“Transitioning into Change: Looking Forward; Looking Back”
Dr Paul Brock AM FACE FACEL
Director Learning and Development Research, NSW Department of Education
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney
After discussing with Dean White what theme I should address in my Keynote Address
today, we decided on “Transitioning into Change: Looking Forward; Looking Back”.
Reflecting over transition and what it means, has a long and honourable
historical tradition. For the great Greek philosopher, Heraclitus – who was
born in 535 BC and who died in 475 BC – change was instantaneous: he
believed that we are perpetually in a state of flux. As he wrote: “You can’t
put your feet in the same stream twice.”
Jump forward to the latter part of the 20th Century when Marshall McLuhan
once famously wrote: “We look at the present through a rear-view mirror.
We march backwards into the future.” According to author Tim Carmody,
McLuhan’s comment should be understood as “Our futures are always
experienced and frequently determined by a past that few of us fully
acknowledge or understand…” http://www.wired.com/2011/07/march-backwards-into-thefuture-marshall-mcluhans-century/
In times of apparent transition to change surely we must heed George
Santayana’s (much misquoted) famous words that “Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”?
Or is there much wisdom in the cryptic sentence attributed to Anonymous, that “What we
have learned from history – is that we don’t learn from history.”?
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In the last two decades, in just about every context – telecommunication technology; the
geopolitical balances; the increasing gaps between the rich and the poor across the whole
world; ‘prophecies’ about the nature of future employment; international terrorism; forms of
transport; and so on – the transitions between and within periods of generational change have
been significant.
In times when it is clear that we are in a period of educational transition from the past and
the present to the future, I myself favour the following approach. First, strive to have a good
grasp of the historical background from which we have come. Second identify, retain and
cherish what seems to be demonstrably of value from our past and in our present; and third,
junk the rest as we set out to shape our future. While always striving to exercise the crucial
power of intelligent critique!
But sometimes a period of apparent transition may be merely towards a period of temporary
or ephemeral change. For example, last Friday (15 January) the online Book Depository listed
over 100 titles of colouring-in books for adults to enable them to lighten their stress loads.
Are we transitioning to a significant change in book publication? Or to dramatic purchases by
HSC students, their parents, their teachers, Principals and the rest of us in positions of
leadership in NSW Public Education? Or is it, rather, a passing fad? Only time will tell.
But, especially after listening to our Secretary Dr Michele Bruniges’ comprehensive and
incisive presentation yesterday, there can be no doubt that in 2016 we in NSW Public
Education are transitioning into a period of great change: dominated by very significant,
capacious developments in policy eg Great Teaching Inspired Learning, Local Schools Local
Decisions, RAM, Connected Communities, the Wellbeing Framework for Schools, the Rural
and Remote Education Blueprint for Action, and so on; by the ever-increasing imbalance in
funding between Commonwealth funding of public education and private education; the recent
fairly substantial turnover of Director and Executive Director personnel in our Department; the
dramatic changes in what is expected, indeed demanded, of teacher quality; the appalling
dismemberment of Gonski; and the approaching end of our NSW Public Education’s spiritual
nerve centre of 100 years; just to name a few.
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As I have said on other occasions, I firmly believe that there are at least four interdependent foundations upon which our transition to change should be based: evidence-based
research; authentic scholarship; the distillation of wisdom from outstanding school Principals,
teachers, Directors and Executive Directors, and so on; and good old fashioned nous. I have
written about these and other issues in my recent article “Show an Affirming Flame: A
Message to the Profession”, published in the Journal of Professional
Learning, Semester 2, 2015. http://cpl.asn.au/journal/semester-22015/show-an-affirming-flame-a-message-to-the-profession
One of the delights of research is when what has been presumed to have been virtually
infallible, is exposed by subsequent critiqued research to be an urban myth – the exercise of
what our colleague Duncan Rintoul has described as “evaluative thinking”. For example, as
you well know, one of the often repeated assertions is as follows. In recent years while
Australian funding on school education has dramatically increased, Australian student
learning outcomes have significantly decreased when compared with some other –
particularly East Asian – educational systems. This kind of assertion is repeated regularly in
the media.
In the light of very recent research, I believe that this assertion should now be given the status
of an urban myth – if for no other reason than that its erroneous assumptions can lead to
erroneous Commonwealth Government funding policies; with potentially disastrous
consequences for Public Education.
It also exemplifies a simplistic (mis)understanding of East Asia.
In her splendid speech on World Teachers Day our Secretary, Dr Michele
Bruniges AM – herself a distinguished researcher – clearly articulated why
the general assertion about a relatively dramatic increase in national funding
on education is incorrect.
http://www.dec.nsw.gov.au/documents/15060385/15385042/World%20Teac
hers%20Day%202015.pdf
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“To those who say Australia has poured money into education with little to show for it, let me
say the evidence is clear that levels of investment in this country have lagged behind other
countries . . . despite data showing that education produces tangible benefits for students and
the economy.
