I know the font is small and you can't read much of it, but the picture above is significant because of it's small-ness. In this one picture are ALL of the "achievement outcomes" for history, geography, economics and social studies courses in NZ high schools. The equivalent document in Minnesota is 54 pages of standards and benchmarks, plus another 10 pages or so of explanation of how to read it all. Why should you care? Because NZ gets it right, whereas Minnesota sets itself up for failure.
IN NEW ZEALAND
To explain further, here's an example. In every year 11 (10th grade) New Zealand history class students have ONLY two achievement objectives:
Students will gain the knowledge, skills, and experiences to:
1. Understand how the causes and consequences of past events that are of significance to New Zealanders shape the lives of people and society.
2. Understand how people's perspectives on past events that are of significance to New Zealanders differ.
IN MINNESOTA
Compare this to the state of Minnesota, which has 43 benchmarks for a year-long world history course. The state says, "each benchmark equates to 2-3 days of instruction, on average." Claiming that you could learn anything meaningful about these each benchmarks in 2-3 days is a joke. Take a look. Here are two Minnesota World History benchmarks::
9.4.3.8.3 "Analyze the emergence, development, and impact of religions and philosophies of this era, including Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity."
Can you imagine trying to "analyze the emergence, development, and impact" of one of these religions in about 20 minutes? That's what is being asked of teachers.
9.4.3.11.3 "Describe the independence movements and rebellions in the Caribbean and Central and South America; analyze the social, political and economic causes and consequences of these events."
Again, how would anyone do this justice in 2-3 days of instruction? It's a joke. A not funny joke.
Even assuming these benchmarks are the most important things to teach (doubtful), there is no way a teacher can actually teach all of them
WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF THIS?
I'm not sure people realize how significant the NZ curriculum freedom is for teachers individually and the profession as a whole.
For starters, the NZ curriculum is based on the assumption that teachers are competent enough to decide what is worth teaching, given their context. It assumes teachers are professionals. It places enormous trust in teachers and gives them the intellectual freedom to do what is best for their students. The significance of this cannot be overstated.
Secondly, NZ achievement objectives assume that curriculum can and should be different in every school. They allow for culturally responsive, place-based education, which is much more likely to be aligned with indigenous ways of doing and knowing history.
Third, curricular freedom like this promotes in-depth analysis of a few broad topics, rather than encouraging teachers to march through a laundry list of events and names. There is no way to reach the NZ objectives unless a teacher is teaching critical thinking skills and allowing them to be applied to a topic studied in detail.
In contrast, the Minnesota standards promote the use of textbooks and memorization of random facts, as this is the only way to pretend to cover all the benchmarks listed. Students read a paragraph or two about each topic, memorize a few vocabulary words, and presto, the teacher can claim to have taught the standard. This kind of teaching is problematic, for so many reasons, including:
-memorizing facts is not doing history
-it promotes a transmission model of education, with lectures and textbooks as the only way to even attempt to do what is legally required
-inherent in it being decided at a state level, it is beholden to legislators and more likely to ignore the students already marginalized in schools
-it's boring
I could go on and on, but I'll stop there.
SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US?
No one says it out loud, but ultimately, the Minnesota Social Studies Standards (and every other state with similar lists) forces teachers to decide what to emphasize in the curriculum. Note, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT NZ TEACHERS ARE ALREADY DOING. The difference is that in NZ everyone is aware that this is happening and supportive of it. People can have honest conversations about what is getting taught, and why. In the States everyone is busy pretending to cover all the objectives, leading to terrible teaching, and few supports in place to help teachers think through their curricular decisions. Teachers are stuck in a catch-22. Lie and pretend you manage to teach everything or tell the truth, acknowledge that you don't, and be seen as not doing your job.
I'M A TEACHER WHO CARES, WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Quit pretending you can teach everything. Choose 4-8 benchmarks for the year and teach them well. Find supportive colleagues and have conversations about what is worth teaching, given your student body and local history. Talk to students about the difficulties of choosing which history to emphasize and which to set aside. Make sure the topics and authors you focus on are relevant to your students and promote a critical approach to understanding society.
I'M A PARENT WHO CARES, WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Ask your child's teacher what topics will be taught during the year and hold teachers accountable for teaching your child difficult history, not a national myth of progress. Ask teachers how they'll incorporate conversations about race and class and gender. Ask what curriculum resources they need to do their job well, maybe buy them something from Rethinking Schools or The Choices Program at Brown University . Support them when they say "We can't cover everything, so this year I've decided to focus on..." Speak up if your child is reading from a textbook and taking notes every day.
Sadly, I don't think the U.S. is looking to New Zealand for guidance in how to improve social studies classes. So in my corner of the world, I'm going go with the theory that asking teachers to do the impossible gives them tacit permission to do what's best for kids. Let's call it critically-conscious, place-conscious, realistic pedagogy.
