Why Dewey’s Vision Still Matters

A few weeks ago, my twin grandsons both gained their driver’s licenses – marking a milestone in their lives as they step towards adulthood. Watching them go through the process reminded me just how layered learning really is. The first step, of course, was a written test on the road code. They had to show that they knew the rules and could recall them when faced with multiple-choice questions. From there, they are now able to drive under supervision until they are confident enough to sit a practical test, where an instructor judged whether they could actually apply that knowledge safely on the road. There was also the option of a defensive driving course – another classroom-based way of acquiring essential knowledge about hazards and safe driving practices.

All of these steps are important. They provide the foundation: rules, facts, and technical skills. But here’s the thing – none of them guarantee that someone will become a good driver. A truly competent driver is not only someone who can recall the rules and operate a car, but someone who has developed judgment, confidence, and wisdom. A good driver knows when to slow down in the rain, how to anticipate another car’s sudden move, and how to make decisions that keep everyone safe.

A Knowledge Rich Curriculum

I find this distinction helpful when thinking about education. Over the past week or so I’ve noted a lot of discussion in some of the forums I belong to of educators expressing concern about the direction the Curriculum refresh is taking here in New Zealand, with Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, championing a shift towards a knowledge-rich curriculum, moving away from the child-centred approach that has dominated for the past few decades. I have to confess to finding the way in which this change is being introduced particularly challenging – but not surprising.

What we’re experiencing isn’t unique to New Zealand. England has notably adopted a knowledge-rich curriculum model heavily influenced by the ideas of E.D. Hirsch, a US educator and education theorist.

Since 2010, the UK government has implemented significant education reforms inspired by Hirsch’s theories. These reforms emphasise a structured, content-focused curriculum, aiming to provide all students with a shared body of knowledge to promote cultural literacy and social equity. The introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) and the Progress 8 performance measure reflects this shift, highlighting core subjects like English, mathematics, science, and history, while potentially sidelining the arts and other foundation subjects.

Former Education Secretary Michael Gove was a prominent advocate for these changes, drawing directly from Hirsch’s work. He argued that a knowledge-rich curriculum was essential for raising academic standards and ensuring that all children, regardless of background, had access to the cultural capital necessary for success .

This approach has sparked debate within the UK, with some educators and researchers questioning the balance between knowledge acquisition and the development of critical thinking and creativity. Critics argue that an overemphasis on content delivery may limit opportunities for inquiry-based learning and student agency .

E.D. Hirsch’s knowledge-rich curriculum has a similar logic to the road code: it emphasizes the importance of mastering core knowledge – the cultural “rules” – that provide a base for participation in society. And just as you cannot drive safely without first knowing the rules, Hirsch is right that knowledge matters.

But – as with driving – such knowledge on its own is necessary but not sufficient. Cultural literacy is not just about recalling historical facts or vocabulary; it’s about applying understanding in context, navigating complexity, and exercising judgment.

This is where John Dewey’s vision feels so much more compelling for me. He advocated for a learner-centred approach rooted in constructivism, believing that students construct knowledge actively through experience and interaction, rather than passively receiving information. He argued that education must move beyond the recall of facts to cultivate learners who can think critically, collaborate, and act wisely in a changing world.

Hirsch vs. Dewey: Competing Visions of Education

Education debates have long been shaped by a tension between these two very different views of what schools are for. On one side stands E.D. Hirsch, who has spent decades arguing for a knowledge-rich curriculum that privileges content and cultural literacy. On the other is John Dewey, whose constructivist, child-centred philosophy positions learning as an active, experiential process designed to prepare young people for the future.

Hirsch’s work has been influential because it responds to a real concern: that without a shared base of knowledge, children are excluded from full participation in society. His solution is to prioritise transmission of essential facts, concepts, and cultural references – to ensure all children know the same “stuff.” This approach, however, risks narrowing education to something largely retrospective, focused on preserving what has been valued in the past.

Dewey, by contrast, saw education as inherently future-facing. For him, knowledge is important – but only when it is experienced, tested, and reworked by learners in ways that cultivate curiosity, adaptability, and a sense of agency. He envisioned education not as preparation for the world of work or even for adult life, but as life itself: a lived process where students learn to think, to collaborate, and to imagine the society they want to help build.

Over the past few days I’ve been travelling a bit and had the opportunity to explore these ideas a little more, so have endeavoured to contrast these approaches in this simple table:

Dimension	E.D. Hirsch: Knowledge-Rich Curriculum	John Dewey: Constructivist Approach
Purpose of Education	Cultural literacy; preparation for civic life; social mobility	Growth of the whole child; preparation for democratic participation and future society
Role of Knowledge	Core body of facts and references all must acquire	Experiences that generate meaning; knowledge constructed through inquiry
View of the Learner	Passive recipient of knowledge	Active participant, problem-solver, co-creator of understanding
Teaching Method	Transmission, explicit instruction, standard content	Experiential learning, inquiry, collaboration, reflection
Orientation	Retrospective: preserving shared cultural heritage	Future-focused: equipping learners to shape the future
Measure of Success	Recall of knowledge; mastery of content	Capacity to think, adapt, collaborate, and contribute meaningfully

Short-term Gains vs. Long-term Impact

While New Zealand’s shift towards a knowledge-rich curriculum is still in its early stages, there are emerging signs that this approach is yielding short-term gains, particularly in foundational skills like literacy and numeracy. Early indicators suggest that this approach is beginning to have a positive impact. For instance, schools that have implemented structured literacy programmes report improvements in students’ reading and writing abilities, particularly among those who have historically been underserved. These outcomes matter, and Hirsch is right to insist that knowledge is an essential foundation.

But these metrics tell us only part of the story. The available data are largely structured around what can be quantified – test scores, curriculum-level mastery, or NCEA passes. They rarely capture the more complex, enduring capacities we hope education will cultivate: curiosity, adaptability, critical thinking, creativity, and the ability to navigate an uncertain future.

In other words, achievement data can be used to demonstrate success in the short term, but they cannot, on their own, prove that students are being prepared to thrive in the world they will inherit. This is precisely where Dewey’s emphasis on experience, agency, and future-oriented learning remains so relevant: education must do more than transmit knowledge – it must shape learners capable of contributing meaningfully to the evolving society around them.

Why Dewey Still Matters

Hirsch’s contribution should not be dismissed. Just as new drivers need the road code, learners need access to the cultural knowledge that enables them to participate fully in society. But if we stop there, we risk producing students who know the “rules” but lack the judgment to apply them in real life.

Dewey’s vision reminds us that the ultimate purpose of education is not simply to fit young people into the world as it is, but to empower them to imagine and shape the world as it could be. That is the kind of future-focused education our learners – and our societies – truly need.

It’s the same with my grandsons. Passing the written test and practical assessment showed they had the basic skills to drive, but what gives me confidence now is seeing them exercise judgment on the road – slowing down in bad weather, anticipating risks, and making decisions that keep everyone safe. That’s what makes them good drivers, not just licensed ones.

So here’s the challenge: as New Zealand leans into a knowledge-rich curriculum model, heavily influenced by Hirsch, will we be satisfied with simply producing students who can pass the equivalent of a written test? Or are we prepared to design an education system that also cultivates judgment, adaptability, and wisdom – the qualities that will truly prepare them for the uncertain roads ahead?

What can we do?

For all of us involved in education, this moment calls for careful thought. In many schools I visit I hear teachers speaking about feeling pressured to “let go” of constructivist approaches (e.g. project-based learning, personal inquiries, passion projects etc.) in favour of one-size-fits-all directives: an hour a day of reading, writing, and mathematics, tightly aligned to nationally mandated standards for assessment.

But Dewey’s reminder is clear: while these mandates may be necessary, they are not sufficient. The real question is how we, as educators, can meet the requirements of a knowledge-rich framework while still carving out the space for inquiry, creativity, and learner agency. How do we ensure our practice doesn’t become reduced to test-preparation, but instead nurtures the deeper capacities our young people need?

Here are some questions that may be useful as prompts for personal reflection or conversations with colleagues as you consider how to navigate this time of change:

How will I ensure my students think, create, and solve problems, not only follow the rules of a mandated curriculum?
Where can I embed inquiry, passion projects, and student-led learning into the day-to-day, without losing focus on essential knowledge?
How can I empower students to take ownership of their learning, even while meeting required standards?
What steps can I take to collaborate with colleagues and lead change that balances compliance with imagination and curiosity in our classrooms?

This is not about rejecting knowledge, but about reclaiming the bigger purpose of education. I’m not suggesting a binary argument here – it’s more of an ‘and-and’ approach that’s required. And that begins with teachers, in their classrooms, making deliberate choices to balance compliance with creativity, content with curiosity, and instruction with imagination.

More Than Subjects: Why Trust Matters in Curriculum Change

When curriculum is reduced to a subject list, we miss the bigger story about purpose, assessment, and trust.

Today I downloaded the Ministry of Education’s document outlining a new set of subjects for Years 11–13 which went live on their site this morning. On the surface there’s some encouraging stuff here. The list of subjects that are proposed for years 11 -13 includes some exciting areas – Electronics & Mechatronics, Media and Communication, Music Technology, Civics and Philosophy, Te Mātai i te Ao Māori, Pacific Studies, and new Pacific language options. It feels good to see subjects that recognise culture, creativity and emerging technologies.

But as I read further, I was left with some unease. Not so much about the individual subjects – many of them make a lot of sense – but about how this announcement has come about, and what it says about our approach to curriculum more generally.

Trust matters

Firstly, decisions like this shape the daily work of teachers, the opportunities available to students, and the experiences of families. That’s why the way these decisions are made is just as important as the outcomes themselves. A new curriculum shouldn’t simply be announced; it has to be built with those who will bring it to life. Granted, there’s been talk of a new curriculum for some months now – but little evidence of what I’d call authentic consultation or transparent communication designed to build trust. Teachers, school leaders, iwi, Pacific communities, students – all deserve to be trusted as partners in this work, not just as recipients of a policy package.

