A Threat to the Arts and Media Education – Back to the 3Rs
By Susan Battye
Drama Magic Ltd
Susan is an English / Drama teacher, writer and producer of digital resources for schools. She is the co-editor of the Drama New Zealand research ejournal.
When the Prime Minister John Key and Education Minister Anne Tolley launched the National Standards in reading, writing and maths on 23 October they effectively shifted the goal posts for the delivery of much of the existing National Curriculum including Arts and Media education.
According to subject associations and teacher unions, the focus of the New Zealand curriculum and has just narrowed considerably. The government will spend $36 million over the next 4 years in order to train Primary teachers and implement its programme, which requires schools to assess and provide twice yearly reports for students from Years 1 to 8 in reading, writing and mathematics.
From 2010 schools must “report to parents at least twice a year about their child’s progress and achievement in relation to the National Standards”. From 2012 “schools’ annual reports show their progress in relation to their targets for student achievement.” These published reports will most surely encourage media to run league tables based on a narrow set of criteria.
On the face of it the huge focus which is about to happen on reading and writing could provide a real impetus to members of the New Zealand Writers Guild. But there is no obvious benefit here in terms of the floodgates opening for newly written material. Nor does the brief specifically include Visual Literacy, (i.e. ‘reading’ film and television) which is part of the English curriculum.
Many of the young people who have graduated from New Zealand Film, Television and Theatre Arts schools in the past 9 years will have benefited from the introduction of the subjects of Drama and Media Studies into the secondary school curriculum. Primary teachers also appreciate that they sow the seeds of literacy in the Arts and Media Studies in their classrooms.
But in order to cover the seven essential learning areas at primary level and the related specific subject areas at secondary level, teachers and principals have come to rely heavily on the expertise of national advisory services. Advisors traditionally help teachers, regardless of the decile level of the school or the teacher’s educational background in the subject, to up-skill by facilitating networks with other teachers, arranging workshops and generally keeping teachers up to date with changes in methods of assessment, moderation and curriculum.
The arts curriculum statement, The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum, was only implemented as recently as the year 2000. It set in concrete guidelines for the teaching of Music, Dance, Drama and Visual Arts for years 1-13 and was the seventh and final Essential Learning Area of the Curriculum Framework to be implemented. At the time of the implementation the Ministry of Education put considerable energy into the provision of professional development and support via a vibrant and wide spread advisory service. The Ministry also provided subject specific national leadership and constant liaison with subject associations.
In the face of the current government reprioritization, it is likely that many of those gains in the Arts may be lost. Media Studies has also grown in popularity as a secondary school subject during the same period. During the early 2000s schools spent considerable effort, time and money building up their community’s confidence in the Arts and Media Studies by providing and equipping purpose built facilities. These buildings are often co-funded by a mix of school fund raising, the Ministry of Education, local bodies and private foundation funding. Indeed many schools have a co-share arrangement with the community which brings staff and students constantly into contact with working artists, technicians and writers.
Schools have often put the effort into these projects in the knowledge and expectation that there would be ongoing support from established advisory services for the teachers and from other sources such as the Arts facilitator programme and the Artist in Schools programme which have helped students and staff alike to ‘aim high’. These programmes have been cut.
Unfortunately, as a result of the narrowing of focus in terms of the definition about what constitutes literacy, in 2010 there will be no one nationally employed with subject expertise to advise primary teachers on the implementation of the arts. Nor will there be a secondary Media Studies advisor. Drama will have less than one full time equivalent teacher employed nationally to communicate with secondary teachers. There appears to be no accounting for the fact that it is possible to become literate in the arts.
In the face of these cuts it is somewhat ironic that the Ministry of Education’s own TKI website appears to have a much broader view of what constitutes literacy when it states that,
“Media literacy is a 21st century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyse, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms – from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.”
Center for Media Literacy (2006, June 21)
http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/rr2def.php
While we can characterize Minister Anne Tolley’s Education cuts as being mere ‘belt tightening’ in the face of a recession, they can also be seen as a case of ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’. Let’s hope the cuts are only temporary and that the lost ground and personnel can somehow be recovered. If the loss of the subject specific advisory services turns out to be permanent and five of the seven Essential Learning Areas are considered to be no longer relevant to the needs of New Zealand learners, then we could be in for a very narrow view of the world as an outcome. It could also be very damaging not only for the development of the Arts and Media Studies in schools but also, ultimately, to the development of New Zealand’s creative industries themselves.