen years, students are subjected to intense media and peer pressure – pressure that today's decision-makers find difficult to comprehend. Until recently family, school and church were the learning sources. They worked together relatively coherently. Now learning sources are much more fragmented and competitive. At the stage in their lives as young people move from dependency to self-sufficiency they receive contradictory and conflicting messages about their self-image.

Another pressure is the increased skill level that is required. Yesterday’s grease monkeys are today’s computer technicians. I am told that what used to be Stage 2 chemistry at University is now taught at the senior school level.

Further, critics of school leavers’ skills and confidence should look at workplace practice. How supported are young people when they start? What is the employer’s educative responsibility? We, as a community, need to accept and embrace the concept of lifelong learning.

To return to the schools – they are not islands. Teachers are not miracle workers. There is poverty in our land and that affects what happens in our classroom. The best reading programme in the world is up against a colossal rival here. If the school runs a sensible health programme it has to compete with the advertiser’s hype.

Education policy cannot be developed and delivered in isolation from other policies. For example, immigration and housing policies have a great impact upon the work of schools. When successive governments changed social and economic polices in the past how often were the likely education consequences considered? Teachers are left to cope with those consequences. Under trying circumstances the great majority do their best. Knocking them will not help. So, let’s give three cheers for our teachers. Without them, where would the learning society be?

Ancient Greece

A subject I really enjoyed at university was Greek History, Art and Literature. That ancient Aegean society really grabbed my interest. Studying the torso of a shattered sculpture or the scurrying scene on a mended jar opened up fresh thoughts about history, the creative spirit and human efforts to excel. I swallowed the lecturers’ theories uncritically, unaware of their late nineteenth century origin. The literature, especially the drama, proved good background for a lifelong interest in poetry and drama.

Greek Art - art criticism was new to me. The first time my eye received any training it was the human soul made manifest by the human body; passion and clarity intermingled. New art led to old myths. I systematically went through the library shelves, (both university and city) borrowing everything on the Greek gods and myths. The lecturers presented these as figments of imagination as representative of our species' behaviour. The books gloried in that sunlit ideal past in ways that made the present seem mundane. Mankind jubilantly released from the death- and animal-worship of the Egyptians evolved to honour the human figure and spirit. (Recently I read Black Athena a book that refutes this thesis). These ideas were a corrosive mix for a faint-hearted theological student. Yet in a strange way they helped support his faith by presenting the material struggle for existence as unimportant, indeed degrading. The argument of a divide between body and mind was reinforced.

So in later life I was delighted to twice travel to Greece. The Parthenon is a spectacular reminder of a past glory, while Mycenae, Epidaurus with its unbelievable acoustics, Olympia and Delphi lived up to expectations. A spectacular thunderstorm over Delphi added to the atmosphere.

The Unhistoric Story

A stanza from Curnow’s THE UNHISTORIC STORY

Spider, clever and fragile, Cook showed how
To spring a trap of islands, turning from planets
His measuring mission, showed what the musket could do,
Made his Christmas goose of the wild gannets.
Still as the collier steered
No continent appeared;
It was something different, something
Nobody counted on.

I majored in history from university. The unintended consequences of human actions, or sometimes inaction, that’s the attraction of history. The past – how people have lived and organised their societies - fascinates me. Not only has it fashioned the present, it will help shape the future. Questions of leadership, of power, of conflict are of continual interest. I slowly learnt to understand the crucial importance of economics in these occurrences. while the relationship of art and literature - effect and reaction - is always intriguing. Auden’s lines, ‘[History] is by the criminal in us: goodness is timeless,’ are valid but they smack to me of the heretical. My spirit can accept the validity of the claim, but my will cannot. It goes on its merry way pursuing historical interests.

Humanity came late to Aotearoa,. Pakeha even later. My view of this latter part of our history was shaped by two historians, Sinclair and Oliver and a poet, Curnow. Of the three I suspect the poet’s impact is the greatest. His potted history of the European arrival has a simple argument – the result is not the one anticipated. The land of milk and honey bathed in the light of kowhai gold had disappeared under the weight of puritanism, capitalism, greed and selfishness, a land without a soul at home. The clever change of rhyme scheme in the last four lines of each stanza adds to the sense of something not quite right, hesitations and misgivings.