IN NEW ZEALAND
To explain further, here's an example. In every year 11 (10th grade) New Zealand history class students have ONLY two achievement objectives:
Students will gain the knowledge, skills, and experiences to:
1. Understand how the causes and consequences of past events that are of significance to New Zealanders shape the lives of people and society.
2. Understand how people's perspectives on past events that are of significance to New Zealanders differ.
IN MINNESOTA
Compare this to the state of Minnesota, which has 43 benchmarks for a year-long world history course. The state says, "each benchmark equates to 2-3 days of instruction, on average." Claiming that you could learn anything meaningful about these each benchmarks in 2-3 days is a joke. Take a look. Here are two Minnesota World History benchmarks::
9.4.3.8.3 "Analyze the emergence, development, and impact of religions and philosophies of this era, including Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity."
Can you imagine trying to "analyze the emergence, development, and impact" of one of these religions in about 20 minutes? That's what is being asked of teachers.
9.4.3.11.3 "Describe the independence movements and rebellions in the Caribbean and Central and South America; analyze the social, political and economic causes and consequences of these events."
Again, how would anyone do this justice in 2-3 days of instruction? It's a joke. A not funny joke.
Even assuming these benchmarks are the most important things to teach (doubtful), there is no way a teacher can actually teach all of them
WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF THIS?
I'm not sure people realize how significant the NZ curriculum freedom is for teachers individually and the profession as a whole.
For starters, the NZ curriculum is based on the assumption that teachers are competent enough to decide what is worth teaching, given their context. It assumes teachers are professionals. It places enormous trust in teachers and gives them the intellectual freedom to do what is best for their students. The significance of this cannot be overstated.
Secondly, NZ achievement objectives assume that curriculum can and should be different in every school. They allow for culturally responsive, place-based education, which is much more likely to be aligned with indigenous ways of doing and knowing history.
Third, curricular freedom like this promotes in-depth analysis of a few broad topics, rather than encouraging teachers to march through a laundry list of events and names. There is no way to reach the NZ objectives unless a teacher is teaching critical thinking skills and allowing them to be applied to a topic studied in detail.
In contrast, the Minnesota standards promote the use of textbooks and memorization of random facts, as this is the only way to pretend to cover all the benchmarks listed. Students read a paragraph or two about each topic, memorize a few vocabulary words, and presto, the teacher can claim to have taught the standard. This kind of teaching is problematic, for so many reasons, including:
-memorizing facts is not doing history
-it promotes a transmission model of education, with lectures and textbooks as the only way to even attempt to do what is legally required
-inherent in it being decided at a state level, it is beholden to legislators and more likely to ignore the students already marginalized in schools
-it's boring
I could go on and on, but I'll stop there.
SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US?
No one says it out loud, but ultimately, the Minnesota Social Studies Standards (and every other state with similar lists) forces teachers to decide what to emphasize in the curriculum. Note, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT NZ TEACHERS ARE ALREADY DOING. The difference is that in NZ everyone is aware that this is happening and supportive of it. People can have honest conversations about what is getting taught, and why. In the States everyone is busy pretending to cover all the objectives, leading to terrible teaching, and few supports in place to help teachers think through their curricular decisions. Teachers are stuck in a catch-22. Lie and pretend you manage to teach everything or tell the truth, acknowledge that you don't, and be seen as not doing your job.
I'M A TEACHER WHO CARES, WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Quit pretending you can teach everything. Choose 4-8 benchmarks for the year and teach them well. Find supportive colleagues and have conversations about what is worth teaching, given your student body and local history. Talk to students about the difficulties of choosing which history to emphasize and which to set aside. Make sure the topics and authors you focus on are relevant to your students and promote a critical approach to understanding society.
I'M A PARENT WHO CARES, WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Ask your child's teacher what topics will be taught during the year and hold teachers accountable for teaching your child difficult history, not a national myth of progress. Ask teachers how they'll incorporate conversations about race and class and gender. Ask what curriculum resources they need to do their job well, maybe buy them something from Rethinking Schools or The Choices Program at Brown University . Support them when they say "We can't cover everything, so this year I've decided to focus on..." Speak up if your child is reading from a textbook and taking notes every day.
Sadly, I don't think the U.S. is looking to New Zealand for guidance in how to improve social studies classes. So in my corner of the world, I'm going go with the theory that asking teachers to do the impossible gives them tacit permission to do what's best for kids. Let's call it critically-conscious, place-conscious, realistic pedagogy.
There's no time for lessons like this one (below) if the goal is to cover huge chunks of history in short amounts of time. In the lesson below, the students had to read a variety of sources about the New Zealand Company and Te Aro Pa (a Maori settlement), then create two plaques to recognize what happened on the land in 1840 (land upon which the school is located). One plaque was written from the NZ Company perspective and one was written from the Te Aro Pa perspective. Students had amazing conversations about the words that should be used for each and doing this activity required them to read, understand, and interpret the sources given to them.
The assignment below is an example of a student annotating sources. Critiquing what they read is an important skill, but there's no time for it if the goal is breadth of content, rather than depth.