Education revolution or education rewind?

National Curriculum. Election promises. Unifying our nation. It all sounds so socially forward thinking and exciting. And it should be. I mean, our children are the future. They are the shapers of our nation and they deserve the best education that we can offer. However, as an early childhood educator, I’m not entirely certain that we’re on the right track.

Okay, so here’s a little bit of context. I live in Queensland. Nationally, our children have not been ‘performing’ (industry term, not mine) as well as children in other states when it comes to NAPLAN results. This is widely published and one of the reasons there is such a push for a National Curriculum. What is not widely published, is that up until this year, our children have been 6-12 months younger with 1 year less schooling than their interstate peers. Suddenly our results don’t look so bad. Furthermore,  since 2007 and up until this year, we had been operating a play-based Preparatory program. This program offered the best of both worlds – children were offered a safe, supportive environment in which to develop socially, emotionally and physically while still beginning to learn the academic skills they require to be successful in the following 12+ years of formal education ahead of them. But this is all changing.

The pressure of meeting a National Curriculum guideline has lead many well-meaning teachers to revert to old-fashioned schooling methods that were outdated when they were used on me some decades ago. I did some relief work in a school yesterday where I used to (proudly) be a part of the team which offered a child-centred program that promoted positive outlooks to learning through active investigation, only to be devastated by the discovery of Prep room tables set in rows, facing a blackboard. Children were no longer offered the opportunity to investigate their world and come to meaningful understandings. They were now expected to sit at desks and fill in soulless worksheets. Why? In the name of meeting outcomes.

In an attempt to keep up with the Jones’ (New South Wales and Victoria) it seems schools are rushing to academise our 5 year olds and show them that learning is a serious business which requires hard work and discipline. Well, lets face it, they’re 5 years old….it’s time they grew up and got to grips with it, right? Wrong. The powers-that-be haven’t even waited for the latest NAPLAN results to come through to measure the effect our play-based Prep curriculum has had on the perceived literacy and numeracy skills of our wee ones. The saddest part is, I’ve experienced first hand the power of play for children in this age group and there is a thousand times more teaching/learning potential in an inquiry-based curriculum than there will ever be in desks and worksheets.

So, when I hear about an education revolution, I am excited by the potential to extend the minds of our future generations, but terrified of the well-intentioned but old-fashioned and enormously misguided heads of schools who – out of fear and a distinct lack of creative thinking – revert to drill and practise over instilling a love of learning and a belief in each individual’s ability to arrive at the same destination through many different avenues.

Our childrens’ capacity for intellectual growth should not be confused for a need to be enculturated into a tick-the-box system. Is that really the most effective way to nurture the creative-thinkers of our future?