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Eight teachers of History at Burnside High School met to discuss the four options for the aligned standards and the consensus of the department was that Option 1 was the best one. There was considerable annoyance expressed at the “diktat” from the NZQA/MOE regarding their refusal to contemplate nominating specific contexts for external standards, especially essay writing. Our teachers are conscious of the general feeling against generic essay topics, but were realistic enough to accept that if this is what is eventually imposed then we must prepare our students as best we can. If this fait accompli occurs, it will be incumbent upon future examiners and markers not to set too high a level of expectation, or ruling any context out, especially in 2010-2011 while teachers and students are still getting used to the new system.

There was a strong feeling in favour of the retention of some form of external examination in order for the subject to have some credibility, as well as preparing senior students for the realities of tertiary study. There was an enquiry about whether other senior subjects were facing similar pressures from NZQA/MOE to increase the level of internal assessment and/or modify current external assessment expectations. There was a query about the rationale for combining 3.1 and 3.2 into a single standard. There was also a well-founded concern about the impact of proposed changes on teacher workload.

That being said, the Department understood how difficult it must be for the group reviewing history standards to try to meet the clear expectations of history teachers while faced with the intransigence of the NZQA/MOE reviewers. It seems that NZQA/MOE, when faced with reasoned arguments for teachers’ preferences, respond by simply restating their policy without ever justifying it. There was a clear hope that history teachers would be reasonable enough to accept that if what finally transpires is not what they wanted, the responsibility for this lies directly with NZQA/MOE and not the review group who are struggling manfully on our behalf.

I have to admit that on a first skim viewing I was extremely worried about the Ministries apparent desire to have generic questions, when so far, at level two, they have caused numerous issues and teachers have consistently complained that they have not been handled well. That combined with the potential increased workload due to the increased number of internals had me questioning why the Ministry and teachers were wanting such incredibly different things and neither appears to be reaching a compromise.

 On closer reading and more rational thinking, my concerns have eased somewhat, but I think to truly get to grips with the implications of each option – teachers need the explanatory notes. Without them, my interpretation of the standards and my desire to avoid generic questions, combined with the assumption that the Ministry will introduce all the achievement standards (across all three levels) at once, pushes me towards option three.

 I do have a couple of queries that I would like to be put to the ministry however:

 a) Why do the Ministry appear to want to increase the number of internal assessments, moving away from exam situations – therefore widening the gap between school assessment and university assessment? If students complete a 100% internal course for 3 years as per option 4, they will struggle significantly when they have to face exams at university level.

 b) Without the ‘broad survey’, how will Scholarship exist? Is this why 3.4 now includes historical debate to compensate?

c) What is the pre-occupation with ‘events’ as opposed to themes or personalities? The word “event” appears in research (1.1), communication (1.2) and perspectives (1.4) standards and also in 1.6/2.6 in the option two matrix. I would like to see a definition of ‘event’…for example how small/large can an ‘event’ be – is World War Two an event, or a series of events for example?

d) If we did end up with an entirely (or even mostly) internally assessed course, will teachers be compensated for the additional hours spent creating, marking and moderating assessments which they are currently eligible to be paid for (for some standards) as markers for NZQA.

e) Are other subjects increasing the numbers of internals – if they aren’t, will this devalue history as a subject in already critical parents eyes? If they are increasing their internals, will this mean that students are expected to stay in class for the whole of term 4 rather go on study leave? And also, if they have no externals, what do we teach in this time as it will be too late to do anything significant based on the current moderation set-up.

I suspect that since matrix two is a bit of a red herring. It has1.1, 1.2 and 1.6 being so similar (ie wanting an event with significance to NZ) many over burdened teachers will double or in some cases triple dip, using the same content to achieve 12 credits for their students. I doubt that this will broaden students knowledge of history, or in fact show New Zealand in a ‘wider global context’ as hoped but instead limit it.

Therefore, at this point, I am not yet appeased…and feel many other teachers may be in a similar situation. It is really important that the Ministry doesn’t assume teachers silence means that they are in agreement with what is occurring, it may simply mean that teachers are so busy they haven’t got time to get properly involved in the debate. If that is the case, should we really be increasing the workload further by brining in all these topic/standard changes all at once in 2010? I’d like to think the Ministry has some vague idea of current teacher workload, but doubt it.