There’s a contradiction here. Curnow’s conclusion, intellectually accepted, was not my actual experience. Indeed, during the 1950s and 1960s while the intelligentsia were decrying our smugness, crudeness and conservatism I saw with delight the impact of labour-saving devices upon Mum’s time and energy and how it increased the farm’s productivity. After the depression and the privations of war materialism made sense. Unemployment was low, Britain took all our butter, ANZUS guaranteed our security and the welfare state was a given. The damming of rivers was not controversial, though a massive social change was starting with the influx of Maori into the cities. Depression and war over, poverty vanquished, we could concentrate upon progress and prosperity.

Librarian

At Morrinsville College where I began teaching I was put in charge of lost property and the library. The first was a chore, the second a bibliophile’s joy. During all my twelve years teaching I was school librarian – ordering and unpacking new books, encouraging students to borrow, managing the stock. It also meant working closely with another adult (the library assistant). I felt then and still believe that if we had more aides in schools and fewer teachers quite likely they would be better learning centres. The principal suggested that I take the senior student librarian and two others to Auckland to the Minerva book-sale, a poor way to build up stock. But for my three years at Morrinsville it became an annual treat. Goggle-eyed country kids in the metropolis, all four of us would make our selection, go to a coffee-shop, my shout, drive to the top of Mt Eden to view the city, and return to the college to unpack our booty. "Loved that book you gave me, sir" - it made the job worthwhile. In those pre-TV days kids read more than they appear to now. I’m talking about the run-of-the-mill kid. Bookworms and devotees still exist. I relate to such people. My grandmother used to complain “that boy has always got his nose stuck in a book.”

From the library back room I saw other teachers at work. The good side was seeing effective teachers using the resources of the library as part of their overall strategy of motivating students to read and search. But I also observed lazy teachers. "Get a book, sit down and be quiet." Once a student asked, "what's the capital of Russia, sir?" "Stalingrad" the teacher replied. When the bell rang and the kids departed I gently pointed out his answer was wrong. "I didn't know but that is the one thing a teacher never admits. Be dogmatic. Otherwise you lose charge.” I didn't remonstrate, he was older. But I made a mental note to avoid such an approach. The library held several atlases and books about the Soviet Union. What an opportunity missed in terms of young people's self-discovery, curiosity, and skill acquisition. Why had the student asked the question? The library assistant saw my face. "Some people shouldn't go teaching," she said.

It concerned me that many teachers under-valued the library. I commenced a campaign to sell the place in all the schools in which I worked. I instituted a roster scheme of student librarians, they sat a small exam, and then had their library badges presented at assembly. We met weekly to discuss displays, ways of making the library work more effectively and to attract more customers. When I shifted to Thames High I became embroiled in a battle - if the library was vacant it was customary to take boys there to cane them. As librarian I refused to allow this practice to continue. "It is a place of learning, not a place of punishment." I carried the day. One way was to fill it up with classes, not just English and Social Studies, but other subjects as well. The visit to the library was not something to be rationed, not a treat or trick but an essential component to learning.

UN Job

So Helen Clark gets the third highest UN job. Richly deserved. I felt proud to be a Kiwi while she was representing us overseas, especially in her stance over Iraq. Not that the new job will be an easy ride. Getting and distributing aid in the present financial situation will be stressful. And then there is the task of ensuring that the aid goes to those who need it and not to the fat cats along the way. Good luck to her.

When some future historian writes up Helen’s regime her travels will loom large. When I read the biography of Peter Fraser I was struck by how much he had travelled as PM, especially during the war. I was reminded of this while reading the Alanbrooke diaries – he and Churchill seemed to be at sea or in the air much of the time. Considering the slowness of planes then the magnitude of their journeys is mind-boggling. Plus the dangers – being shot down or crashing. Brooke lost his ADC when the pilot ran out of fuel when seeking for Malta.