When subject lists appear without any real sign of consultation or co-design, it feeds a growing sense that the profession is being asked to “deliver” reforms rather than shape them. In times of significant changes in direction and strong political mandates, building trust and shared ownership is critical. Without this, the implicit messaging comes across as ‘we need to work this way because teachers can’t be trusted.’

A curriculum or a list of subjects?

The announcement begins with a note reminding readers about this government’s commitment to two priorities in education, the first being the establishment of a knowledge-rich curriculum grounded in the science of learning. But I have to say I’m yet to be convinced there is a shared understanding in the sector of what a knowledge-rich curriculum is – and this announcement doesn’t help (in my view) as what we are actually given is simply a list of subjects – some old and some new. Important as subjects are, they don’t on their own constitute a curriculum. Curriculum encompasses more than content; it involves purpose, coherence, progression, pedagogy, and assessment – how all these elements interconnect to support meaningful learning experiences. A subject list tells us little about those things.

There’s another question that comes to mind here – that is about what is valued. When “knowledge-rich” is equated with more academic subjects, where does that leave vocational pathways? There’s a risk of reinforcing a divide between “academic” and “vocational” learners, rather than designing a curriculum where every young person has access to deep, powerful knowledge and meaningful pathways. I’m not suggesting this is necessarily what is planned, but the fact I feel the need to ask the question suggests a lack of clarity – taking me back to the comments made above about the importance of building trust.

The “science of learning” – more complicated than it sounds

Throughout the document there are repeated references to the “science of learning” as if it is the newly discovered key to fixing everything. For parents and many educators, this can sound like a compelling argument. Who wouldn’t want a curriculum underpinned by science?

Despite the way in which it seems to be talked about, the concept of the science of learning has been around for some time – in fact, it’s embraced in a word we use frequently “Pedagogy”, which simply defined is the art, science or profession of teaching. Some years ago I had the privilege of contributing to a publication titled Aligning Education Policy with the Science of Learning and Development, from the Aurora Institute. They have also published a review of the literature on the science of learning and development which highlights again the fact that this is a very nuanced area, and there is not a single recipe to be applied to all. It is a broad field, with different perspectives, often debated. To present it as a settled doctrine risks closing down the rich conversations we need about how young people learn best – conversations that must also take account of culture, identity, relationships, and context.

This morning, for example, I participated in a 90 minute webinar hosted by the Brookings Institute, featuring two panels of educational leaders who described activity across a number of US states in the area of Active, Playful Learning – a new name it seems for play-based learning. I’m planning a separate post with my thoughts on that – but add it here simply because throughout the webinar different panelists referenced research on the science of learning that supports this pedagogical approach. Sadly, I wouldn’t see those perspectives aligned with the current, narrow definition we seem to be being fed here in NZ.

Curriculum and assessment – joined at the hip

One of the lines that really concerned me was tucked away on the final page: “We will be making sure that our national qualification aligns to the new subjects, so that students and teachers can be confident it accurately assesses what students have learnt.”

At first glance, that seems sensible – there’s no mention of assessment in this document, so it makes sense to add a comment that assures readers it is being addressed. But in curriculum design, assessment shouldn’t be bolted on afterwards. If curriculum is designed in one silo and assessment in another, assessment inevitably ends up driving the learning – usually in narrow, reductive ways. We’ve seen this before.

Recent research continues to affirm the importance of aligning intended learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, and assessment tasks to ensure that students are engaged in a meaningful learning experience. For instance, a 2024 study highlights the significance of aligning these components to provide clarity and coherence, aiding students in understanding the connection between their learning activities and assessments with the overall course objectives. A curriculum designed without integrating these elements may risk becoming fragmented, potentially leading to a disjointed educational experience for students.

The truth is, curriculum and assessment shape each other. If assessment relies on end-of-year exams and one-off tests, then the curriculum is experienced as something to memorise and reproduce under timed conditions. But if assessment is conceived as ongoing progressions – where students present evidence of their learning over time, demonstrate capability in authentic contexts, and build portfolios of understanding – then the curriculum itself looks different. Teachers design for depth, for application, for growth. Learners experience more choice and agency.

This is why the work on new subjects can’t be separated from the work on how we assess them. The two must be developed together, or we risk building a curriculum that says one thing but functions as another in classrooms.

What’s with the “new” VLN?

Finally, I noticed reference to the development of a “new Virtual Learning Network” to offer specialist subjects online in te reo Māori. For those who know me and my involvement in this area within the NZ education system you’ll know this is a cause close to my heart. I was involved in the creation of the original VLN almost three decades ago and have maintained a strong interest in it since. While I’m pleased to see online networks back on the agenda, it is disappointing to see no acknowledgement of the history and the lessons learned. For 30 years, the VLN has existed without the policy settings or funding models needed to thrive. To present it as a “new” idea risks repeating old mistakes, rather than building on what we already know works.

Why this matters

As someone who has worked at times within the Ministry of Education I am well aware of the time-pressures placed on those working there to produce what’s required – particularly in response to demands from the politicians to whom they are answerable. It’s easy to become drawn into a narrow vortex of meeting deadlines and forget about what good change management research tells us about how to achieve effective and large scale change.

The concerns I’ve shared here aren’t intended to criticise the idea of new subjects or to diminish the genuine intent behind this announcement. I raise them because curriculum is too important to be treated as a list of options decided in Wellington. A curriculum should grow from dialogue, from trust, and from collective wisdom.

I’m sure an obvious answer from the MoE to such concerns will and politicians driving this change will be that this is purely a summary document and there’s more detail to follow. I get that. But I’d also say that very statement belies the lack of understanding about how an effective change strategy should work.

What our learners need is not just more choice of subjects, but a system that is coherent, responsive, and aligned. That requires our learners, their teachers, leaders, whānau and communities to be part of the journey – not spectators of it.

Success for Whom? And at What Cost?

It was Father’s Day here in New Zealand yesterday, and I had the privilege of enjoying a family lunch together with my children and grandchildren. It’s an exciting time in our family, with my eldest grandsons in their final year of high school and preparing to go to university, several of the grandkids celebrating successes in their respective sports teams as the seasons near an end, my youngest daughter contemplating a move to Australia to pursue career ambitions… the list could go on.

As a grandparent it gives me immense pleasure watching these young people growing up to become fine young citizens. They’ve all chosen to pursue very different pathways in life – none have really conformed to the ‘traditional’ pathway of success starting at high school (only one of my five children actually graduated with sufficient NCEA credits to go to university) followed by success at University (curiously, three of the five now have tertiary degrees – all with distinction), followed by success in a recognised career pathway (all, including my sons-in-law, are gainfully employed in occupations that wouldn’t have appeared in their careers counsellor handouts while at secondary school!)

I look then to my grandchildren and wonder what lies ahead for them, and what they are learning now that will prepare them for whatever that is? As a life-long educator this sort of question has fuelled my personal commitment to the work I do – and still does.

Narrowing the meaning of success

In a recent opinion piece, the Minister of Education began with a statement few would disagree with: “Every parent wants the same thing: for their child to leave school with the knowledge and skills they need to build the life they want.”

This resonates with me as both parent and grandparent. But as I read further, I found myself asking: what kind of life are we assuming they want?

In the Minister’s framing, success seems to be defined almost exclusively in economic terms – measured by employability, exam performance, and alignment with industry needs. Of course, the Minister is not alone in this view. It is an ideology that is expressed in a number of other countries – including by Nigel Farage in the UK who is arguing for teaching trades and services in schools as a part of his broader education reform agenda.

The second feature of this framing is that it is also framed as an individual pursuit: my child, my future, my opportunities. What’s missing is any recognition that education is also about preparing young people to contribute to society, to live well with others, and to flourish as whole people – culturally, socially, and personally – not just economically.

It’s this narrowing of perspective that troubles me most.

The limits of ‘fixing’ assessment

The Minister is emphatic that NCEA has failed and must be replaced. I don’t deny that some of the symptoms she identifies are real – the credit-chasing, the patchy coherence, the uneven outcomes. These issues are not unique to New Zealand; many education systems worldwide wrestle with them. But the assumption that simply replacing one assessment system with another will fix the problem is simplistic.

As Yong Zhao reminds us in What Works May Hurt, there is no such thing as a solution without side effects. Every policy comes with trade-offs. And averages can conceal serious harm to individuals. If we see “declining achievement” as a problem of assessment alone, we risk ignoring deeper causes, including curriculum design, teaching practice, equity of resources, and the complexity of learners’ lives for example.

Even the claim that students are “gaming” NCEA, while certainly true in some instances, doesn’t automatically indict the system itself. It points instead to choices about how it has been implemented and where weaknesses have been allowed to persist. To respond by discarding the whole framework is to miss the opportunity to learn from its strengths – particularly its emphasis on competencies, evidence of progress, and alternatives to blunt exam-driven models.

What does the data really reveal?

The Minister also leans heavily on ERO survey data showing that many teachers and principals are unhappy with NCEA. It is entirely possible for a qualification to be sound in design, yet poorly supported in practice. Without the professional capability to use it well, even the best systems will disappoint

On the surface, the figures look damning: 60% of teachers said the new Level 1 was not a reliable measure of students’ skills and knowledge; 75% of principals questioned the reliability of credit values; 70% of employers said it wasn’t a meaningful signal.

But here’s the question: what do these numbers really reveal?

Dissatisfaction doesn’t always mean the system itself is fatally flawed. It may just as easily reflect the mindset and capability of those working within it – and the level of support they’ve been given to use it well. NCEA was deliberately designed to be more future-focused than the traditional exam-based model, emphasising competencies alongside academic knowledge, valuing evidence of progress, and broadening definitions of success. If teachers and leaders are struggling to make that vision work, is that the fault of the system? Or does it highlight failures of implementation, resourcing, and professional learning over nearly three decades?