Aimee Breddy, St Cuthberts College.

Stephen Tester
Tawa College

I can live with any of the options but my preference is for option 3, although if there are no topics we should perhaps bite the bullet and go for option 4! It will be very difficult to set exams which teachers are satisfied with if the questions are all generic.
 
I have actually been quite happy with the generic essay questions at Level 2 but I do not see Year 11 students coping with generic essay questions.
 
I like the idea of reducing the number of standards at levels 1 and 2 to five, especially if more of them are going to be internally assessed.
 
Comments/questions:
1. Why are the resource questions at Level 1 limited to primary resources?
2. Why are the research descriptors limited to ‘an event’. (Levels 1, 2 and 3 – 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1/2) Currently my students do research focused on a personality (eg level 1 brochure, level 2 ‘This is your life”). Could it not be ‘an event/issue or personality’? An event is fairly restrictive.
3. In Option 2, would the 1.6 and 2.6 sections be generic questions? I can see it would be fairly straightforward at Level 1. Would level 2 be resource based, essay style or what? Actually, this applies to 3.4 also. Is it intended that the ‘debate’ be given to them as resources (similar to the current scholarship set-up) or would it be essays, generic, paragraphs? Any ideas yet? This would influence my choice of option.
 
When will we know what the final decision is? Thanks for all the work you are putting in on this. Rather a thankless task!
Ruth Holland
HOD Otaki College

Already one can detect considerable unease being expresed about where we are
heading.
The concerns as we see them at TGC are:

* decontextualised teaching and learning is not good educational
practice, yet it would appear the Ministry is reluctant to allow 
specified contexts(topics) for external examination.  This then may mean
we can only avoid decontextualised  teaching and learning if there is
school-based internal assessment, directly related to the contexts
taught.  What a predicament we have got ourselves in!

* any notion of having an external exam of less than 2 hrs will probably
be treated with some indifference by numerous students, not something
that would prove to be positive for the subject

* everything seems to have to be discussed within the parameters of some
rather narrow AO’s devised in the curriculum statement- it  appears
there was an  interest group shaping the curriculum statement who have
determined that  5 of the 6 AO’s for Levels 6, 7, and 8 have to be “of
significance to New Zealanders’ .  This is going to result in some
rather limiting outcomes, unless this is challenged.

Goodness knows where all this is going to take the study of History in
the senior secondary school, but the framework does seem flawed, -yet we
have the uneasy feeling that the horse has probably bolted!

We do have some practical questions from the viewpoint of those students
who opt for History as a subject  because they like and are excited
about topics/contexts we currently teach. eg In Year11 topics such as
Origins of WW2, and Black Civil Rights, USA.
It is stated that while “this does not preclude existing topics being
taught, they must be tweaked to fit the AO’s”, which therefore means in
terms of  “significance to New Zealanders”.  How is it envisaged such
‘tweaking’ of these topics would be done??

Murray Armstrong
HOD Social Sciences
Tauranga Girls’ College

Bruce Farthing – Otumoetai College
Comment on the New Zealand History Matrix August 2008

• There is very little difference in the 4 Matrix Options in relation to the nature & purpose for teaching the subject of history in New Zealand.

• The differences are all about assessing within a contextualized / de-contextualized frameworks and therefore whether standards are assessed internally or externally.

The only other difference is about what is included or excluded from the matrix.

In summary all 4 Matrix ask of students to only.

Either describe or communicate or examine events, perspectives, developments, situations or
Interpret  Analyse historical sources

The matrix “locks” in a traditional positioning of the subject history that could have been written in the 1970’s. It will maintain the status quo and cause the subject to remain static to a body of fact.

• It must be asked of NZHTA, the Ministry of Education and NZQA have they read the MOE gifted and talented positioning documents which clearly outline expectations well in excess of the proposed matrix forwarded to schools?

Has the area of school history been scoped to established objectives for learners of the 21st Century?

Why does ‘school’ history have to remain such a peculiar little entity, isolated from the recent developments in academy and public history.