Literature

On 20 July 1975 I gave a talk on teaching literature. I began:
'I came to English teaching in search of the El Dorado of literature. Ever since I seem to have been hacking through a jungle of linguistic grammar and the sociology of language acquisition. Some jungle! It grows so quickly. Take a bird’s eye view of that jungle. Is it not life, ever-changing, ever-renewing life. Life, not existence. There is a difference in these words. Words which are my limits and my wealth, they are the machetes with which I attempt to clear a way through that jungle. Literature is the attempt at clearing a path through life by the use of words.'
I later said:
'The English teacher helps his students explore the ambiguity and chaos that is life and language. Literature is one of our methods of putting order into that ambiguity and chaos. Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning. A literature lesson is a raid on the inarticulate. And it will fail. And tomorrow we shall try again. And in the trying is the success.'
My words sound like a person in mid career, a confident being, though still out to impress, masculine, whose liking for metaphor often stood in the way of his argument - half-way between the university student and this elderly guy tapping words into the word processor. Also obviously someone at that time reading too much T.S.Eliot. I’m not sure now that I admire that man. And yet he was chasing something valuable.

Normandy

I’m now reading Triumph in the West, the second volume of the Alanbrooke diaries. The English gentry continue to amaze me. A month before D.Day he spent a contented Sunday afternoon in a hide watching a marsh tit. The odd pheasant shoot with the King with scores of birds being despatched. I am up to the landings and the battle for Caen.

Anne and I had a holiday in Nomandy in 1999 including a weekend country homestay north of Caen. Our host took us to Aramaches, one of the beaches where the British came ashore on D.Day. My diary reads: ‘The remains of the old Mulberry harbour are still there, part of war's debris but a reminder of the size of the enterprise. The Channel looked choppy and uninviting, even the little cafes with names like Churchill looked rather empty and forlorn. At the museum there were displays of the harbour and relics, a very good slide-show in English and a documentary made not long after the war - one forgets the tone of those old news-films. It finished with a small French girl giving flowers to the Allied soldiers.’

Not far away there was ‘a little cemetery where British, Canadian and German soldiers lie in row after row. A considerable number had the tag, an unknown soldier. Each grave had a little rose in front of the stone. The countryside was so quiet. Back home Anne and I went for another walk up a trail, arched over in places with beech trees with the sun shining on wheat stubble and contented dairy cows. Courting couples and family groups all said 'bon jour' as they passed.’

Caen’s a city steeped in history with its two fine cathedrals, one housing the remains of William the Conqueror, the other his wife Matilda. We were impressed by the Museum for Peace, especially by the large split-screen display of the actual beach landing, a montage of Allied and German newsreel plus additional material from movies such as The Longest Day. The build-up of events on both sides of the Channel was well-done. There was also an audio-visual programme of the Caen hinge battle - those poor civilians and that wrecked town.

We visited Bayeux, a town ‘crisscrossed by a little stream which has millwheels on it and ducks and swans’ and saw the famous tapestry. It exceeded all expectations, the original comic strip, ‘William, the build-up in Normandy, Harold's oath of allegiance, funeral and death of Edward the Confessor in that order, the channel crossing, the battle itself, dead knights having their armour stripped off. It’s a miracle such a flimsy piece of material survived while stone walls have been battered and demolished. Not only was there the story, but the scenes of peasant and animal life above and below it were delightful. I liked the cameo where the priest is bringing William's daughter to Harold in the main text. In the sub-text there is a man hastily disrobing obviously eager to get into the marriage bed.’

I wrote this poem on my return:

Bayeux

The Channel sources
a chill wind, jet trails
clutter the sky, inside
a comic strip tapestry
narrates William’s battle.
Once called the Bastard,
now the Conqueror. Peasants
strip armour from the dead
& dying.

Not far away, beyond
placid tractors and stationary
cows, stranded hunks of rusted
floating harbour, evidence of that
more recent landing. Men died
in what is now the carpark where
sparrows struggle for the tourist crusts.

Two slaughters that
helped assemble my existence.