I’m not normally a political activist, however there have been some political decisions made in NZ over the past four years that are really starting to undermine our education system.  The latest of these on Thursday when the government announced that all Specialist Teachers at Yrs 7 & 8 will be axed.  Here is my letter to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education – feel free send them your views too!

Dear Mr Key and Ms Parata

I write to you both in response to the recent budget decision to cut specialist teachers in Intermediate Schools in New Zealand. I am not a specialist Technology teacher but in my role as Deputy Principal at Oamaru Intermediate I oversee our Technology Centre, the four teaching staff within it, the programme and its delivery.  While I do not have a background in specialist teaching I did come to the school with a passion for Technology education as a teacher who previously taught in lower levels.  (I was actually involved in 1998 and 1999 as a teacher who wrote support material for Ministry of Education resources to support classroom teachers in Technology – based on the 1997 Curriculum).  While I was comfortable teaching technology in Years 3 and 4, I would never have wished to have taught it in the classroom setting at Yr 7 & 8 due to the specialised nature of skills, machinery and outcomes required by the teacher – that I am just not trained in.

At Oamaru Intermediate our specialist teachers deliver programmes in Electronics, Hard Materials (wood and metal), Art, Soft Materials and Food.  We deliver programmes to our own 286 students as well as 200 students from the neighbouring 10 rural schools.  We have high quality facilities that are purpose built and equipped with specialised equipment, in order to deliver programmes that are not possible within the realms of the ‘usual’ classroom environment. 

I’m sure you will be aware that with the implementation of the Revised NZ Curriculum (NZC) in 2007, the Technology curriculum was the one curriculum area that changed substantially.  This was all due to the direction to be creating learners who were creative, innovative designers who could demonstrate an understanding for designing and creating outcomes that served a purpose.  This was a bold move at the time, however one that can be applauded for the foresight and future thinking of our country. 

At Oamaru Intermediate we have spent a number of years working with the new Technology Curriculum and developing programmes that serve as purposeful, meaningful, engaging experiences for the children who are taught at our centre.  Teachers have participated in intensive Professional Development.  A large amount of resourcing has gone into this over the past three years especially. Many hours, both within school time and teachers’ own time has been given to ensure that programmes of the highest standard are available to our students, so that they are provided with rich experiences not possible in other contexts.

We have also worked closely with one of our local high schools to ensure that the transition for our students in Technology was streamlined and led to them being more successful with Technology at High School, in particular making sure that they were strongly equipped and ready to be dealing with Technology at NCEA Level 1 inYear 11. 

 Our Centre has been noted as one of exemplary delivery of Technology in NZC and you can view case studies about us and our programmes on the industry driven website TechLink.

• Case Study – the changes we have implemented
  http://www.techlink.org.nz/Case-studies/Classroom-practice/Teaching-Practice/CP1103-Implementing-the-Technology-curriculum/background.htm
• Hard Materials Tech – A cultural perspective – Patu
  http://www.techlink.org.nz/teaching-snapshot/Y07-10-Middle/patu-oamaru.htm
• Hard Materials Tech – Garden Wind Ornaments
  http://www.techlink.org.nz/teaching-snapshot/Y07-10-Middle/Garden_wind-ornaments-Oamaru.htm
• Art Tech – From Play to Clay – Clay tiles and a Community Installation
  http://www.techlink.org.nz/teaching-snapshot/Y07-10-Middle/From-Play-to-Clay-Oamaru.htm

You can also view examples of the specialist teaching of other areas on our School Technology Blog.  The purpose of this blog is not only to communicate what is happening in our rooms, but it also aims to educate our parents and the teachers of client school students on the skills and knowledge being developed in these rooms:

• Food Tech – Designer Cookies
  http://oistech.edublogs.org/2012/05/22/master-chef-quality-we-think-so/
• Electronics – Using PickAxe to programme an electronic system
  http://oistech.edublogs.org/2011/11/25/eli-and-his-picaxe-inspired-boat/
• Soft Materials
  http://oistech.edublogs.org/2011/11/17/client-schools-in-the-fabric-room/
• http://oistech.edublogs.org/2011/05/06/aprons/

These programmes could not be put in place by classroom teachers due to the specialised nature of the delivery, knowledge , skills and content of these.

