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Trevor's Rants   

 

23rd February 2008:

"Teaching and Learning"

I have just returned home from the 2008 Learning@School conference. One of the major messages hinged around changing our focus to teaching to learning. Traditionally teachers have thought primarily about the content to be taught and then how it will be taught and this guides their classroom practice. The challenge is to think first about the learning that is to happen and how children learn then let this govern child/teacher interaction. It is interesting to see how this approach fits so well with the broad aims of the 2007 NZ National Curriculum yet in most Ministry of Education document the phrase that occurs continuously is "teaching and learning". Surely this phrase passes messages like:

  • teaching is more important than learning

  • learning always results from teaching

  • the focus is on what and how we teach rather than the learning.

This is more than mere semantics because words convey messages. I would love to see this phrase turned round in Ministry of Education documents and a more consistent message being sent to teachers and communities.