Since 2001, according to the World Bank, the estimated economic return to an additional year
of education in Australia has been consistently higher than the OECD average, and shows a
strong increasing trend. Using the most recent estimates, Australia has the highest return in
the OECD for an additional year of secondary education (30.8 per cent). ..
But actual Australian expenditure on education as a proportion of GDP has been substantially
lower than the OECD average. .. More was spent on schooling in 2013 than 2000 because the
inputs involved in education cost more and there were more students to educate. In real terms
over this period, the tangible resources available to students grew by less than the overall
economy. ..” (see pp 2–3 in speech)
The assertion about the significant relative decline in national student learning outcomes is
based heavily, if not completely, on PISA results. However, the highly distinguished
educator, Professor Yong Zhao has torn into PISA, its methodology, its assumed educational
significance, and its use as a reliable measure of comparative educational achievements
between and among countries and other non whole-country systems (eg Shanghai).
In one of my emails late last year I provided you with a PDF copy of Professor
Zhao’s chapter on these very issues, titled “Who’s Afraid of PISA: The Fallacy
of International Assessments of System Performance” in the book Leading
Futures: Global Perspectives on Educational Leadership, which was published
in May last year.
As to the future, not all of its forecasters warrant equal credibility.
However, there are some futurists who warrant being taken seriously. For
example, Australian demographer Bernard Salt has drawn upon careful
research and scholarship and has refused to be seduced by the most
extremely adventurist futurists, nor be hamstrung by those who cling uncritically to the status
quo, when proposing future directions for society.
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Last September, Salt unveiled his report Super Connected Jobs, commissioned by the NBN,
which proposed how jobs will change as we move further into the digital age.
His graphs and tables are highly instructive, especially the one on page 7 of his report.
http://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/documents/super-connected-jobs-report.pdf
In an interview with AAP’s Caris Bizzaca, published in news.com.au
(http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/the-future-of-australian-jobs/story-fnkgbb3b1227515703732) Salt was asked “So what’s the biggest thing (you) learnt from the study
(about transitioning to change)?” he replied “That it’s not just about technical skills. It’s
about attitude — being adaptable and open to change.” (bold text, mine). Furthermore, Salt
insisted that we have to “Lean into tech(nology). Embrace it, learn it, master it, command it,
surf it, …… ”
In this interview Salt carefully avoided the typical ‘countless thousands of jobs will just
disappear straight away’ jeremiad: “There's going to be another five million Australians by
2030, so we need another three million workers”. Salt argued that “regardless of how
technology changes, we are always going to need doctors, accountants, dentists, urban
planners and teachers. It's just the way they conduct their work that might change.” (bold
text, mine).
http://www.mitchellinstitute.org.au/reports/lessons-that-matter-what-should-welearn-from-asias-school-systems/
The introduction to Professor Yong Zhao’s report, What Asia’s highperforming systems have to offer the world is not their past, but the future
they intend to create, commences as follows.
“In this report, Mitchell Professorial Fellow Yong Zhao analyses education reform efforts
over three decades in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and Shanghai. He argues what
Asia’s high-performing systems have to offer the world is not their past, but the future
they intend to create (bold text, mine).
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Zhao says these systems have a powerful vision to build a new kind of education
experience for their students, and have the courage to make changes to long-held
traditions and cultural practices.” You will find his list of distinguishing features of these
systems in the link to the report (above).
But we really don’t need to go to Shanghai to find what ought to be the goals of Australian
Education in driving the necessary changes in Australian school Education. We have already
heard our Secretary outline the challenging reform agenda for NSW Public Education now
and into the next few years.
At the same time, The Melbourne Declaration remains the most powerful and
articulate policy statement of the national goals – but I suggest that this 20
page document still remains relatively unread and unstudied by the
considerable majority of those with power in Australian Education; not only
parliamentarians and other policy shapers but also Principals, teachers, public
servants and parents – as well as media commentators. Signed off by all Commonwealth,
State and Territory Ministers of Education in 2008, it set out the goals for the subsequent
decade. I do not have time to explore it in any detail today.
http://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Declaration_on_the_Educational_
Goals_for_Young_Australians.pdf
However, I’d like to focus on one issue. In its section on curriculum, you will find a great and
necessary emphasis on literacy and numeracy. But you will also find great stress on a whole
range of curriculum and other areas demanding our attention. But none of these areas enjoy
the degree of media, political, and public discourse attention that the absolutely necessary
(but not sufficient) focus on literacy and numeracy receives.
