Dr.+Stuart+Middleton

//Gidday. These are Russell's notes again. Hope I'm not hogging the space. I originally put it up as a file, but there is some doubt that you all have access to docx files, so I've put it up here instead. Please - add notes, comments, rebuttals, etc.... Click on the discussion page to begin a discussion on any of the topics here. I've signalled some that I think are worthy of our attention.// Cheers, everyone. Russell.

**__ Notes from Stuart Middleton's Keynote __**
Kids starting school is an important stepping stone. The community does its bit to bring kids to the school. But what of the promise we make to those families? Stuart gave us an interesting analogy for the situation he sees in NZ education. He put up stats for the swine flu scare a year or so ago, then swapped the context to schools. If you replace the concept of patients/victims with one of students, you get this: · 20% disappeared · 12.5% truanting · 4000 excluded · 4500 leave primary but fail to enter secondary · 80% appear in the youth court with serious issues: they have had very little meaningful contact with education. · 48% start post sec but don’t finish · 17000 – 25000 students aged 15 – 19 ended up neither in Employment, Education nor Training. If these figures were projected for swine flu, our nation would respond dramatically. These figures are true for education: what will WE do about this? // Interesting topic to ponder? Wiki discussion? What does that WE have to do with us? Are schools resourced to tackle the ills of society? Is that our job? How much of these terrible figures are schools actually responsible for? Who will quantify that? Hmmmmm….. a BIG issue to tease out. // //Thought: I wonder what responses we would see if we gave students a bite at this one? Anyway, back to the notes://

NZ Australia, GB Canada, USA: all English speaking, related to Comm. All followed the same pattern of development for the last 150 years. Features: such as Elite higher education, Universal primary, vocational education killed off. Disengagement, social promotion, skill shortages, sectors rather than unified, issues education economy, Four major issues: 1. Unease socially and politically with education 2. Disconnect betw education and the economy 3. Unprecedented levels of disengagement: physical, virtual, unintended 4. …. //And as you can see, I only got three. Have YOU got the fourth? Please amend.// NEET: acronym: **N**either **E**mployed, in **E**ducation, or in **T**raining. Now beginning to appear in some Asian countries. But it doesn’t appear in other countries. Why? (Scandinavian countries were offered as an example.) · Changing demographics · Changing economy · Disappearance of low skilled and unskilled jobs //… but we appear to have…// · AN EDUCATION SYSTEM RESISTANT TO CHANGE. We have used immigration to fill the jobs: we have blocked so many job opportunities for our less able scholars. Success tended to be the cake eaten by white, english speaking, middle class, academically-well-prepared-by-schools-for-quals-and-other-training-systems people, often from homes with sound experience in academia. · Low SES status · NESB backgrounds · Recent migrant groups · Are first in family/first generation students · Lack adequate academic preparation for the next state · Second chance students · Older age groups 1960s: only 10% of students tended to stay on past three years. (//Is this correct? Sounds low.//) Schooling used to be good because it took you to the starting point of what you did next. Apprenticeships died in the 80s when government pulled out of the economy. We valued employment more than we valued what job people had. Traditional advantages of being in a professional vocation have been eroded away. Night classes gone. Response to all these young people: we grew tertiary. But we grew it downwards! Provided a belief that if you stayed in the system, you were doing okay. That’s when we began to see disengagement. 20% disengagement: we got rid of industrial arts and technical education. It is now a general academic programme: a non-differentiated programme. Those countries that have this capacity in their systems do not experience this. 1. Physical Disengagement: actually not being at school 2. Virtual Disengagement: at sch but not getting quals 3. Unintended Disengagement: good intentions, right moves, but no success post secondary – preparing them with success experiences that have no ongoing relevance (articulation) between school and post school. WHAT TO DO? Purpose: bridge to nowhere: so many students have no road to it, and no road from it. Schools will find renewed purpose probably with more focus Readiness: Success Footprint vs Failure Footprint: inevitability that is quite predictable. Working around the idea of a quality, readiness and progress triangle. If one of these slides, progress is severely affected. In NZ, we typically have a structure of advancement called “Progress by Christmas”. Language: strengthen my language and I am strong: weaken my language and you weaken me. Multilingual, bilingual, English?? Language base: build on the neurological/structural aspects of language. We must build on the language they bring to school. How do we prepare our teaching force to do this? Thinking needed: new relationships with those language communities. The fragmented education system: Baltic State Syndrome: artificial borders that once created must be defended. MIDDLETON PROPHESY: Sectors have outlived their usefulness and will disappear early in the first half of the 21st century. THOUGHT: Major links with EIT: how can we engage these kids in meaningful programmes that prepare them for post-school: “College Knowledge” look up: Connolly? Conly? Students are said to appreciate being in classes with young adults: average age MIT: 28 · Education systems haven’t changed · Educators have not embraced change · Obsession with access has not resulted in equity · As a system we have lost community connection. Reference: "A Pragmatics Of Hope In An Age Of Cynical Reason" Kincheloe and McLaren //Poem: someone said "Curnow". Is that right?// Simply by sailing in a new direction You could enlarge the world …. …Who reaches A future down for us from the high shelf Of spiritual daring. // It is you as a teacher who must reach up to the high shelf and bring things down to the kids for them to use. // Stuart’s website: [|**www.stuartmiddleton.co.nz**]
 * What we are doing isn’t working. **
 * Social issues, disengagement, skill shortage, inactive youth. **
 * What is happening outside of education? **
 * Challenges come from: **
 * Why is this happening? **