Data never speaks for itself. It always requires interpretation. The risk here is that the ERO findings are being used to prop up a predetermined conclusion – that NCEA is broken beyond repair. A more constructive reading would ask what the data tells us about culture, capability, and the conditions under which the qualification operates. Without that deeper interrogation, we risk fixing the wrong problem.

Personalisation, not standardisation

The Minister’s call for more exams and standardisation is one way to respond to NCEA’s challenges. But it isn’t the only way. On the day after her opinion piece appeared, Steve Maharey – himself a former Minister of Education – offered a very different view.

Maharey acknowledges the problems with NCEA, but argues that the answer is not to lurch backwards to uniformity and league tables. Instead, he insists the only credible path forward is personalisation.

He frames the central question well: “What kind of education is suited to the knowledge age we now live in?” If we take seriously the reality of AI, climate change, and rapid social transformation, then preparing students for lifelong learning, creativity, and problem-solving must be at least as important as certifying them for jobs. Finland’s system is his case in point. They achieve high standards, but through building trust, personalisation, formative assessment, and well-supported teachers — not through a one-size-fits-all model.

This directly challenges the Minister’s dismissal of “political agenda” claims. The real debate here is not whether we want high standards – everyone does – but whether high standards are best achieved through centralised standardisation or through personalised approaches that reflect the diversity of learners and contexts.

Where the Minister’s solution leans toward standardisation and uniformity, Maharey argues for personalisation and trust. Both want high standards – but the means could not be more different. The real debate here is not whether we want high standards – everyone does – but whether high standards are best achieved through centralised standardisation or through personalised approaches that reflect the diversity of learners and contexts.

I was doing some contract work for the Ministry of Education around the time that Steve Maharey was Minister of Education, and remember him championing the cause of personalised learning. I recall wondering at the time why it was necessary to introduce this an approach at all – surely education has always been about a focus on the learner? But as the responses to this initiative emerged, I came to realise that there wasn’t a commonly shared understanding of what personalised learning is or was. A common concern was that the shift to personalisation would simply mean having to plan 25 different lesson plans (i.e. one for each student) instead of one for the whole class – a view firmly established in the paradigm of ‘delivery’ of knowledge and not considering any sort of shift in the ownership of learning.

Beyond “Academic” vs “Vocational”

Before diving deeper into policy, it’s worth pausing to remember that education isn’t just about systems and structures – it’s about people, and the messy, surprising, multidimensional ways human potential shows up. Which brings me to the example of Brian May I used in a recent blog post. May was a man who can fill stadiums as Queen’s guitarist one night and analyse cosmic dust the next day. Which side of him is more “valuable”? Which represents his “real” intelligence?

The danger of the current reforms is that they reinscribe an old binary – “academic” subjects count, while disciplines like outdoor education, sport or the arts are sidelined. We risk returning to the kind of “drafting gates” that limited opportunities for my parents’ generation, where a single test determined whether you went to high school or left formal education altogether.

Human capability doesn’t divide neatly along those lines. Narrowing our curriculum to what is easily measured or economically valuable impoverishes not only students but society.

Asking the bigger questions

So as I spent time with my kids and grandkids yesterday, I pondered whether, at the heart of this debate is a bigger set of questions we urgently need to confront:

What do we want education to achieve – economic productivity alone, or also wellbeing, citizenship, creativity, cultural identity, and social cohesion?
How do we define success – as an exam pass rate, or as the flourishing of diverse human potential?
Who gets to decide what counts as success — a central authority, or communities and cultures who bring their own knowledge and values to the table?

Yes, qualifications matter. Parents deserve confidence that they mean something. But reducing the conversation to a swap of one system for another risks narrowing, not expanding, our vision of education.

If we take Zhao’s warnings seriously, the question is not only what works? but who does it work for, and who does it hurt? That’s the debate New Zealand needs – and the one our young people deserve.

That’s the debate New Zealand needs.

What Works May Hurt

Photo by Simone van der Koelen on Unsplash

Earlier this year I had the privilege of presenting at some conferences in Australia alongside Yong Zhao and have been thinking more recently about the warnings in his book titled: what works may hurt. His point in that book is simple but profound – there’s no such thing as a solution without side effects. Every intervention comes with trade-offs. And if we’re not careful, the very policies we celebrate as “what works” can end up causing long-term harm.

Zhao highlights three reminders that I find particularly relevant right now:

Everything has side effects.
Long-term outcomes matter as much as short-term gains.
Average effects can hide serious damage to individuals.

That last one really resonates. If we design a system around averages, we almost guarantee that some learners will be left behind – or worse, actively harmed.

The promise and the problem of “what works”

The push for “evidence-based” education has always made sense to me. Of course we want policy and practice guided by research, not just ideology or hunches. But the danger comes when “evidence-based” becomes shorthand for one-size-fits-all prescriptions.

Take the U.S. No Child Left Behind initiative in the US which Yong highlights in his book. On paper, it was framed as a grand experiment in “what works.” Yong points out that in reality, it quickly became a political project – cobbled together by advisers and consultants chasing funding, not educators designing for learners. The side effects were severe: narrowing of the curriculum, teaching to the test, and entire communities labelled as failing.

And here in New Zealand, I see worrying echoes of that pattern.

The New Zealand context

On taking up her role as Minister of Education Erica Stanford set out six priorities: clearer curriculum, evidence-based literacy and numeracy, smarter assessment, better teacher training, stronger learning support, and greater use of data. On the surface, it’s hard to argue with any of these. Who doesn’t want kids to succeed, teachers to be supported, and parents to have clarity?

But here’s where Zhao’s warning bites. What might the side effects be?

Employability over personhood: The reforms lean heavily on aligning education with industry. Are we preparing citizens, or just future workers?
Measurable at all costs: What counts is what can be measured – literacy, numeracy, qualifications. What gets pushed to the margins are things like curiosity, creativity, cultural identity, or civic agency.
Reduced flexibility: Standardisation narrows choice. Fewer pathways, less room for students to follow their passions.
Equity by tightening the screws: Instead of investing in support that meets diverse learners where they are, the bar is simply raised. Equity becomes about uniformity, not about fairness.
A narrow definition of success: Success is framed as a qualification, not as a flourishing life.

It’s telling that when introducing these reforms the Minister said: “The single most important thing we can do is ensure consistency… The key here is, this is a one-size-fits-all approach.”

That, to me, is the problem in a nutshell.

The deeper issue: power

One-size-fits-all isn’t just a technical misstep; it’s a political choice. It privileges one way of knowing, one cultural perspective, one vision of success – and asks everyone else to fit into it. For Māori, Pasifika, and many others, that means leaving parts of themselves at the school gate. That’s not equity. That’s assimilation.

This is something I highlighted in a previous blog post. True equity isn’t about redistributing content. It’s about redistributing power. Power to shape what counts as success. Power to bring your own identity, culture, and knowledge into the classroom. Power to question and remake the system itself.

Breaking the cycle

The paradox is that many families and educators still defend the traditional model – even though it never fully served them – because they fear anything else might disadvantage their kids. I get that fear. When the stakes feel so high, who wants to gamble on change? But unless we have the courage to break that cycle, we’ll keep producing the same inequities we say we want to fix.

So when I hear political promises about getting “back to basics” or delivering “world-leading education,” I can’t help but ask: world-leading for whom? And at what cost?

If we take Yong Zhao’s warning seriously, the question isn’t only about what works? but who does it work for, and who does it hurt?

That’s the conversation we need to be having.

If this post resonates with you and you’d like to be a part of conversations about the future of education why not join the EdRising community of practice? There are discussion threads there that follow the themes of the recent EdRising Convening in Auckland.

Why Narrowing New Zealand’s Curriculum Misses the Mark

Image Source: Comunità Queeniana on Flickr – CC BY-NC 2.0

As someone who enjoyed playing guitar in my earlier years I’ve always been fascinated with the work of world class guitarists – including Brian May. Not just because he’s the lead guitarist for Queen, but because he also holds a PhD in Astrophysics. Here’s a man who can make a stadium of 80,000 people sing in unison one night, then spend the next day analysing cosmic dust particles. Which side of him is more valuable? Which represents his “real” intelligence?

This question has taken on urgent relevance with the recent announcement that New Zealand’s NCEA will narrow its focus to ‘academic’ subjects, effectively dropping disciplines like outdoor education. It’s a troubling return to the kind of educational “drafting gates” that have haunted education systems for generations – including our own.

My parents lived through this. At the end of intermediate school, they faced a proficiency test that would determine their futures: pass, and you could attend high school; fail, and your formal education was limited. My father managed to squeak through into secondary education (he attended the ‘technical college’) while his sister, my aunt, failed and so remained in ‘form two’ until she reached school leaving age. This test was abolished in 1936 – too late for my aunt.

Germany still operates a version of this system today, sorting children as young as 10 into different secondary schools – one for vocational training (apprenticeships) another for technical or administrative careers and a third for the “academic” elite.

We thought we’d moved beyond this kind of systematic sorting. Apparently, we were wrong.

The False Binary That Diminishes Us All

The question in my mind is what exactly constitutes “academic” knowledge? The current definition seems rooted in subjects traditionally associated with leadership roles – those measured by exam scores and linked to university pathways. “Vocational” subjects, by contrast, are dismissed as mere workforce preparation, while “hobby” interests such as outdoor education are deemed unworthy of any formal recognition.

But this classification system crumbles the moment we look at real human beings. Under a drafting gate system, which side of the artificial divide would have claimed Brian May? Would some educational bureaucrat have forced him to choose between music and science, potentially robbing the world of either his groundbreaking guitar work or his contributions to our understanding of cosmic dust?

The very question reveals the absurdity of these divisions.