When constructing the matrix why has recent research within New Zealand into history pedagogy clearly been ignored and why have those who conducted the research been ignored?

Hunter,P., & Farthing, B. (2004). Talking history: Teachers’ perceptions of “their” curriculum in the context of history in the New Zealand curriculum, 1980-2003. Hamilton: Wilf Malcolm Institute for Educational Research.
Hunter,P., & Farthing, B. (2005). Conceptions of history and historical understandings in the social sciences learning area: A response to the Curriculum Marautanga Project’s developments. The New Zealand Journal of Social Studies, 13, 15-19.
Hunter,P., & Farthing, B. (2007). Connecting learners with their pasts as a way into history. Set: Research Information for Teachers, 1, 21-27.
Hunter,P., & Farthing, B. (2008). Students think history and teachers learn.
Set: Research Information for Teachers, 1, 15-22.

• The matrix has clearly not been informed by the international research into teaching history over the last 15 years.

• Selection of historical contexts determine the concepts and ideas that can be highlighted and therefore such will in turn shape the historical meaning that students come to understand. Eg: If the contexts chosen highlight conflict then that is what the learner will come to understand about history.

• Year 11-13 learners are capable of exploring concepts and ideas.
• Year 11-13 learners are capable of critiquing ideas and interpretations.
• Year 11-13 learners are capable of unpacking identity, so integral to the subject.
• Year 11-13 learners are capable of establishing connections to human agency in history
• Year 11-13 learners are capable of understanding the discipline of history

• As the author of the original history standards matrix in 1994 I am very disappointed to see that the 2008 matrix has moved backwards and taken no notice of any developmental research in the subject discipline in the last 14 years. Is this because the authors of the 2008 matrix are only interested in maintaining the status quo because it means no work? Or, because they fail to do the necessary thinking?

Should students only describe/examine – events/developments/situations? Or should they explore concepts/ideas, critique interpretations and grow a real understanding of the discipline of history?

The position of exploring concepts/ideas is more in line with the intent of the revised NZ Curriculum.

NZHTA Proposed Matrices: A Personal Response

So many of the contributions I am reading on the NZHTA site are talking only in abstractions and unsupported generalizations based upon what seems a partial reading / understanding of the material provided. After some reflection I decided to respond to those general concerns with a specific, personal statement setting out my view of the situation we, as history teachers and historians face and outlining my opinions and preferences and detailing the thinking behind them. This seems to be an unusual approach in “debates” on curriculum issues from what I can see: Paul O’Connor is, for example, the only contributor to personalise reasons and insights in the current crop of blogs on the NZHTA site. I’ve chosen to follow his example in the hopes of encouraging / provoking some real engagement in the debate and moving us much of the current sound and fury signifying bugger all. Whether this in fact is the case, remains to be seen. I admit to scepticism, based on my current analysis of the level of debate that more than the first paragraph will be read

First, my personal statement / disclaimer: I am an HOD and Director of Assessment at a mid-decile state co-ed high school. I teach junior Social Studies, Classical Studies and, of course, History. I enjoy all the subjects I teach, but History is the one I feel passionate about. It dominates my personal and professional reading and I intend very soon (when the NZHTA Exec moves on from Otago), to pick up and pursue one of the PhD topics I’ve been playing about with for the last decade or so.

I am in my twenty-sixth year of teaching and continue to find the classroom an engaging, absorbing and energising place to be. I loathe administration and am deeply frustrated at the way that HOD’s have devolved from professional leaders to “middle management”. Because I have a reasonable facility with language and can dress any vacuity in the edu-speak of the moment I can get away with an awful lot on paper. In face-to-face meetings, however, I neither want to nor try to hide my belief that administration in its myriad forms is just a trough of manure I have to wade through to get to the real business of teaching. 

I began teaching when UE was accredited and have worked with every scheme and variation since then – School Cert, 6FC, Bursary, UGC Scholarship, ABA, unit standards, achievement standards and New Zealand Scholarship. I’ve marked, examined, trained and moderated, written and edited resources and texts, presented and facilitated PD and in-service courses and assisted with the training of beginning teachers over the whole of that period.     

