The education system in Aotearoa is not what it used to be. That’s a cause for celebration, says David Hill, who taught at a high school in the 1960s.

Our schools are a mess. At least that is The New Zealand initiative (especially its Senior Fellow Michael Johnston), Family First, various business leaders, and the Coalition government everyone says.

NZ Initiative Federations that “We have a curriculum that emphasizes vague competencies over rigorous academic knowledge.” (In fact, we have a variety of curricula and study plans that take into account the range of student ambitions and abilities, but still go further.) Critics of our education system say we need to go back to basics, reintroduce Shakespeare and grammar. Things aren’t what they used to be.

This is indeed not the case and as a former teacher (secondary school, 16 years) I am very happy about it.

It is exactly six decades since I taught my first class. They were in Year 11 (Form 5E as it was called in 1964) at a high school in the Auckland suburbs, and I am still amazed at how they could endure the English curriculum I had to impose on them.

It was “rigorous academic knowledge,” that’s true. NZI would have been delighted. The “E” in 5E meant that the class was the second-to-last of the six fifth grades in the rigorous, academically tiered system of the 1960s. They knew this: “We’re stupid,” said Jonas. And yet I was supposed to teach them the very topics that 5A covered. No adapting the content to acknowledge their difficulties, thank you. That’s how ambiguity arises.

Of the 34 pupils in 5E, 28 left school at the end of the year. The boys went into apprenticeships or to work in factories or other semi-skilled jobs; the girls also went to factories or offices. They expected such work, in many cases looked forward to it. And to prepare them for it, I was to teach them the difference between gerunds and participles, between metonymy and synecdoche, and how a compound sentence differs from a complex one. Yes, we are to reinstate the same grammar lessons. Once again I am amazed at the tolerance of 5E.

I didn’t teach them Shakespeare. Instead, I had to guide them through 100 tedious pages of The Admirable Crichton, JM Barrie’s Edwardian fantasy about an aristocratic English family shipwrecked on a deserted island. Note the relevance to 5E’s own life.

Her poetry anthology included Wordsworth, Byron and Tennyson. Her novel was Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim. They stumbled through the compound sentences and breathed a sigh of relief when it was over. Poor innocents: The next semester was waiting for thembefore Charles Lambs 19th ceNature essays by Elia. How long will it be before 5E never wants to read a book again?

I taught high school English for four years before I dared to introduce New Zealand content or female authors, and back then the only class available was Katherine Mansfield. And now? What richness. What relevance.

I like the idea of ​​classes studying a given text. It can bring them together and develop their academic and social skills. Shakespeare? I know of several schools where this type is taught – in classes with the appropriate ability. Making it a compulsory subject? That seems like a sure way to turn many students off from literature.

So why not use set texts instead that our students can relate to straight away? How about New Zealanders Eileen Merriman, Kate de Goldi, Des Hunt and Rachael King? I’m sure Family First and the NZI know them. Catherine Chidgey, Ted Dawe, Owen Marshall for the seniors? Some of them could be featured in Family First’s hilarious Woke Up List.

It wasn’t just the 5E English class that had to endure. In 1964, I also taught a middle school class of 4th grade (10th grade) in social studies. Their curriculum for the first trimester was 18th British settlement in North America in the 19th century. Again, that gripping relevance.

I would like to reassure concerned critics that I did not teach my 1964 classes any “nebulous skills”. I did not mention Māoritanga, ethnic and gender diversity. No silly stuff about social backgrounds, interaction with others, creativity. Our schools do that now, so it is no wonder that 15-year-olds from New Zealand are currently in the OECD PISA tests for creative skills.

I know it’s a cliché, but an education system should prepare students for both life and work. Does that mean that “rigorous academic knowledge” should be prioritized? In fact, those two adjectives are so, well, nebulous that it’s hard to come up with a clear answer.

Of course, I want our children to acquire knowledge, develop an awareness of academic skills, and persevere in trying to achieve them. As a writer, I still visit schools and see these elements taught in almost every class I visit, in a way that is appropriate for each group.

Was my teaching in 1964 “rigorous” in any other sense?

Sure. I dictated whole pages for them to write down. I gave tests every Friday on what 5E had covered Monday through Thursday. (Note that NZI is also calling for the reintroduction of regular testing.)

If someone did below the level I had arbitrarily set, they got a lunchtime punishment. This also applied to Sharon and Gary, who were only in 5E because they had surpassed 4F the year before, and who found the level of their new class almost completely overwhelming. It was only when I saw Sharon burst into tears after her fourth “failure” in a row that I threw such punishments into my classroom trash can. But just think of how splendid it would have been for them if a different recommendation from the government – to classify students according to their first year of school test results – had been implemented at that time.

In the 1964 class, everything was written by hand. This, especially Italicsis another important skill that our concerned critics want to reinstate. I deducted sloppily written assignments. Is that why the poorly coordinated Brian and Joy consistently performed poorly? Their problem. Rigor was key.

I have already mentioned that some students from 5E came back in 1965. Six in number, to be precise. Two made it to 6th grade (12th grade). Four did not make it: they had not reached the magic 200 points, the criterion – a strict criterion, of course – to pass the school leaving exam and move on to the next grade. Yvonne missed it by two points. Bad luck, Yvonne: she and the other three had to go through the entire 5th grade year again, alongside younger children and with their self-esteem visibly dented.

Useful training for life’s setbacks, I hear you say? In fact, life is usually more flexible and riddled with sensible compromises. This also applies to our current system, where students can take subjects at different levels, taking into account their different abilities.

Another form of harshness in my first year as a teacher: I caned boys who misbehaved. A few cried in pain, others shuffled back to class, defiant and rebellious. I never saw any of them become better students as a result. Kudos to our education system for abolishing corporal punishment.

Some criticisms of our curricula show a breathtaking ignorance of the increasing demands placed on schools today. Teachers are now expected to cover an ever-expanding range of subjects; they can no longer rely on parental or community support; they have to deal with larger numbers of pupils suffering from increasingly serious physical, mental and behavioural problems; and in a society of yawning economic inequality, many state schools are woefully underfunded.

Teachers are the ground troops of education. They need appropriate support. Instead The Ministry of Education is trying to cut almost 600 jobsand construction cuts mean that over 100 schools have to hold classes in halls, staff rooms and libraries while they wait for proper classrooms.

I would be grateful for critics’ suggestions on how a school with such dwindling support and increasing demands can enable 16-year-old S., who is autistic, dyslexic and physically violent due to fetal alcohol syndrome, to make the most of rigorous Shakespeare and grammar lessons. I met S. recently and am amazed at the patience his teachers show with him.

We are all experts on education. After all, we all went to school. But I find it fascinating when people shake their heads and say disapprovingly, “I don’t know what they teach you in school these days.” Don’t you hear what a disqualifying admission that is?

I think we should listen to critical voices like those in my opening paragraphs. In fact, I encourage you to do so. Outside viewpoints can be relevant and helpful.

But demands that mostly seem to aim at a step backwards, at a return to the “good old days”? In what other area of ​​human activity would we demand such a step?