The greatest innovators throughout history have consistently defied narrow categorisation. Leonardo da Vinci seamlessly wove together art, science, anatomy, engineering, and invention. Ada Lovelace combined mathematical brilliance with early concepts for music machines, becoming the world’s first computer programmer. Even in contemporary times, neuroscientist Mayim Bialik has achieved acclaim both in scientific research and television acting (a favourite of mine in the Big Bang Theory!).

These examples aren’t anomalies – they represent the natural human tendency toward diverse interests and capabilities. As education researcher Waqas Ahmed argues, “every person possesses polymath potential, with multiple talents and curiosities waiting to be nurtured rather than suppressed.”

Why Specialisation Fails Our Students – and Society

The push toward early specialisation carries profound costs in my view. Here are some reasons I can think of…

First, it crushes natural curiosity. Children naturally explore connections between seemingly disparate fields. When we force them into narrow tracks, we suppress the very creativity and broad thinking our complex world desperately needs. I was very interested in science at school – but the curiosity I had for it was anchored in the everyday context of my life outside of school – often in the mountains where I spent lots of time tramping and climbing, and where the practical application of thermal insulation became important to understand – so when I was introduced to ‘hollowfil’ fibre as a padding in my coat instead of the traditional down feathers I was naturally curious to find out which was better and why.

Secondly, it often fails to address real-world challenges. Climate change, social inequality, technological disruption – these aren’t problems that can be solved within a single discipline. I recall a project in my own secondary experience where we were looking at environmental issues – looking at the cumulative impact of our waste disposal on the planet’s ecosystem. This drew down to considering the amount of rubbish being left in school grounds at break time. A series of conversations that involved venturing into understanding behavioural psychology resulted in groups of students (myself included) being given the opportunity to express ourselves artistically by painting the rubbish bins around the school so that they stood out as ‘statements’ rather than simply vessels for holding rubbish. It seems to have worked as the amount of rubbish left lying around diminished as the bins were introduced. This kind of interdisciplinary thinking requires exposure to broad educational experiences.

Third, it dehumanises learning. Specialisation treats students as future economic units rather than whole human beings. I think about a student I know who loves both coding and poetry – under this narrowed system, she’d likely be pushed toward computer science because “that’s where the jobs are.” But what if her future contribution to society comes from bridging technology and human expression? What if she becomes the person who helps us navigate AI’s impact on creativity, or develops more humane interfaces between humans and machines? By forcing her to choose at 15, we’re not just limiting her – we’re potentially limiting solutions to challenges we haven’t even identified yet. True education should be about “intellectual and social emancipation” – the freedom to develop one’s full range of capabilities, not just the ones that fit current economic projections.

Finally, it fragments knowledge. When subjects are taught in isolation, students miss the meaningful connections that spark innovation. The musician who understands mathematics, the athlete who grasps physics, the philosopher who appreciates science – these connections create the “aha” moments that drive progress. Consider a student engaged in phys-ed or sport – traditionally seen as non-academic. Yet these areas inherently involve physics principles, physiological understanding, strategic thinking, and often complex statistical analysis. The outdoor education student learns risk assessment, environmental science, leadership, and resilience. The musician develops pattern recognition, mathematical relationships, and emotional intelligence.

These aren’t separate domains – they’re interconnected aspects of human knowledge and experience. When we artificially divide them, we create an impoverished view of learning that serves neither students nor society.

The Economic Argument Doesn’t Hold Water

Much of this narrowing appears driven by a desire to funnel capable students toward high-earning STEM-related careers to boost economic performance. But this logic contains a fatal flaw. If we’re using job market demand to determine curriculum value, what about a subject such as philosophy? It has exams and university programmes, but where’s the robust job market for philosophers? Should we eliminate it too?

The truth is that economic value often emerges in unexpected ways. The arts contribute billions to New Zealand’s economy. Environmental education produces the sustainability experts our climate crisis demands. Outdoor education develops the leadership and resilience skills that benefit every profession – and contributes significantly to the occupations supporting our billion dollar adventure tourism industry!

The original university model provided broad learning before specialisation – and there’s wisdom in returning to this approach. Rather than forcing 15-year-olds to choose narrow paths, we should be expanding their horizons. In my view, a future-focused education system would celebrate connections between disciplines rather than artificial divisions and recognise that today’s complex challenges require polymathic thinking. Such a system would trust that breadth enhances rather than diminishes excellence and understand that human flourishing requires the freedom to develop multiple capacities. This sort of thinking should be shaping our view of curriculum development in my view.

The Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher

We stand at a crossroads that feels painfully familiar. My parents’ generation faced their proficiency tests with life-altering consequences. Today’s students face something more subtle but equally limiting: a curriculum that tells them some forms of human knowledge and expression simply don’t matter.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: many of the people making these decisions are themselves products of the very specialisation they’re now imposing. When you’ve spent your career thinking within one discipline, every problem looks like something your discipline can solve. The economist sees curriculum reform through the lens of budget cuts and resource allocation. The business leader focuses on creating pathways to high-income jobs that boost GDP. The academic prioritises knowledge development within established fields. The former athlete champions pathways to professional sport.

None of these perspectives is wrong, but none is complete without considering a much broader range of issues and contexts. The narrowing of our curriculum isn’t just limiting our students – it’s perpetuating a cycle where our future leaders will be even less equipped to see beyond their own specialisations.

This isn’t just about educational policy – it’s about who we are as a society and who we want to become. We can continue down this path of treating students as products on an educational assembly line, sorting them into predetermined categories just as my parents were sorted, just as German children still are today. Or we can recognize that our rapidly changing world needs adaptable, creative, broadly educated citizens who can think across disciplines and connect disparate ideas – including the leaders who will make tomorrow’s decisions.

When I think about Brian May crafting both guitar solos and academic papers, I see a vision of human potential that our education system should be nurturing, not constraining. We need more people who can see problems from multiple angles, not fewer opportunities to develop that capacity.

New Zealand has always prided itself on innovation and creativity. Narrowing our educational offerings runs counter to these values. Instead of asking which subjects we can afford to cut, we should be asking how we can better integrate diverse forms of learning to prepare students for a future that will demand nothing less than their full human potential.

The choice is ours: do we want a generation of narrow specialists, or do we want to nurture the polymaths who will tackle tomorrow’s challenges? The future of our students and our society hangs in the balance.

Four Questions That Matter Most in Learning

What am I learning?
Why am I learning it?
How am I learning it?
How will I demonstrate what I’ve learned?

Four simple questions that I’d hope any child in any class, at any level of the school, would be able to answer.

Sadly, that’s not always the case. Too often, when I ask learners these things on school visits, I’m met with a quizzical stare — as if to say, “Why would I know that? The teacher tells me what to do.”

For too long, the answers to those four questions have been held almost exclusively by teachers. What’s being taught, why it matters, how it will be taught, and how it will be assessed — these have traditionally lived in lesson plans, schemes of work, and assessment schedules. The learner’s role has often been to follow along. But when the learner can articulate these things for themselves, it’s a clear sign that ownership of learning has shifted.

In my work to promote learner agency as a centrepiece of our education system, I’ve come to see how powerfully these four questions expose the extent to which learners are truly active participants in their learning — or passive recipients of someone else’s plan.

Recently I visited a small secondary school in regional New Zealand that has embraced the Big Picture Learning model. Here, learners are grouped in “advisories” (not classes), guided by “advisors” (not teachers), and each works to the goals in their own Individual Learning Plan. Throughout the day, they move between whole-group, small-group, and independent work, but always anchored in their personal plan.

What struck me most was this: whenever I asked a learner a simple question like “Tell me what you’re doing here,” they would immediately, almost instinctively, answer in ways that touched on those four questions. And when we got to the last one — How will you demonstrate what you’ve learned? — the energy lifted. Yes, they still do formal assessments, but they also prepare “exhibitions” of learning, where they share, defend, and celebrate what they’ve achieved.

This experience sharpened for me just how powerful those four questions are. Imagine if every learner, in every school, could answer them with confidence. It wouldn’t matter what curriculum framework they were working within, or what political ideology was shaping policy at the time — if learners can answer these for themselves, they unlock motivation, engagement, and a sense of ownership.

What excited me most, though, was the way learners spoke about how they would demonstrate their learning. This wasn’t just compliance with an external requirement; it was evidence of them developing real assessment capability. They were selecting and presenting evidence, defending how it met the criteria, and reflecting on what it showed about their progress. In other words, they were taking on the role of assessors of their own learning — an essential capability for lifelong learning, and one of the core characteristics outlined in our book, Agency By Design.

Even more than that, they unlock something far bigger. Being able to answer these questions is not just about surviving school — it’s about preparing to thrive in life beyond school. According to the office of the Auditor General, every year in New Zealand, large numbers of students fail to complete tertiary study, many dropping out after their first year. They cite financial pressures, lack of belonging, and inadequate support as contributing factors. I suspect another part of the story is that too many learners leave school unprepared to be learners — to chart their own course, to know why they are there, and to take ownership of demonstrating what they can do. As such they struggle – whether in tertiary study, in apprenticeships or in any role they may find themselves as they enter the world of work.

That brings me to two convictions that keep growing stronger in my mind:

First, these four questions are fundamental to becoming an agentic learner. They are the scaffolding on which independence, self-awareness, and resilience are built.
Second, being able to answer these questions equips learners with something even more important: the capacity to thrive — and to contribute — in life beyond school. They are questions not just for classrooms, but for workplaces, for communities, and for citizenship itself.

So here’s my provocation: What would our schools look like if we judged their success, not by test scores alone, but by the extent to which every learner could confidently answer those four questions? And what might our society look like if all young people left school already in the habit of asking — and answering — them? What if these four questions were to become the foundational design principles upon which we designed the learning that takes place in our schools and classrooms – including the curriculum, the learning experience and the assessment practices?

Imagine a generation leaving school fluent in those four questions. Confident not only in what they are learning, but in why it matters, how they are learning it, and how they can show what they know. That’s not just better education. That’s a better future.

If you’re interested in exploring these ideas further, our book “Agency by Design: An Educator’s Playbook” provides practical tools, research insights, and real examples of how educators can design for learner agency in their own contexts.