In late March of this year I responded to an email from Ian Stevens to attend an urgent Otago History Teachers Association and found that we’d been requested to take on administration of NZHTA for the next two years to oversee the alignment of the standards to the new curriculum. The most polite of my initial reactions was “What a hospital pass. Just think of all the crap that will come our way!” Fortunately, as it turns out, more reasonable voices than mine prevailed and we took up the challenge.

I have to say that what this process has involved to this date has been some of the most rewarding, challenging and enlightening professional discourse of my career. I’ve had the opportunity to spend upwards of 80 hours deconstructing and constructing my subject and my approach to teaching it. Every aspect has been examined, criticised, evaluated by my Executive colleagues and the extended group of expert practitioners and enthusiasts on the MoE Teaching and Learning Guidelines initial writing group. We have stripped away, build up and tested to destruction a variety of approaches as we have looked at ways to do the apparently impossible and accommodate every teacher’s demands into the mandated inflexibility of six Achievement Objectives which, we are bluntly told are our curriculum – end of story.

The process is on-going, and none of us on the Executive are deluded enough to think that we have the answer (or, indeed, that there is one answer that can meet all demands). We do believe, however, that we are at a stage when we need to seek clearer indications of what teachers consider positive and practical. That was why we decided to put a variety of matrices to the community along with supporting explanatory material.  

I have to say I expected more informed comment than we have generally received. I acknowledge there are obvious difficulties in attempting to understand the specifics of how a standard may be assessed simply from a title on a matrix.[i] In our notes and accompanying material we’d tried to focus attention on the new environment we’d been compelled to work under and how we all need to start thinking differently as a result. That material seems to have been large unread or ignored, so here is my blunter take on it.

1.       There are no topics. Prescriptions – such as the notes on L1 and 2 currently available on TKI- have, apparently, had no status since the advent of NCEA. To date we’ve got around that by including them in explanatory notes in the standards. That will not happen from 2010. This is not something that we – or any other subject that is affected – have meekly accepted, but the blunt and consistent message from MoE / NZQA is that courses – and achievement standards – must only reflect the Achievement Objectives. There is no capacity to prescribe beyond that. You might think that our Achievement Objectives would have been different had the writers known this at the time they composed them, but that is irrelevant in terms of the current reality.

2.       In itself, this need not be a major concern – except for those who wish to impose their view of what history should be taught. Teachers will be free to continue to teacher their current course with little or no change if they wish. Those of us currently dissatisfied with aspects of (or the entirety of) the currently “prescribed” contexts will be free to introduce changes as gradually or as rapidly as we wish. The potential for local history, current history, controversial history and more, drawing on a range of periods and places, can only be good and exciting for the subject. I am currently working with a teacher in training whose talent and enthusiasm is tangible. She has Politics in her degree, including a paper on terrorism – and is already excited at the prospect of being able to incorporate that knowledge into a course for students. I know I’ll get the standard rejoinder about courses becoming too personalized and difficult to staff when teachers move on – but the next teacher will be equally able to introduce a new element or two to reflect their strengths and interests (and good luck in finding new teachers who are (a) specialists or (b) enthusiasts about the unification of Germany, the origins of the First World War or 19^th Century British politics for example).  We may even find a professional debate and exchange of real significance emerging as people champion their new courses / contexts in PD and subject association publications.

3.       Because there are no topics, external essays and resource standards at all levels will be generic / decontextualized. This is a logical and unavoidable consequence of (1) above. We tried to make this as clear as possible in the notes and documents supporting the matrices on the web site, but there seems to some unwillingness to grasp the reality. We are well aware of teacher dissatisfaction with the generic external essay standards at Level 2 and recognize the anger that any proposal to extend the approach generates. Here I believe teachers need to recognize that the agenda being pursued by the MoE / NZQA pays little or no heed to practitioner views. We have fought hard to retain the essay, a form of historical debate that historians at both secondary and tertiary level see as a central discipline of the subject. Its official description may have been word-smithed to describe it as “an extended piece of writing”, but I believe all practitioners will understand the actual format and mode.