We must resist any pressures to dilute and restrict the richness of the curriculum – only to
training in literacy and numeracy skills.
Let me give you one example of this which is dear to my heart and mind! English is a pivotal
subject in Australian school education. It provides a good example of where the fundamentals
of the subject continue to be at some risk of being diluted by the necessary, but not sufficient,
focus on basic literacy skills.
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The school subject English incorporates reading, writing, listening and viewing, within and
across classical, popular, and other forms of literature in poetry, fiction, non-fiction, the prose
of persuasion, the imaginative writing and forms of textual creation by students themselves,
participation in Drama, making and critiquing films – I could go on and on. The rich tapestry
of English is far broader, richer and deeper than that defined by the skills of basic literacy.
The same point can be made about the school subject Mathematics – which is far broader,
richer and deeper than the area defined by basic numeracy skills.
But what has to be emphasised is that in virtually any area of the curriculum, teachers can
incorporate a focus on these skills of literacy and numeracy. Incidentally, as we proceed into
the 21st Century, the content and contexts of student learning will need to expand
significantly.
The hopes of implementing at the national level, the Gonski goals of providing education that
is excellent and equitable for all, were both raised and dashed by the whole political narrative
around the Gonski Report. In that context (and others), here is the link to an interview
conducted with me that was published in the CPA Journal INTHEBLACK in March 2015,
which you might find of interest.
http://intheblack.com/articles/2015/03/02/paul-brocks-passion-for-educationproves-essential-in-battling-a-cruel-disease
The global and the Australian massive equity gaps have been dramatically demonstrated in
recent research undertaken for Oxfam. Let me quote from what appeared on their website last
Monday (18 January): “What We Do”.
https://www.oxfam.org.au/what-we-do/inequality/
“Extreme inequality — the gap between the rich and the poor — is rising
and threatening to undo the progress made in tackling poverty over the past
20 years.
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In 2015, just 62 individuals had the same wealth as 3.6 billion people — the poorer
half of humanity. As recently as 2010, it was 388 individuals with the same wealth as
those 3.6 billion.
In Australia, the richest 1% are as rich as the poorest 60% of Australians.
This concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few robs the poorest
people of the support they need to improve their lives, and means that their voices go
unheard.
Growing inequality is bad for us all. It undermines economic growth and leads to
more social conflict.”
Late last year, the St Vincent de Paul Society released its disturbing report
“Sick with Worry…”
http://issuu.com/gregorycaruso/docs/vinnies_sick_with_worry_report_2015
The press release contained the following information.
“St Vincent de Paul chief executive Dr John Falzon said 2.5 million people,
including 600,000 children, were living in poverty in Australia.”
However, what too rarely appears in such statements is the fact that we in Public Education
are called upon to provide the personnel and other resources to enable the children of the poor
and those disadvantaged in other ways, to experience the quality of education that they
deserve. The dismemberment of Gonski hobbles Australian Public Education in its attempts
to meet that challenge.
So, in all the bells and whistles and so-called ‘cutting edge’ advances being predicted at this
transitional stage in our 21st Century in general, and 21st Century education in particular,
there is always a risk of leaving even further behind – at least in comparative terms – those
less fortunate in our global world. This is not a risk, I am proud to say, that we in NSW
Public Education are prepared to take.
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There have been many attempts to plot what 21st Century school education should look like.
You might be interested, for example, in the report by Professor Patrick
Griffin on the Symposium he led: Anticipating the Future, hosted by AITSL,
titled “The Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills”.
I have not time to review it here – but you can see the link for a YouTube
presentation by Patrick here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRN7OqYgHII
It is extremely important, however, to remember when reading such lists of skills necessary
for this century, that none of the forms of learning – encompassing knowledge,
understanding, skills, values and talents – can be acquired in a content-free vacuum, as
my very good, longstanding friend Professor John Hattie continues to vigorously remind us.
For example, students can’t just communicate, or collaborate, or be creative, or be
entrepreneurial, or imaginative, or critique about nothing!
They must have a focus on something when developing these skills! Don’t allow the
necessary focus on context to distract us from the necessary focus on content!
CONCLUSION
As we transition into change, we NSW Public Education members of what the OECD has so
aptly described as the “knowing and caring profession” will need to reinvigorate and retain a
commitment to those agelessly honoured educational values of – for example – integrity;
respect; empathy; compassion; resilience; ‘doing unto others as you would have them do to
you’; responsibility; cooperation; participation; care; fairness; and so on.
I think it is always worth reminding ourselves of those powerful
words of the great Canadian philosopher, John Ralston Saul, who
wrote 15 years ago: “Any weakening of universal public education
can only be a weakening of the long-standing essential role
universal public education plays in making us a civilized democracy.” (John Ralston Saul,
“In defence of public education”, Speech to the Canadian Teachers' Federation Whitehorse,
Yukon, July 13, 2001).