This playbook is free to download or available to purchase as a printed version – details on our website.

FutureMakers can provide workshops and support for implementing these ideas in your school – simply email us to start the conversation

Beyond the Misconceptions: What Learner Agency Really Means

When I published my previous blog titled “The Power Shift: From Educational Equity to Ownership of Learning,” I was interested to see what sort of reaction might unfold. The feedback was generally positive, but one response highlighted for me the deep misconceptions that still surround learner agency in education.

On commenter suggested that I needed to step back and recognise that with age comes more wisdom and perspective, suggesting that “Youthful eagerness, ideas, preferences and positive intent do not necessarily mean a better curriculum or society.“

I’m sure there may be a number of others who feel similarly – I’ve certainly encountered comments and questions like this in some of the workshops I run on learner agency since publishing our Agency By Design Playbook.

The problem here is that this kind of response reveals the kind of thinking that keeps us trapped in the traditional power structures of schooling – and it fundamentally misunderstands what learner agency actually means.

What Agency Isn’t (And Why That Matters)

Let me be clear: learner agency is not about handing over the keys to children and walking away. It’s not about abandoning adult responsibility or pretending that developmental psychology doesn’t exist.

These misconceptions stem from a false binary that suggests we must choose between adult control and chaos. In reality, designing for learner agency requires more sophisticated teaching, not less. It demands that we shift from being controllers to becoming enablers, coaches, and designers of powerful learning experiences. In our book we say:

“Developing agency in learners requires a fundamental shift in the way we think about the relationships and learning activity in our schools and classrooms. It recognises the learners as its core participants, encourages their active engagement, and develops in them an understanding of their own activity as learners.” (Agency By Design page 10)

True learner agency operates within what Vygotsky (1978) called the Zone of Proximal Development – that sweet spot where learners are challenged but supported, where they can stretch beyond what they can do alone but aren’t left to flounder. It follows the gradual release of responsibility model (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983): “I do, we do, you do” – scaffolding ownership rather than abandoning it.

The Evidence Base Is Clear

This isn’t wishful thinking or educational fashion. Decades of research consistently show that when learners have autonomy and ownership within well-designed structures, they are more motivated, more persistent, and achieve better outcomes.

Self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) demonstrates that autonomy, competence, and relatedness are core psychological needs. Autonomy-supportive environments – those that foster agency – are consistently linked to higher motivation, persistence, and achievement. Patall, Cooper, and Robinson’s (2008) meta-analysis of research on student choice shows that even small choices in learning tasks increase intrinsic motivation and performance.

The research on self-regulated learning (Zimmerman, 2002) reveals that learners who set goals, monitor progress, and reflect – all key agency behaviours – achieve stronger academic outcomes. John Hattie’s synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses shows that teacher clarity (effect size 0.75) and feedback (0.70) are among the most powerful influences on learning – reinforcing that agency works best when teachers provide clear pathways and actionable feedback, not when they abdicate their role.

The OECD has positioned student agency at the centre of their Learning Compass 2030, recognising its critical role in developing the capabilities learners need for rapidly changing futures. Their research on promising practices for Indigenous students (OECD, 2017) shows that approaches enhancing agency through culturally grounded pedagogies are linked to improved outcomes and wellbeing internationally.

This isn’t simply about reducing academic rigour – it’s about preparing young people for a world that demands adaptability, critical thinking, and self-regulation while maintaining strong academic expectations.

Agency Through a Māori Lens

In Aotearoa New Zealand, we have rich cultural foundations that help us understand agency differently. Within te ao Māori, concepts like mana, mana motuhake, whanaungatanga, and ako reflect deep traditions of agency that are both individual and collective.

Agency isn’t just about isolated individuals making choices – it’s about learners acting within relationships of care and collective responsibility. It’s about affirming learners’ mana (dignity, authority, identity) and supporting their mana motuhake (autonomy and self-determination).

The groundbreaking Te Kotahitanga research (Bishop & Berryman, 2003-2012) showed that Māori student achievement improves dramatically when pedagogy is culturally responsive – when teachers share power with learners, build relationships of care, and support students to bring their whole identity into learning. That’s agency in practice, and it works.

Ka Hikitia, New Zealand’s Māori Education Strategy, defines success for Māori as enjoying and achieving education success as Māori – which requires agency for learners to bring their identity, language, and culture into the learning process and have that valued. Practice-based evidence from kura kaupapa Māori and Māori-medium settings demonstrates how agency can be designed into learning through collective responsibility and strong cultural foundations, while maintaining rigorous academic expectations.

By designing for agency through a Māori lens, we create more equitable and culturally sustaining environments. We reduce the alienation and disengagement that occurs when learners feel their voices, cultures, and ways of knowing are not valued.

What This Looks Like in Practice

So what does well-designed learner agency actually look like in a classroom or school?

It’s students co-constructing learning goals with teachers – where the teacher brings curriculum knowledge, understanding of learning progressions, and skill in helping students articulate meaningful, achievable goals. The teacher isn’t abdicating responsibility for goal-setting; she/he is facilitating a collaborative process that honours both student interests and learning requirements.

It’s learners having meaningful choices about how they demonstrate their understanding, while the teacher provides the framework of success criteria, shares models of quality work, and coaches students through the assessment process. The teacher becomes a designer of learning rather than just a content deliverer.

It’s young people engaging in authentic inquiries that connect to their lives and communities, while the teacher curates resources, teaches research methods, facilitates connections between student questions and curriculum content, and provides ongoing feedback. The teacher shifts from information giver to learning facilitator and intellectual coach.

Consider the teacher who designs a project-based learning experience where students investigate real community issues. Students have agency over their research questions and methods, but the teacher maps these investigations to curriculum requirements, provides explicit instruction in research methodologies, facilitates expert connections, and guides students through reflection processes that deepen their learning. This requires far more sophisticated pedagogical skill than simply delivering pre-planned lessons.

Or think of the classroom where students participate in developing class agreements and problem-solving processes. The teacher may facilitate these discussions, ensuring all voices are heard, helping students understand the principles behind effective agreements, and guiding the group through conflict resolution when issues arise. The teacher maintains overall responsibility for safety and learning while building students’ capacity for democratic participation.

It’s the school that involves students with their parents and whānau as genuine partners in curriculum review, but where teachers bring their professional expertise about learning design, assessment validity, and educational research to ensure their voice enhances rather than replaces professional judgment.

The Future We’re Building

When we design for learner agency, we’re not abandoning adult wisdom or developmental appropriateness. In fact, learner agency has long been recognised as developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood education, where it forms the foundation of effective programmes worldwide. From Reggio Emilia approaches to Te Whāriki (New Zealand’s ECE curriculum), we see young children making meaningful choices, co-constructing learning, and engaging as capable, competent learners within supportive adult frameworks.

The irony is that as children progress through formal schooling, we often strip away these agency-supporting practices precisely when young people are developmentally ready for greater responsibility and self-direction. We’re creating conditions where young people can develop the very capabilities – self-regulation, critical thinking, collaboration, adaptability – that research shows are essential for future success.

We’re building more equitable systems that value diverse voices and experiences. We shouldn’t be preparing learners just for tests, but for life in a complex, rapidly changing world where they’ll need to be self-directed, adaptive, and able to work collaboratively across difference.

Most importantly, we’re honouring the humanity and potential of every learner, creating spaces where they can flourish as their authentic selves while developing the knowledge, skills, and dispositions they need for whatever futures they choose to create.

Moving Forward

The commenter who challenged my post was right about one thing: there are good reasons we have age restrictions and developmental considerations in education. But using this as an argument against learner agency misses the point entirely.

The question isn’t whether adults should abdicate responsibility – of course we shouldn’t. The question is how we can use our wisdom, experience, and understanding of development to create learning environments where young people can grow into confident, capable, culturally grounded individuals who can shape their own futures.

That’s what designing for learner agency really means. And that’s why it matters so much for the future of education.

References

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.

OECD. (2017). Promising practices in supporting success for Indigenous students. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2017/08/promising-practices-in-supporting-success-for-indigenous-students_g1g7e332.html

OECD. (2019). OECD learning compass 2030: A series of concept notes. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/about/projects/edu/education-2040/1-1-learning-compass/OECD_Learning_Compass_2030_Concept_Note_Series.pdf

Patall, E. A., Cooper, H., & Robinson, J. C. (2008). The effects of choice on intrinsic motivation and related outcomes: A meta-analysis of research findings. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 270–300.

Pearson, P. D., & Gallagher, M. C. (1983). The instruction of reading comprehension. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 8(3), 317–344.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.

Wenmoth, D., Jones, M., Edwards, G., & Thompson, A. (2023). Agency by design: An educator’s playbook. The Aurora Institute. https://aurora-institute.org/resource/agency-by-design-an-educators-playbook/

Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview. Theory Into Practice, 41(2), 64–70.

This playbook is free to download or available to purchase as a printed version – details on the website.

The Power Shift: From Educational Equity to Ownership of Learning

True educational equity requires more than inclusion – it demands a fundamental redistribution of learning agency.

In my previous post I explained how I came to establish FutureMakers, and I explored how educators can shift from fighting change to building the capabilities students need for an unknown future. But there’s a deeper conversation we need to have – one that makes many educators, parents, and policymakers uncomfortable. It’s about power, and who really controls learning in our schools.

The equity debate in education often focuses on important but surface-level changes – things like diversifying curriculum content, creating more inclusive physical spaces, implementing culturally responsive teaching materials or ensuring equal access to resources for example. While these efforts matter, how we go about them can inadvertently maintain the fundamental power structures that create inequity in the first place. For decades we’ve been rearranging the furniture while leaving the foundation unchanged.