4.       How to minimise the effect of the official obsession with generic assessment? I have to say that I believe any teacher stand on this is compromised from the outset by our apparent support for generic assessment of the resources standards at Levels 1 and 2. Let’s not kid ourselves that asking students to answer questions on a collection of documents when they have no detailed knowledge of the historical context, relevance and resonance of the resources in front ofthem is anything other than sort-of-historical comprehension. Meaningful analysis and critiquing of the sources is always compromised by that format. As we struggled  with ways to reconcile teacher opposition to generic essays and their equally vociferous rejection of internally assessing the essay standard with official intransigence about specifying contexts we hit upon what seemed to some of use a real (if not ideal) solution: set up a standard where the rubric was robust enough for teachers to insert a context specific essay question for their students to write an essay in specified conditions on a taught context. This essay would then be gathered for assessment by national panels. This, I believe, allows a contextualized essay to be used to establish and maintain a national standard. The response of the teacher community to date has been largely negative. Most who reject it see it as a covert extension of internal assessment. I’ll keep my response to that brief and polite. All you are being asked to do is come up with a question related to a context you teach and administer the assessment. You are not being asked to mark it: that remains external. I’d like to believe that teachers currently prepare their students for external assessments by teaching, setting,  assessing and marking a number of essays in the course of the year – so where are the “workload issues’?

5.       The matter of “significance to New Zealand and New Zealanders”. What peculiar hangover of cultural cringe makes so many teachers so uneasy about the prospect of actually presenting students with their own history? While many may have misgivings about  or objections to the current array of topics, you are now free to develop and explore more exciting and relevant contexts – or specific aspects of current topics (N.B. No prescribed contexts = no broad surveys at Y13). I acknowledge part of the problem lies in the phrase used in the Achievement Objectives. I suspect, as many do, that there was a specific intention on the part of the writers to give a clear direction that more New Zealand contexts should be included. Given our limited number of Achievement Objectives this could have led to an almost exclusive focus. Fortunately, in my view, this is not the actual effect of the phrase, and documents on the NZHTA web site set out the definition in use we are expected to apply. For my part, I will include more New Zealand contexts in both internal and external aspects of my redesigned courses because I now have the opportunity to explore more varied, exciting and relevant aspects with the dead hand of prescription removed. I will also use the idea of “significance to New Zealand” as a focus for discussing and evaluating completed contexts. The phrase will also inform my initial context choices. I believe I can and should be able to establish significance to New Zealand – and the young New Zealanders in front of me – in all contexts we study. My examination of the key concept of historical significance will not be limited to its unfortunately restricted use in the Achievement Objectives alone – I want my students to constantly critique the whole notion of significance – and that should / must include everything that I direct our study towards.

6.       My own journey. I started this process keen that we should have prescribed topics and maintain a balance between internal and external assessment to ensure subject credibility and rigour. As a result of the time spent discussing, reading, criticising the current standards and planning alternatives to them as we worked on our realignment proposals, I’ve had the opportunity to select and apply my experience, my “theory in use” and my reading in history education and assessment. I can and will live with any system that we end up with – that’s an easy assumption to make after twenty-six years of almost constant assessment debate and change) and I feel no need at all to look off-shore for alternative systems to import. I’ve come to believe, however, that my interests and the interests of my students would be best served if I was free to pursue the least popular (and hence least likely) option and completely internally assess my courses. Then I could design, deliver, assess and review my courses in a way that lets me combine immediate responses to student interests and needs while developing courses that provide the best history education in the best, most relevant contexts I can determine. The supposed work load doesn’t bother me because it basically means presenting for moderation assessments that I currentlt prepare anyway. The major pay off is that all my assessment will then become contextualized, specific and historical in focus and intent. Like the universities, I’ll be able to directly relate learning to assessment. I will also be able to make much more use of formative assessment to assist and measure learning and progression. Like many teachers, I resent the current intention to use moderation data to produce yet another set of league tables, but the issue here is with the bureaucrats, the politicians and the media, not the moderators. I am confident that the moderation system is more than robust and rigorous enough to ensure that I remain true to the intent of the curriculum and the specifics of the standards. Unlike many respondents I don’t care enough about the prospect of other “teachers” cutting corners with assessments by giving out prepared essays and so on: with appraisal systems, the Teachers Council, ERO, BoTs, moderators, Ombudsmen and so on there should be more than enough watchdogs to detect anyone that intent on cheating their students. I’m more interested in giving the students in front of me the best deal I can. I like the freedom the new curriculum gives me. I believe the internally assessed system would give me the most scope, but am confident that whatever combination we end up with will allow me to spend the remaining years of my teaching career offering more responsive. Exciting, pedagogically sound teaching and assessment than has been possible at any stage of my career before. That is why I will continue to put time and effort into making it work at whatever level I can and why, bluntly, I don’t want to the opportunities to be limited by the timid lack of vision I see in so many of the responses NZHTA has received to date.

