New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association / Te Wehengarua (PPTA) President Robin Duff reflects on the zen of teaching and class size, or should that be the tao of teaching and class size.
The Gateless Gate - we create our own barriers through insisting on either/or relations
For people brought up in the western cultural tradition which views everything in terms of its opposite, night/day, good/evil, male/female, body/mind, singular/plural, it can be a struggle to entertain the zen buddhist concept of the “oneness of duality”. The notion that reality might not be either/or but both is somehow not as satisfying as the comfort and certainty of a position “prepared earlier”. This way of thinking inclines us to reduce complex issues into false polarities. Worse, it stops us seeing the infinite number of geographical locations that exist between north and south.
Class size initiatives require both smaller classes and quality teaching
I was driven to reflect on the appeal of the false polarity by the public discussion generated by the class size paper at the PPTA annual conference. What the respondents did (from the minister down) was to argue that class size was of no importance but the quality of the teacher was. Yet it isn’t either/or, it’s both.
Teachers can teach more effectively in smaller classes
For learning to occur, teachers need to be qualified, well-trained, knowledgeable, up-to-date and must strive to be enthusiastic and empathetic. To deliver on that several times a day, every day of the week for 40 weeks a year is a challenge in itself. If teachers are required to ration the time they can give to individual students both during the lesson and in the follow-up activities, their effectiveness
will inevitably be diminished. If we are going to deny that, we might as well start teaching students that the moon landing was faked.
More effective learning can take place in smaller classes
Besides, every parent knows – without the assistance of 50,000 pieces of meta-synthesised data – that a party of teens is likely to be less nightmarish if there are 20 attendees rather than 35. Those parents who can (often including the very politicians and policy makers who argue so vociferously against smaller classes) prove this point by sending their own children to private schools who promise they will provide, “small classes and individual attention”. These schools boast of excellent teachers but are never so unwise as to say because they have “excellent teachers” they don’t mind how far class sizes balloon. Imagine trying to recruit students with a line like that? It would be the sound of one hand clapping.
Getting class size out of the closet
State schools with large classes know it’s a complete turn off for parents so they don’t mention it. And parents are bombarded with data about schools while specific information on class size is not readily available.
When Anne Tolley was asked at our annual conference why the agencies don’t collect that information or parents and put it on a website as happens in Ontario, she said that it was data parents could get from the school if they wanted. Or, in translation:
While class size is a government responsibility and not something that can be easily dismissed as an individual school responsibility, hell will freeze over before parents are provided with comparative data.
She has offered a way forward, “schools make decisions on class sizes, and we need to provide more flexibility for principals on how they allocate teachers, as the ways in which students are taught change in our modern world.” (New Zealand Herald, 19 October). Or, in translation:
Without that irritating collective agreement principals could trade off teachers’ non-contact time for smaller class sizes.
Addressing workload stressors; it's about time
Once again, it’s not either/or, it’s both. Smaller classes provide a better learning environment for students and a better teaching environment too. Non contact gives teachers the time to prepare better lessons and to assess effectively – including providing individualised feedback. Trading off one for the other simply shifts the problems elsewhere – most probably into teacher recruitment.
The minister has demonstrated that she understands the stress secondary teachers are facing and has just announced some initiatives that will begin to address workload, so it seems counter-productive to be contemplating actions that will make secondary teaching even more stressful and difficult than it is already.
Focus on learning not government v teachers
Falling back into the yin and yang of teachers versus the government will not get us on to the path of enlightenment and through the gateless gate. We need to act differently and that can’t be done unless we can learn to think differently. The past is not always the best guide to the future because, that was zen, this is tao!
Download the November 2011 issue of the PPTA News
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