Transcript
DIANE LEGGETT: Teachers were teaching individual level classes and they may have six to 12 students in that classroom and a teacher aide might be working with a class next door. The teacher teaching from the front of the classroom and the children working individually at their desks. So we are going back in history because you would know classrooms nowadays in New Zealand don't operate like that and it suits the multicultural nature and bi-cultural nature of the students in New Zealand to work in a collaborative way. Now in Tokelau i would say the children are working in groups. They working collaboratively together and they would look like any other classroom you would walk into in New Zealand.
SALLY ROUND: How easy, how difficult was it to get these changes implemented over the years?
DL: The teachers and the principals of the schools really wanted to see an improvement in student outcomes. The parents in Tokelau very much wanted a similar education to their family members who now live in New Zealand so with that premise to work, we found that by consulting them, working alongside them, not doing to, but being very consultative and working in a very collaborative, co-constructive way that the teachers have really come on board. They really wanted to make changes and are excited by it
SR: So did they have extra training as well?
DL: We worked alongside them in classrooms and our facilitators role-modelled lessons in the classroom. They have received professional development after school, normally at least once a week. So the growth for the teachers and the opportunities for the teachers has been huge.
SR: How have you seen achievement levels change?
DL: Slowly, but surely. For the first two years out there we were scoping the project and co-constructing a Tokelau four-year education plan. Then, from the middle of last year we have started work on the four-year education plan and slowly we are seeing a rise in student achievement, especially in the areas of English language, which they learn as a second language. In the areas on the Tokelau language, and mathematics,
SR: Give us an example of how a child might be learning in Tokelau now given that they are in this very small environment with, presumably, not a lot of resources. I mean do they use their own environment for learning?
DL: Yea they do. You may be aware that Tokelau was the first South Pacific country to put in solar panels, for example. And the whole country now operates on solar panels and that then is used as a context for the unit of social sciences work in the classroom. That's just one example. And each family in the village seems to have their own pen of pigs and they use that as context. So I actually believe the islands are quite context-rich. In saying that, they now have access to the internet and computers and they have become very savvy in the use of those. So their access to internet and to finding answers to their own questions they're sourcing on the internet is now and everyday use of those computers in context of every day learning.
SR: I guess it's too early to say that you've got some budding neuro-physicists coming out of this new education system?
DL: I think we have some very, very bright buttons over there and the world is their oyster.