The Courage to Confront Our Design Flaws

Somehow we need to find the courage to acknowledge that our current educational system is designed with an inherent power bias. The teacher and the system are in charge, and learners are positioned as passive recipients of knowledge that someone else has deemed important for them to know. This isn’t an accident or an oversight – it’s by design, rooted in industrial-era efficiency models that treated education like a factory production line, and perpetuated now in what has been termed, the grammar of schooling.

But there’s an even deeper layer that we must face. Our educational system has been designed with a Eurocentric understanding of success, knowledge, and learning. The models of what counts as knowledge, how learning should happen, and what constitutes achievement reflect this singular cultural lens. When we impose this framework on societies represented by citizens from other cultures – where their ways of knowing, being, and doing may differ significantly – we create massive inequity. These young people and their families become disenfranchised, not because they can’t learn, but because the approaches to learning that are ‘normal’ for them aren’t recognised or valued.

This creates a painful paradox. Families who have experienced educational systems that didn’t honour their cultural ways of knowing may still defend the traditional model because they believe it’s what their children need for “success.” Parents, drawing from their own school experiences, implicitly support teacher-controlled learning because that’s what they know, even if it may not have served them well. They fear that any departure from this model might disadvantage their children in a system that continues to reward conformity to dominant cultural norms.

Beyond Inclusion: The Agency Imperative

Real educational equity isn’t about better including marginalised voices in existing power structures – it’s about fundamentally redistributing power and elevating learner agency. It’s the difference between inviting someone to sit at a table where the menu has already been decided versus creating space for everyone to contribute to deciding what gets served and how the meal unfolds.

Consider how different these approaches are:

Traditional Equity Approach:	Learning Ownership Approach:
“Let’s include more diverse authors in our reading curriculum while maintaining teacher-selected texts and predetermined discussion questions.”	“Let’s create opportunities for students to investigate questions that matter to them, drawing from diverse knowledge traditions and ways of understanding, while developing their capacity to think critically about multiple perspectives.”

The first approach maintains teacher control while diversifying content. The second shifts ownership of learning to learners, acknowledging them as agentic, while building critical capabilities. Both can coexist, but without the second, the first remains superficial.

The Responsibility Spectrum: Building A Civil Society

Here’s where the power shift becomes not just about equity, but about preparing young people for democratic participation in diverse societies. When we release control and give students genuine agency in their learning, we’re not just making education more equitable – we’re building the foundation of civil society.

This happens across a spectrum of growing responsibility:

1. Responsibility for Self

When students have agency in their learning, they develop intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and the ability to direct their own growth. They learn to identify what they need, seek resources, and persist through challenges – not because a teacher is monitoring them, but because they’re invested in their own development.

This isn’t about abandoning structure or support. It’s about shifting from external control to internal ownership. Students still need guidance, feedback, and scaffolding, but within a framework that honours their growing capacity for self-direction.

2. Responsibility for Others

As students gain agency in collaborative learning environments, they naturally develop awareness of the impact of their decisions on others, and take responsibility for their peers’ success. When learning is truly shared, individual achievement becomes connected to collective progress. Students learn to support each other, navigate disagreements constructively, and recognise that diverse perspectives strengthen outcomes.

This moves beyond superficial “group work” to genuine interdependence. It’s where we see the impact of “collective efficacy“. Students learn that their success is intertwined with others’, a fundamental principle of democratic societies.

3. Responsibility for Our Shared Environment

The deepest level of responsibility emerges when students understand their learning as connected to broader community and global challenges. With genuine agency, they begin to see themselves as contributors to solutions, not just recipients of information about problems.

This is where cultural ways of knowing become essential. Many indigenous cultures, for example, emphasise learning through connection to land, community, and intergenerational wisdom. When we honour these approaches alongside others, we create richer opportunities for students to understand their responsibility to shared environments – both local and global.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Compare the approaches outlined below:

In Traditional Power Structures:	In Learning Ownership Models:
• Teacher selects topics based on curriculum requirements • Students complete assignments designed to demonstrate mastery of predetermined content • Assessment measures how well students can reproduce expected answers • Cultural diversity is added through multicultural content while maintaining dominant pedagogical approaches	• Students investigate questions that connect personal interests with academic standards • Learning emerges through collaboration between students, teachers, and community members • Assessment focuses on growth in thinking, problem-solving, and contribution to collective understanding • Diverse cultural approaches to learning are valued and integrated, not just represented in content

A Practical Example: Instead of studying poverty through a predetermined social studies unit with textbook readings and statistics, students might notice the increasing number of people using their local food bank and ask “Why is this happening in our community?” This authentic question could lead them to:

Interview food bank volunteers, users, and community leaders to understand multiple perspectives on local food security
Investigate supply chains using diverse research methods (economic data analysis, mapping where food travels from, talking with local farmers about growing seasons and challenges, learning about traditional food preservation methods from community elders)
Collaborate with families to understand household food experiences across different cultural and economic contexts
Explore solutions that draw from various cultural approaches to community support and food sharing
Plan for and undertake a fund-raising activity for the local food bank (see image at the top of this post)
Develop actual initiatives they can implement – perhaps a community garden, a food rescue program, or advocacy for local food policy changes
Reflect on how their understanding of food, community, and responsibility evolved through this inquiry.

Navigating the Challenges

This power shift isn’t without challenges. Parents may worry about academic rigour. School leaders may concern themselves with standardised outcomes. Teachers may feel unprepared to facilitate rather than direct learning. Students themselves may initially resist the responsibility that comes with agency after years of being trained to be passive recipients.

But these challenges reveal the work that needs to be done, not reasons to avoid it. We need:

Professional Development that helps educators develop facilitation skills and comfort with shared authority.

Family Engagement that helps parents understand how learner agency actually strengthens academic outcomes while building life skills.

Policy Advocacy that creates space for schools to measure success through multiple indicators, not just standardized test scores.

Cultural Humility that recognises educators (myself included) need to continuously learn about and from the diverse communities we serve.

The Democratic Imperative

Here’s what’s at stake: our democratic societies are facing unprecedented challenges that require citizens who can think critically, collaborate across differences, take responsibility for collective problems, and create solutions that honour diverse perspectives and needs. These capabilities can’t be developed through traditional power structures that position students as passive recipients.

When we maintain educational systems that require conformity to dominant cultural norms and teacher-controlled learning, we’re not preparing students for the complex, multicultural, rapidly changing world they’ll inhabit. We’re preparing them for a world that no longer exists – if it ever truly did. Or worse, we’re simply preparing them to become robots in a society governed by autocrats.

But when we have the courage to shift power, to honour diverse ways of knowing, and to build learner agency within frameworks of growing responsibility, we’re preparing FutureMakers who can engage constructively with difference, solve problems collaboratively, and take responsibility for creating more equitable and sustainable communities.

Your Power Shift Decision

Every educator, parent, and policymaker faces a choice. Will we continue to defend systems that maintain familiar power structures while adding superficial diversity, or will we have the courage to fundamentally redistribute learning agency?

The first path feels safer because it’s familiar. The second path requires us to examine our own assumptions about whose knowledge matters, how learning happens, and what success looks like. It requires us to develop new skills and comfort with shared authority. It requires us to trust that young people from all cultural backgrounds are capable of far more than our current systems assume.

But only the second path leads to true educational equity. Only the second path prepares students for meaningful participation in diverse democratic societies. Only the second path honours the full humanity and potential of every learner who enters our schools.

The power shift isn’t just about making education more equitable – it’s about building the foundation for civil societies that can thrive amid complexity, difference, and constant change.

What will you choose to shift?

How do you see power dynamics playing out in your educational context? What would it look like to honour diverse ways of knowing while building learner agency? I’d love to continue this conversation in the comments below.

If you’re interested in exploring how you can create the conditions for learner agency in your school or classroom – download the free Agency By Design: Educator’s Playbook today.

This playbook provides a simple framework to guide you through the process of creating the conditions that will encourage agentic learning to develop, and then focus on the characteristics you’ll expect to see in your students as they mature in this way.

There’s plenty of illustrative material to guide you, and rubrics to help you evaluate the effectiveness of what you’re doing and help inform your next steps in this journey.

Tags educational transformation, learner agency

From Change Fighters to Future Makers

What if we spent less time fighting change, and more time building what’s right for learners?

I’ve been thinking about exhaustion lately – and patterns that repeat across generations. Over the past few years, I’ve watched my grandchildren navigate school experiences remarkably similar to what their parents endured, which were strikingly similar to my own education decades ago. Yes, there have been changes in the structures and systems such as more collaborative spaces, flexible timetables, project-based learning initiatives. But beneath these surface improvements, the fundamental premise remains unchanged: the teacher (or the system) knows the answers, and education is still largely about knowledge transfer rather than knowledge-building and sharing the ownership of learning.

Even in our most innovative classrooms, we often maintain the assumption that we, as educators, have predetermined what students need to know and how they should learn it. We’ve improved the delivery methods, but we haven’t fundamentally shifted who holds agency in the learning process. Students are still primarily receivers rather than active architects of their own understanding.

This generational déjà vu sparked something in me. We’re still operating from an industrial-era assumption that there’s a fixed body of knowledge to transfer and that the skills needed to solve future problems are all known and simply need to be learned. But what if the most important capabilities our students need can’t be found in any curriculum guide because the problems they’ll face don’t exist yet? And what if preparing them requires us to admit that we don’t (and can’t) have all the answers?

While this awareness was always a driving force in my work with CORE Education, seeing how these assumptions have perpetuated to the current day and the impact they were having on my grandchildren led me to found FutureMakers, with a mission of “inspiring the next generation of thinkers, leaders and problem solvers.” The name captures a dual focus that I believe education desperately needs: first, recognising teachers as FutureMakers – architects of the experiences that build the capabilities students need to live full and competent lives in an unknowable future. Second, seeing our students not simply as future workers filling predetermined roles, but as FutureMakers themselves – capable of contributing to the creation of desired futures and solving the intensely complex problems we can’t even imagine yet.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting we abandon foundational skills and knowledge or throw structure out the window. Students absolutely need literacy, numeracy, critical thinking foundations, and many other essential capabilities. But what if we approached even these fundamentals differently – not as fixed knowledge to be deposited, but as tools students learn to wield with increasing independence and creativity? What if we accepted that effective FutureMaker education requires us to be comfortable with not knowing all the answers, not controlling every learning outcome, and not predetermining every path to understanding?