Paul Enright           

I would prefer Option 1– I believe that students need to be able to write essays in external examination situations (they will have to at university). I would prefer set essay topics at all Levels, but I’m prepared to live with de-contextualized ones if it avoids essays as Internals.

The extension to five credits for most of the Standards is a progressive idea and a good one.

However, I do think it is unwise to merge 3.1 and 3.2 as AS 90654. Many students (especially those who pick up History at Level 3) are likely be deterred by having to conduct the research and communicate the ideas in one Standard for one less credit than is the case now, and of course it means extra teacher work etc. because it is still “effectively” two internals and 3.4 becomes an internal as well.

I am also concerned that if there are only two Externals at Level 3 that we will see them both extended in their scope and expectation of answers required by students in order to achieve with Excellence.

I am unhappy with the repetition of the phrase “of significance to New Zealanders” in so many of the Standards. Some teachers are already discussing how they will “tweak” the Yr 13 current English topic – it seems to me that if the phrase “of significance to New Zealanders” is included that we will not be able to teach any part of this topic at all (and many other pre-nineteenth century topics) as their events do not occur in NZ, or involve NZ, or influence NZ.

J. Devereux
Columba College

We have discussed the History matrix and make the following comments.

We prefer in ranking order, with reservations outlined below, Option TWO and ONE.

The response from the ChCh BHS History Department is largely endorsed by us.

We would like to add to/ highlight the following:

1.       More internally assessed Standards appear to be signalled as a given. Why? The assumption appears to be that external assessment equals decontextualised assessment (If this is incorrect, we would like to hear why). This assumption is not true. The curriculum AOs at each level do not necessitate decontextualised external essays. The idea offered by ChCh Boys’ High History Dept addresses this – that is for a range of agreed external contextualised questions (derived from agreed taught content), with an additional single decontextualised option for those schools who do not opt for the agreed (majority) topics.

2.       The “of significance to New Zealanders” definition offered by NZHTA will need to be authorised officially before any decisions about content can be made. But the following concerns will need to be addressed: How is this aspect achieved? Is it intended that all student assessment explicitly demonstrates links to this? This would be easily achieved for “events occurring in NZ”, and for “global events involving NZ”, but could be difficult for “global events influencing NZ”. Which “events influencing NZ” would not be accepted by a marker? How much demonstration by students would be required for this?

3.       The clarification for point two above could be addressed with effective Explanatory Notes – but we need to see these to judge the Standards. All of the listed Achievement Standards critically depend on thorough and clear Explanatory Notes. Much work will be needed to ensure ENs assist teachers and students. Without these, it is difficult to judge any of the assessment options given.

4.       A single external standard for any level is indeed farcical. It should be accompanied by at least one other external standard to ensure examinations are meaningful for students, for assessment consistency across schools and to assist with preparation for students’ future study.

5.       If more internal assessment is indeed a “given”, then the timing of assessment and moderation will be radically affected. How can so much assessment, that all require internal and then external moderation be completed without watering down content? And, surely the assessment conditions can not be consistent across all schools – eg. Inconsistent or unfair prior assistance for an internal assessment. The workload for teachers will increase dramatically (including the writing/adapting of new assessments at each level).

6.       AS 90654 (3.1 and 3.2) need not and should not be combined into a super standard.

History Dept

Nelson College

I can live with them all but prefer the first option as more liable to maintain standards. Students need practice to train their recall faculties and revision techniques for at least a two – hour exam sitting.

G. Cleveland,