To say I have real concerns about your intended cuts is an understatement.  At our school, and I believe that we will be representative of most other intermediate schools in the country, the specialised teaching provides a vital link in the transition to secondary education.  Students begin to develop relationships with a range of teachers, making links between and within different areas of learning.

I am constantly seeing Technology as the vehicle to re-engage disengaged learners who struggle within the areas of Literacy and Numeracy, but who can put a conceptual design together and follow that through to an outcome.  I see our Maori and Pasifika students excel in these areas, providing them with a boost in self-esteem, as the language barrier is minimised in these more practical, hands on learning experiences. 

Technology education also provides an important link with career education at this level too, and allows students to be exposed to areas and potential career pathways through technology.  We currently have an industry link with our local cheesemakers – Whitestone Cheese, in our food tech programme, as well as a community exploration programme in our Art Technology.  You are asking for more engineers – where are you going to expose students to these as career options within a purposeful context?

Media have publicised this as ‘Teachers out of jobs’, but effectively you are taking away the careers of these teachers in these specialist areas.  These teachers are trained specifically in Technology, and more specifically in their own context – are you going to provide retraining for them so that they can continue to have a career and an income?  You state that ‘natural attrition’ will absorb the excess of teachers.  We are likely to lose 4-5 teaching positions.  Due to the stability of our school – because we are a place where people like to work and teach adolescents, we don’t have this type of staff turnover.

The biggest issue though I believe is the narrowing of the curriculum. Students who don’t excel in other areas of the curriculum have the opportunity to be leaders in this, students who do excel in the areas of literacy and numeracy are often put ‘out of their comfort zone’ in a technology class, which then allows them to experience some rich learning, while appreciating the struggles that some have within the classroom context. Technology is a ‘rich’ curriculum area.  It explores design, functional modelling, conceptual designs, explores the needs of stakeholders and provides students with a genuine context for learning.  It provides a number of contexts within which the learning occurs, and it provides authentic learning experiences where students can take real ownership for their learning.  I don’t believe that classroom teachers will have the skills and knowledge to do this anywhere near as successfully as Specialist teachers do.

Your political drive to improve the capability of our teachers and learning outcomes of our students in Literacy and Numeracy has seen most teacher professional development focused on these areas over recent years.  There hasn’t even been a Primary Technology Curriculum advisor in Otago for three years. How are classroom teachers going to be able to teach the complexity of the Technology curriculum without any upskilling themselves?  Where are the advisors going to come from in order to support classroom teachers?  These are questions that need to be answered if you withdraw Specialist teachers.

Technology is not woodwork, sewing and cooking anymore.  It is a complex process where students explore, identify needs, design, create, recreate and seek feedback within a variety of specialised contexts.  It is the one curriculum area that looks to provide students with an opportunity to share their ‘Number 8 wire’ thinking early in their lives, and to make connections to real life situations. 

You cannot just put a line through the jobs of these teachers, and the missed opportunities of our students.  They all deserve a fair deal, and some sort of consultation would be a fair and just way to start. We cannot afford to lose 4 or 5 teachers from our school and the skills that they have.  We cannot expect classroom teachers, with little or no support, significant class sizes and more Special Needs students to just pick up where these teachers left off – it isn’t fair for anyone.

I would appreciate the answers to the following questions:

• Why was the profession, Intermediate Schools in particular, not consulted on this issue before the Budget announcement on Thursday?
• Exactly what time frame are you planning on implementing this – when will our teachers know of their position?
• What support of Specialist teachers will there be in order to allow them to retrain in other areas of the curriculum, or to be general classroom teachers?
• What support of classroom teachers will there be in order for them to have access to Professional Development so that they can teach this specialised area?
• What benefits to students and their learning do you see this change making?

I would like to invite you to visit our Technology Centre at Oamaru Intermediate, view our specialised facilities that we have spent much time and money upgrading, maintaining and resourcing, and more importantly viewing students in action in these rooms. I want you to see students achieving, regardless of their oral language ability, their numeracy levels, or their ability to read or write. I ask that you take the time to talk to our students, both current and past, to gain an insight into the value that they believe Technology education with specialist teachers has given them.

Please listen to our profession – we are professionals.  We are intelligent, educated people who want the best for the students we teach – now and in the future.  We aren’t after an ‘easy ride’, we understand the practicalities and complexities of much of what you are expecting, and don’t see these as good decisions for education, or for our country in general.

Kind Regards
Deidre Senior