Interview with Principal, Bruce McLachlan

Last week Thursday I held an interview with our principal at Swanson, Bruce McLachlan. We began our discussion talking about the new curriculum that has literally just been released two weeks ago by the Ministry of Education. The new curriculum is 50 pages long and encompasses all years of school from 1-13 (Kindergarten through senior year of high school). It’s actually quite amazing that their curriculum is only 50 pages; it’s able to be so short because it is a broad curriculum which leaves the majority of the standards up to the classroom teacher. There are only general standards or benchmarks which the teachers have to achieve; the rest is left up to the creativity of the teacher. “The New Zealand Curriculum’s principal function is to set the direction for student learning and to provide guidance for schools as they design and review their curriculum” (The New Zealand Curriculum).
Teachers here are known for their creativity and knack for teaching students life skills rather than knowledge facts. Because of the technological advances the world has made, teachers no longer teach one body of knowledge. It’s always been thought that knowledge is power. This is because in the past, people who had the knowledge or were able to quickly recall information were the ones in charge or actually held the power. Nowadays, that knowledge is accessible to all by way of the internet. If you can read, type, and access a search engine you are able to obtain knowledge. So we as teachers need to change the way we approach education. No longer are we teaching from a body of knowledge. Instead we are teaching students the strategies needed to ask the questions, access the resources, and utilize the knowledge. We are teaching them how to go out in the world, get their hands on information, and then helping them figure out what to do with that knowledge. New Zealand has recognized this and has adapted their curriculum to allow more of the inquiry learning to happen in the classroom as opposed to memorizing facts. I am very lucky to have met with Bruce at this time, because he actually was able to give me a copy of the New Zealand Curriculum straight out of the box. I will be bringing it home and of course anyone who is interested may have a look at it!
The next topic which came up was testing. Of course we all know that standardized testing is a big topic in America at the moment. New Zealand has standardized tests as well, but the difference with theirs is that they are not required by the government. Therefore, they are not high stakes testing but rather are assessment tools. They have the test ASTTLE (Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning). ASTTLE is a standardized test which educators can request for their students. They ring up the company and tell them what subjects and levels they’d like their tests to be at. Then the company creates them and evaluates the results. Just like our tests they produce a greate cohort for teachers and administration to view, but they also have another aspect that is invaluable to the teachers. There results which are printed out not only state what the students were successful with, but also clearly states what they struggled with as well. They layout what their needs and gaps are. Teachers are then able to use this information to plan their curriculum for the term around what the gaps of the students are. It is a very useful tool!
Next I asked Bruce about Special Education here in New Zealand. Similar to our systems in America, there are three types of schools in New Zealand: 1. Schools which cater only to special needs students (similar to Sybll Hopp in De Pere) 2. Mainstream Schools and 3. Mainstream schools with attached units for special needs resources. Swanson School is a Mainstream School. We have only a limited amount of money and resources which are given to the school to assist with students with special needs. There are programs such as Reading Recovery available, as well as teacher aides in classrooms which need the extra help with students. However, we do not have a great deal to offer in assisting students with special needs. Bruce is aware of our schools situation and will discuss it with parents if necessary. “I [Bruce] would never turn a child away from our school, but I am honest with the parents about the availability and quality of our resources, and suggest that they may have better education assistance at another school.”
Krissy Lukens, my advisory, prompted me to ask about technology issues here in New Zealand. She was curious about issues dealing with social software; if the students here are as interested in blogs such as My Space. I found out that Bebo is a bigger site here than My Space. It is used by a lot of the children and has come up as an issue with bullying. There were a few situations where the principal or deputy principals had to call in students and pulled up their Bebo page to discuss what had been written on there about another student or teacher. It hasn’t been a huge issue, especially since it is now taught that anything which is placed on a blog is actually accessible to anyone who has the internet. This has surprised the students who didn’t know that their page could be seen by others. Students have for the most part become more discreet or selective about what is placed on their blogs.
It is very interesting discovering the differences between the schools I have been in and the Swanson School here. I am excited to be taking over the class next week and most likely noticing many more differences once I am in control of the class.