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I want to conclude by taking up Marshall McLuhan’s observation about transitioning into
change by marching “backwards into the future” – by focusing on two remarkable periods
of successful transition to massive change – in order to demonstrate that the capacity,
knowledge, understanding, skills and willingness to embrace change is in our very
professional DNA as NSW Public Education Leaders.
From 1901 up until 1995 there were six transitions to major change in NSW Education. Two
were wholeheartedly led by our two greatest Directors General of NSW Public Education:
Peter Board and Harold (later Sir Harold) Wyndham.
All six were described and analysed in the book that my
then Departmental colleague, Dr John Hughes, and I
wrote, Reform and Resistance in NSW Public Education:
Six Attempts at Major Reform, 1905 – 1995. A copy of our
206 page book was sent to every public school in NSW.
Now out of print, it is available as a PDF.
The first massive reform was that driven by our longest serving Director-General, the great
Peter Board. Appointed as a relatively young man in 1905, he was denounced in an editorial
of the Sydney Morning Herald as a yokel appointed from Newcastle. Seventeen years later, in
1922, he protested at being ordered by the then Minister for Education, Albert Bruntnell, to
start charging school fees for public secondary school students. Board's protests were
dismissed and he resigned on this fundamental matter of principle towards the end of 1922,
three months earlier than he was due to retire.
As most of you know, the stately building at 35 Bridge Street was the product of Peter
Board’s vision, drive and commitment to NSW Public Education. Commenced in 1912 on the
Department’s land, the building was completed in time for staff to move into it in August
1915.
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It is recorded that towards the end of 1922, as he closed the doors on Bridge Street for the last
time, Peter Board wept. I suspect that I will experience a similar emotion when I am
wheelchair-rolled out of our building via the Loftus Street exit, for the last time after 22
years, by then, working there as a Director – prior to heading off to Parramatta.
The scope of Peter Board’s achievements is mind boggling. He led the greatest array of
transformational innovations in NSW Education since the passing of Sir Henry Parkes’
Education Act in 1880.
Apart from everything else, he profoundly changed the nature of NSW primary school
education; overhauled the system of preservice teacher education; successfully wrestled back
some significant control of the NSW school curriculum from The University of Sydney,
which it had claimed for itself for over half a century; and from 1911 vastly expanded and
transformed NSW secondary school education in the breadth and depth of scope, quality and
diversity – that would have been unthinkable in 1905 when he commenced his long reign. Of
course, all these state-wise systemic educational reforms transformed public school
education.
The second massive NSW educational reform was established by that other very great
Director-General, Sir Harold Wyndham; aided by his splendid Deputy Director-General, A
W (Bert) Stephens. Wyndham’s reforms were huge, based on his own review of NSW
secondary education produced by the committee he chaired – which commenced its work in
1953 and completed it in 1957 (during which period two of the committee’s secretaries died).
Mind you, those very reforms to move from three years of secondary education followed by
two years of upper secondary education (culminating respectively in the Intermediate
Certificate and the Leaving Certificate) to four years (School Certificate) and six years
(Higher School Certificate), had first been recommended by a NSW Government Committee
chaired by Professor RS Wallace in 1933! The fact that it would not be until 1962 that the
Wyndham First Form came into existence requires longer explanation than I have the time for
today. As part of the reform, incidentally, virtually overnight 500 public school primary
teachers became public secondary school teachers.
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The massive changes in NSW secondary education between the end of 1961 and the start of
First Term 1962, and from 1962 to 1965, have not been equalled – in both scope of task and
speed of implementation – since then.
For example, in the last months of 1961, syllabuses in all secondary subjects were hurriedly
written for Term 1 1962 by teams of subject specialists.
Most of 1962 was spent in equally furious preparation of syllabuses for Forms II to IV. The
preparation of the Forms V to VI syllabuses enjoyed longer periods of gestation – but all had
to be in schools by 1965.
As we leaders set out to successfully accept, indeed embrace, the challenges and the
opportunities we are having and will have in this period of transition to significant change,
we should be able to draw upon the professional DNA – incorporating, intelligence, integrity,
empathy, bravery, vision, energy, commitment and so many other values – that we have
inherited from our two greatest leaders of change in NSW Public Education, Peter Board and
Sir Harold Wyndham. In Dr Michele Bruniges we certainly have a leader with all the
qualities in abundance necessary to follow faithfully in the footsteps of her greatest
predecessors, in successfully leading us into change of the scope, breadth and depth that we
are all facing now and into the future.
Let us hope it will be a great ride for all of us!
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