AUCKLAND ROTARY ADDRESS
3rd November 2008
Tony Sissons - Headmaster, King's School
I wish to publicly acknowledge the Woolf Fisher Trust - For awarding the Fellowship. The opportunity to travel to Harvard was most rewarding from a professional and personal perspective.
It was a wonderful opportunity -
- International Boys' Conference with a focus on global issues
- The environment through to reflection time and study at Harvard
- Visiting a number of schools and speaking with business leaders
ENVIRONMENT
Environment was particularly pronounced in my Canadian experience where the emphasis on "too little, too late", was constantly presented.
Food and energy go hand in hand in developing world
Need to restructure
Energy doesn't compete with food Technology neutral in goals Smarter land use Agriculture = environmental impact
Important:
Local food production Not all solutions from improved technology Innovative / Diversification There will be an uncomfortable transition
At present environment change is being driven more from a financial gain and a reduction in supply but a real change is looming due to improved communications and scientific discovery. Therefore the challenge is to make change when it has personal impact and the benefits cannot be felt or seen immediately.
We must have a commitment and a responsibility to address environmental issues as these issues will impact on the boys in our care. They will need to solve the environmental problems we will leave behind.
BENCHMARK TESTING IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS
I want to challenge education to drop some of the barriers and pretences it makes around quality teaching. For too long as a profession we have resisted any form of criticism. If we are to really develop as a profession we need to open ourselves up and become more accepting of the real difficulties of educating for today's world. We need to drop our guards more. How will we interpret the requirements of the future without firstly accepting we have to question the present.
In more recent times New Zealand teachers have resisted national testing, citing difficulties with results and actions from overseas. Even though national testing has some flaws, we need to reflect on the advantages of benchmarking before criticising it. Educators need to step back and not push their bias as benchmark results are an important criteria for creating questions that demand tough answers.
The "No child left Behind" programme in the United States moves numbers from just below the basic requirement - a flaw in their reporting processes so the incentive is to work with those who are just below. When we publicly rate and publish results we prevent open dialogue to encourage schools to work better. This complex issue needs to be addressed if we are to embrace the importance of benchmarked testing.
We do not want disengaged, de-motivated students who leave with a total resistance to learning. We don't want a situation where teachers teach according to the test and get excellent results by narrowing the scope of learning.
Key issues
It is difficult to predict the future - Today's children retire in 2075 - Five year unpredictable We need to learn new "literacies" - as information, communication and technologies adapt and develop.
TECHNOLOGY
The power of technology as a tool rather than a toy and hand-held educational device, will become a part of a student's every-day need in a very short period of time.
Through technology, students can explore knowledge and experience the world in greater detail and at a greater speed than we ever thought possible during teacher training.
MY BELIEF
Two particular skills will be required. One is decision-making and the other is to understand the complexity of communications. This is not at the expense of foundation knowledge because without this base knowledge little critical thinking or analysis can take place. Benchmark tests in English, Maths and Science should be the norm.
Our curriculum therefore needs to reflect more on the quality aspects rather than the quantity. We need to enhance our questioning and critical thinking skills so we can adapt quickly when the need arises.
To have students learn the capitals of the world or to know that the Roe River in Montana is the smallest river in the world is really a waste of time. It is not enough just to regurgitate this information. Students need to know how to research a subject and critique the information received. This has huge implications on how we teach and learn and how we will assess the effectiveness of our schools.
The boys at King's need to be motivated by the things that help them in life. Teachers need to be able to change and to do this well. We must move away from the professional development requirement of telling teachers what to do, to a "how to do" environment. Too often teachers just lecture and pass on knowledge. "I have taught it therefore they must have learnt it". This is in complete contrast to our thinking curriculum which requires far more interaction where teachers pose good thinking questions.
We need to move away from a "total belief theory" of "even when I cannot prove it, I believe it must be true".
Often there is a lack of robust discussion and too often debate is stifled by the educator who comments: "The research tells us" when in fact there is little research to back up the theories being promoted.
Teachers make excuses but they need to take a good hard look at themselves to ensure that they take on responsibility, and as leaders we need to ensure that we are up-skilling and giving teachers the ability to reflect and re-teach in a different way. This is why it becomes so critical to have quality staff in any school.
If we are to deliver quality programmes required for today's students we must create conditions for high quality instruction in every classroom - retaining, hiring and training staff. We currently have a shortage of teachers in our schools.
The focus must be to raise performance and quality while decreasing the variations from classroom to classroom. We need to build communities within our schools.
SPECIAL NEEDS
The complexity of building a community which understands, tolerates and benefits from those who are different is a complex and yet important educational opportunity to be learnt early.
Schools are better not to accept a student than to accept with conditions or reluctantly. Everyone benefits from unconditional acceptance.
High performing schools of the future won't create barriers to their communities. The schools will not make excuses for poor performance but will look for solutions. They will have professionals looking to learn and improve their practice, where exemplary teaching practice forms the body of the senior staff, where policy-makers will give schools freedom to provide leading resources.
RESILIENCE
We also need to build resilience into our children : Risk-taking : Importance of Outdoor Education / Sports - disappointment
We must build around three key focus points:
Improving the knowledge and skill of our teachers, Improving the relationship of teacher to student Changing the content and questioning to meet the needs of today's students.
This all has to be done in an environment where everyone has an opinion about what is good teaching and good teaching practice.
The following questions are presented as a direct result of the Fellowship experience:
The influence of technology on students and the need to utilise it for their futures. How will we utilise technology effectively? Change Leadership. How does a headmaster stay available to new ideas? Are we testing/assessing students' skills which will help teachers reflect and change according to the needs of individual students? Are we reinforcing failure and getting predicable results? Why are we resisting national benchmarking? What do the boys at King's "really need" for their futures? What data are we collecting to assist us to develop and change our practice? Is a sense of "belonging" being eroded at King's? How will I know? What is the process of getting all staff to develop high level tasks which in turn will create higher performance?
The following are the key attributes of good leadership:
- Build people around you who are highly competent and have a variety of skills
- Trust them to work hard and work with them
- Listen to the advice from people in your organisation. Have respect for them
- Be prepared to "test the facts" but more often than not the solutions and way forward will be made clear through robust research and discussion
- Be happy to ask for more work to be done - particularly if it goes against your "gut feeling"
Make decisions having narrowed the focus.
With all interviews, there was a commitment from all the leaders to reflect on their practice and an enjoyment in the roles they played in the organisations they ran. All leaders displayed a belief in their own ability; however perhaps more importantly, in the people they surrounded themselves with.
Strong leaders who really care and stand up for quality staff who can educate and bring their communities with them are essential if we are to make the change required to improve the teaching profession. King's has some of the best facilities in the world, and while this is important and shouldn't be under-estimated, it's the quality and love of the people within our schools which makes the real difference.
King's School is in an important time in its history to make a difference beyond its gates.
Being a Headmaster is a way of life - Not a job
Shoes polished / Shirts tucked in but not at the expense of getting boys to think. The values of respect, honestly and a commitment to add to society as the boys at King's are privileged to be at the school.