But here’s what troubles me: instead of embracing this fundamental shift in the ownership of learning, many educators find themselves exhausted by constant resistance to change. Not the good kind of tired that comes after meaningful collaborative learning with students, but the bone-deep weariness that settles in when we’re perpetually pushing back against waves of change that crash over education relentlessly. New initiatives, revised standards, emerging technologies, shifting expectations – it feels like we’re always bracing for impact rather than charting our course toward what’s truly needed.

What if we’re approaching this all wrong?

The Resistance Trap

Here’s the thing about constant resistance: it’s incredibly draining, and it often dims the very purpose that drew us to education in the first place. When we’re perpetually in fighting mode, we lose sight of what we’re actually fighting for. We defend practices because they’re familiar, not necessarily because they best serve our students. We resist tools and approaches that might actually amplify our effectiveness because they require us to step outside our comfort zones.

I’m not suggesting we become passive acceptors of every educational fad that comes our way. Discernment is crucial. But there’s a profound difference between thoughtful evaluation and reflexive resistance. One serves our students; the other often serves our own fear of change.

The educators I most admire aren’t the ones who never change – they’re the ones who change intentionally, with purpose, keeping their students’ needs at the centre of every decision.

Reclaiming the FutureMaker Identity

What if instead of seeing ourselves as guardians of “how things have always been done,” we embraced our role as FutureMakers – as architects of the capabilities our students need to shape what’s coming? This shift in identity – from change fighters to FutureMakers – isn’t just semantic. It’s transformational.

As educator-FutureMakers, we must be asking different questions:

Instead of “How do we protect what we have?” we ask “What capabilities do our students need to create the futures they desire?”
Instead of “How do we maintain control?” we ask “How do we build agency in young FutureMakers?”
Instead of “How do we resist this change?” we ask “How might we shape this change to develop tomorrow’s problem solvers?”

This mindset doesn’t abandon wisdom or experience. Rather, it leverages both in service of something bigger: developing students as FutureMakers themselves – not just preparing them for the world as it is, but empowering them to actively create the world as it could be.

Where FutureMakers Focus Their Energy

Here are some thoughts on specific ways we, as educators, might focus our energy as FutureMakers. We can do this by…

1. Building Learning Environments That Nurture Future Creators

The most dynamic classrooms I’ve visited feel alive – they adapt, evolve, and respond to the humans within them. These spaces don’t happen by accident. They’re created by educator-FutureMakers who understand that flexibility isn’t chaos; it’s responsiveness to developing young minds who will need to adapt to circumstances we can’t predict.

This might mean creating quiet corners for reflective thinkers, collaborative spaces for collective problem-solvers, or movement areas for kinesthetic activity. It might mean adjusting lesson timing based on class energy, or pivoting when a teachable moment emerges. FutureMaker educators build environments that serve capability development, not just content delivery.

Most importantly, these environments give students agency in their learning – practice in making choices, solving problems, and creating solutions. After all, if we want students to become FutureMakers, we need to give them opportunities to pursue solutions to problems that are authentic to them, to make mistakes and learn from failure.

2. Partnering with Families as Co-FutureMakers

One of the most significant shifts we can make is moving from an “expert-to-recipient” model with families to a “FutureMaker-with-FutureMaker” approach. Families aren’t just stakeholders in their children’s education – they’re co-architects of their child’s capability development. They bring insights about their children that no assessment can capture, along with hopes, fears, and cultural perspectives that enrich our understanding of what it means to prepare young people for tomorrow.

FutureMaker educators don’t just communicate with families – they create with them. They invite parents and caregivers into conversations about what capabilities their children will need, what challenges exist in the home environment, and how problem-solving skills can be nurtured beyond school walls. This partnership approach helps everyone navigate change together, turning potential resistance into shared investment in developing the next generation of thinkers and leaders.

3. Embracing AI as a Capability Amplifier

Let’s address the elephant in the digital room: artificial intelligence. Rather than seeing AI as a threat to be resisted or a silver bullet to be embraced uncritically, FutureMaker educators are exploring how these tools can amplify the uniquely human capabilities we want to develop in our students.

AI can handle routine tasks – generating quiz questions, providing first-draft feedback, or creating differentiated practice sets – freeing educators to focus on relationship-building, creative facilitation, and complex problem-solving. It can help personalise learning pathways while teachers concentrate on developing critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and the collaborative skills young FutureMakers will need.

The key is maintaining human agency and modelling thoughtful interaction with emerging technologies. We’re not asking, “How can AI replace what teachers do?” but rather, “How can AI enhance our capacity to develop the thinkers, leaders, and problem-solvers the future needs?” When we approach it this way, AI becomes a tool for developing deeper human capabilities, not a substitute for them.

Most importantly, we model for students how to be thoughtful consumers and creative collaborators with AI – skills they’ll absolutely need as future creators and problem-solvers.

4. Cultivating FutureMaker Capabilities

Perhaps most importantly, FutureMaker educators focus on meta-capabilities – the abilities that transfer across contexts and adapt to new challenges. The is the essence of the Reflection phase of Russel Bishop’s ITAR model from his book, Teaching to the NorthWest. While content knowledge remains important, the capacity to learn continuously, think critically, collaborate effectively, and adapt gracefully becomes increasingly essential for young people who will create solutions to problems that don’t yet exist.

This means creating opportunities for students to:

Tackle problems without predetermined solutions (because that’s what they’ll face as FutureMakers – and they’ll not always have you around to assist!)
Collaborate across differences of opinion and approach (essential for complex problem-solving)
Reflect on their learning processes, not just their learning products (developing metacognitive awareness)
Develop resilience in the face of failure and uncertainty (crucial for innovation and creation)
Practice empathy and emotional intelligence (the foundation of ethical leadership)
Question assumptions and explore multiple perspectives (critical for addressing complex future challenges)

These aren’t “21st-century skills” – they’re FutureMaker capabilities, newly urgent in a world that needs active creators rather than passive recipients.

The Sustainable FutureMaker Approach

Becoming a FutureMaker educator doesn’t require complete reinvention overnight. Sustainable change happens through thoughtful experimentation and gradual evolution. Here are some practical strategies:

Start Small, Think Big: Try one new approach that develops student agency in one class or with one unit. Notice what works, what doesn’t, and what you learn about your students’ capacity to be creators and problem-solvers.

Find Your FutureMaker Tribe: Seek out other educator-FutureMakers. Join professional learning networks focused on capability development, attend conferences about innovation in education, or start conversations with colleagues who share your commitment to preparing students as active creators of tomorrow. The EdRising community would be a great start here – and signing up to the FutureMakers newsletter is also recommended.

Reflect Regularly: Create space to ask yourself: What’s filling my calendar versus what’s building FutureMaker capabilities in my students? Where am I expending energy on maintaining the status quo that could be redirected toward developing the thinkers, leaders, and problem-solvers we need?

Embrace “Yet” with Your Students: When they say, “I don’t know how to solve this,” help them add “yet” to the end of that sentence. (You might like to develop this habit personally and with your fellow staff members also!) It’s a small word that opens up enormous possibilities and reinforces their identity as capable FutureMakers.

The Ripple Effect of FutureMaker Education

Here’s what I’ve learned: students absorb our attitudes toward change, challenge, and possibility. When they see us approach uncertainty with curiosity rather than fear, they develop similar dispositions. When they watch us adapt and grow, they understand that learning is a lifelong endeavour essential for FutureMakers. Most importantly, when we treat them as capable creators rather than passive recipients, they begin to see themselves that way too.

The educators who inspire me most aren’t the ones who have all the answers – they’re the ones who model the very capabilities we want to develop in students: thoughtful questioning, creative problem-solving, resilient adaptation, and collaborative thinking. They show their students that the future isn’t something that happens to us; it’s something we actively create. (They’re also the ones who appear to be enjoying what they do the most!)

When I think about my grandchildren now, I envision them in classrooms led by FutureMaker educators – spaces where they’re challenged to think deeply, create boldly, and solve problems that matter. I imagine them developing the confidence to approach complex challenges with curiosity rather than fear, knowing they have the capabilities to not just adapt to change, but to drive positive change themselves.

Your FutureMaker Cross-roads

Every educator faces this cross-road choice from time to time: Will I spend my energy fighting what’s changing, or building the capabilities young FutureMakers need to create positive change?

Fighting change is exhausting and ultimately futile. The world keeps evolving regardless of our resistance. But developing FutureMaker capabilities in our students – that’s where our power lies. That’s where our purpose finds expression. That’s how we honour both the profession we’ve inherited and the students we serve.

As an educator, you have the privilege and responsibility of shaping young minds at a pivotal moment in human history. The problems they’ll face as adults – climate change, social inequality, technological disruption, challenges we can’t even imagine yet – will require more than the knowledge we can give them today. They’ll need the capabilities of true FutureMakers: the ability to think critically, create collaboratively, adapt resiliently, and lead with empathy.

The future needs makers, not just maintainers. It needs thinkers, leaders, and problem-solvers who see challenges as opportunities to create something better. The question isn’t whether change will come—it’s whether we’ll help shape a generation capable of guiding that change toward human flourishing.

What kind of FutureMakers will you help develop? What problems will they solve? What futures will they create?

The choice, and the opportunity, is yours.

What resonates with you from this perspective? How are you already acting as a future maker in your educational context? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

Rethinking Assessment Beyond Economic Servitude

Image: Canva

What kind of future are we really preparing our children for? And shouldn’t that future belong to all of them?

The current furore over the proposal to replace NCEA with new national qualifications has exposed a fundamental tension in how we think about education. On one side, we have Jamie Beaton advocating for changes that better serve “elite universities” – a pathway designed for the privileged few. On the other, Pacific and Māori education leaders fighting for cultural recognition and equity. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education worries that “employers and tertiary educators aren’t always sure that an NCEA qualification reflects readiness for post-school study or work.”

But buried in this debate is a question we’re afraid to ask: What exactly are we preparing young people for?

The Economy That No Longer Exists

The Ministry’s concern about “readiness for work” assumes we know what work will look like. It harks back to education’s 19th-century origins, when schools were designed to produce compliant workers for an industrial economy. The model was simple: suppliers (owners) needed workers who would produce goods cheaply while earning just enough to become consumers themselves.

This neat circular economy is crumbling before our eyes.

Technology is rapidly replacing human labour across industries. The World Economic Forum’s data shows us that the nature of work is transforming at breakneck speed, requiring entirely different skill sets than those our current assessment systems measure. Meanwhile, our neo-liberal obsession with individual gain has hollowed out the social institutions – sports clubs, community groups, cultural organisations – that once taught us how to work together.

We’re training students for an economy that’s disappearing while ignoring the one that’s emerging.

The Elite Pathway vs. Everyone Else

Beaton’s vision of preparing students for “elite universities” is seductive – for those who can afford it. His Crimson Education model works brilliantly for the privileged few who can pay hefty fees or earn scholarships. But what about everyone else? What about the vast majority of students who won’t attend Harvard or Oxford?

More fundamentally, what about students whose cultural backgrounds don’t align with these Western-world, narrow definitions of success? Pacific education leaders are warning that their students risk being left behind unless assessment reforms value cultural knowledge and diverse learning approaches. Māori educators have long argued that traditional Western assessment models fail to recognise indigenous ways of knowing and collective achievement.

When we design assessment around individual competition and standardised benchmarks, we’re not just excluding the economically disadvantaged – we’re actively marginalising entire cultural approaches to knowledge and learning. Pacific concepts of collective achievement, where individual success is meaningless without community benefit, simply don’t translate into our current assessment paradigms. Similarly, Māori holistic approaches to knowledge, where learning is embedded in relationships and cultural context, are systematically undervalued by assessment focused on decontextualised skills and content.

Are we really content with an education system that sorts children into winners and losers based not just on economic privilege, but on cultural alignment with Western academic traditions? This isn’t just inequitable – it’s economically and culturally shortsighted. A society that only develops potential within narrow cultural frameworks while marginalising diverse ways of knowing is a society that wastes its most precious resource: the full spectrum of human wisdom and capability.

The Vision We Already Have (But Ignore)

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: New Zealand has actually had a competency-based curriculum for over twenty years that identifies exactly these broader capabilities as important. Our curriculum explicitly values key competencies like thinking, relating to others, managing self, participating and contributing, and using language, symbols and texts.

We already know what students need for an uncertain future. We’ve known it since 2007.

Yet somehow, despite this official recognition, these competencies have been consistently relegated to the back burner. Why? Because when push comes to shove, academic achievement – measured through traditional assessment – is what really counts. Schools, parents, and students all know what actually matters: the grades, the credits, the university entrance scores.

This isn’t an accident. It’s the predictable result of a system that pays lip service to broader capabilities while structuring all its incentives around narrow academic measures. And now, with proposed amendments to the Education and Training Act doubling down on academic achievement as the “paramount objective”, there’s the potential to make this mismatch even worse.

Preparing for an Uncertain Future (Despite Ourselves)

What if we flipped the script entirely?

Instead of asking “How can we better prepare students for the current economy?” what if we asked: “How can we prepare young people to thrive in an uncertain and constantly changing future?” More importantly, what if we actually meant it this time?

This isn’t about abandoning academic achievement – literacy, numeracy, and subject knowledge remain important. But what if academic achievement became just one part of a broader educational purpose, rather than the sole measure of success? What if we were equally committed to nurturing capabilities that benefit society as a whole?

The capabilities our students need aren’t mysterious. They’re already in our curriculum, for example:

Collaborative problem-solving skills that help communities tackle complex challenges
Systems thinking that recognizes how individual actions affect collective wellbeing
Cultural competency that values diverse ways of knowing and being
Adaptive creativity that thrives on uncertainty rather than fearing it
Ethical reasoning that considers long-term consequences beyond immediate gain

The question isn’t what students need. The question is whether we’ll finally take our own curriculum seriously.

Assessment for a Different Future

This vision requires fundamentally different assessment approaches. Instead of only measuring individual competition against standardised benchmarks, we might assess:

How well students collaborate on authentic, complex problems
Their ability to integrate different cultural perspectives and knowledge systems
Their capacity to adapt and learn in rapidly changing contexts
Their contribution to community wellbeing and collective solutions

Models already exist. Big Picture Schools focus on real-world learning through internships and community projects. Melbourne University has developed new metrics that value diverse pathways to learning. The UK’s Rethinking Assessment movement challenges traditional testing paradigms.

Beyond the Politics

The NCEA debate offers us a rare opportunity to examine our deepest assumptions about education’s purpose. We can continue tweaking an industrial-age system to better serve a disappearing economy. We can entrench privilege through elite pathways that benefit the few.

Or we can be bold enough to imagine education that prepares all young people – not just the privileged – to create a future worth living in.

The question isn’t whether NCEA needs reform. The question is whether we have the courage to design education for the world our students will actually inherit, rather than the one we’re comfortable leaving behind.

A Call to Action: Questions for Our Educational Communities

This conversation can’t remain abstract. It needs to happen in staffrooms, school communities, and boardrooms across the country. Here are some questions to help teachers and school leaders engage meaningfully in these discussions:

1. For Staffroom Conversations:

What are we really assessing? When we look at our current assessment practices, what capabilities are we actually measuring versus what our curriculum says we should value?
Whose knowledge counts? How do our assessment methods privilege certain cultural approaches to learning while marginalising others? What would change if we truly valued diverse ways of knowing?
What stories do our grades tell? If an employer or tertiary provider looked at our students’ results, what would they actually understand about each young person’s readiness for the future?

2. For Community Engagement:

What does success look like for our students? How do families and communities in our school define achievement and success? How well do our current measures align with these diverse definitions?
What future are we preparing for? Given the rapid changes in work and society, what capabilities will our students actually need in 10-20 years? Are we developing these alongside academic achievement?
How do we honour all our learners? What would assessment look like if it truly recognised and valued the cultural knowledge and learning approaches all our students bring?

3. For Strategic Leadership:

What are we incentivising? What do our school policies, reporting systems, and celebration practices actually reward? Do they align with our stated values about holistic education?
How do we measure what matters? If we committed to developing the key competencies as seriously as we do academic subjects, what would we need to change about how we assess and report on student progress?
What’s our contribution to change? How can our school contribute to broader conversations about assessment reform? What pilot programs or alternative approaches could we explore?

4. For System-Level Advocacy:

How do we amplify diverse voices? Whose perspectives are missing from current reform discussions, and how do we ensure Māori, Pacific, and other community voices are central to the conversation?
What evidence do we need? What research and examples from our own practice can we contribute to demonstrate that broader approaches to assessment are both necessary and possible?
How do we sustain momentum? Assessment reform is a long-term project. How do we maintain focus on these deeper questions amid the pressures of daily school life and political cycles?

The future our students deserve won’t emerge from policy documents alone. It requires each of us to examine our own practices, challenge our assumptions, and work collectively toward assessment systems that truly serve all learners.

A Knowledge Rich Curriculum

Hirsch vs. Dewey: Competing Visions of Education

Short-term Gains vs. Long-term Impact

Why Dewey Still Matters

What can we do?

Futuremakers Newsletter

Trust matters

A curriculum or a list of subjects?

The “science of learning” – more complicated than it sounds

Curriculum and assessment – joined at the hip

What’s with the “new” VLN?

Why this matters

Futuremakers Newsletter

Narrowing the meaning of success

The limits of ‘fixing’ assessment

What does the data really reveal?

Personalisation, not standardisation

Beyond “Academic” vs “Vocational”

Asking the bigger questions

Futuremakers Newsletter

The promise and the problem of “what works”

The New Zealand context

The deeper issue: power

Breaking the cycle

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The False Binary That Diminishes Us All

Why Specialisation Fails Our Students – and Society

The Economic Argument Doesn’t Hold Water

The Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher

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Futuremakers Newsletter

What Agency Isn’t (And Why That Matters)

The Evidence Base Is Clear

Agency Through a Māori Lens

What This Looks Like in Practice

The Future We’re Building

Moving Forward

References

Futuremakers Newsletter

The Courage to Confront Our Design Flaws

Beyond Inclusion: The Agency Imperative

The Responsibility Spectrum: Building A Civil Society

1. Responsibility for Self

2. Responsibility for Others

3. Responsibility for Our Shared Environment

What This Looks Like in Practice

Navigating the Challenges

The Democratic Imperative

Your Power Shift Decision

Futuremakers Newsletter

The Resistance Trap

Reclaiming the FutureMaker Identity

Where FutureMakers Focus Their Energy

1. Building Learning Environments That Nurture Future Creators

2. Partnering with Families as Co-FutureMakers

3. Embracing AI as a Capability Amplifier

4. Cultivating FutureMaker Capabilities

The Sustainable FutureMaker Approach

The Ripple Effect of FutureMaker Education

Your FutureMaker Cross-roads

Futuremakers Newsletter

The Economy That No Longer Exists

The Elite Pathway vs. Everyone Else

The Vision We Already Have (But Ignore)

Preparing for an Uncertain Future (Despite Ourselves)

Assessment for a Different Future

Beyond the Politics

A Call to Action: Questions for Our Educational Communities

1. For Staffroom Conversations:

2. For Community Engagement:

3. For Strategic Leadership:

4. For System-Level Advocacy:

Futuremakers Newsletter

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