Like I imagine most teachers did, I read the details of the Gonski reforms with a degree of tiredness, trepidation and more than a little cynicism. Again, like most teachers, I felt pretty pleased at the increased levels of funding, and funding based on the needs of every child rather than the type of school, but I as deeply troubled by the cuts to university funding and the strangely unequal funding between the states.
Anyway, that’s not what this blog post is about. I’m sure that there are people who are much more capable of writing lengthy discussions and analyses of the Gonski review and its reforms; no doubt they already have. What I was interested in is something else that Minister Garret mentioned when he was talking about the increased funding available to schools. He said that one way that it can be used is to pay for ‘literacy and numeracy coaches’. I’ve heard that term before – mostly to do with American or Canadian schools, and the drive to increase performance in standardized testing there. It makes me feel a little bit apprehensive.
From what I understand, a literacy or numeracy coach is a teacher – or a teaching assistant? – whose sole role is to work with children in small groups or even large groups, perhaps, with the intention of addressing specific weaknesses in their learning. For example, they might do the old ‘reading recovery’ program, or one-to-one tuition or something similar.
Here’s the thing, though. While I acknowledge a need for literacy or numeracy coaches, I have two main problems. Firstly, the place to deploy them is not in high schools, as seems to be the intention of some organisations and systems. I’ve noticed, in a number of different schools, that the problems appear to be at the primary level; I’m not trying to criticise my primary colleagues, goodness knows, they do enough, but its apparent to me that students reach Year 7 without some of the basic skills that you might reasonably expect them to have. I’m not just talking about a few students, either – I’m talking about the majority of classes – simply failing to be able to do what is expected of them – like write simple and complex sentences, like write in paragraphs, like being able to add or subtract fractions. So, I guess I’m wondering how did this happen? And surely that’s where help should be located?
My second issue is, I think, even more important. If these literacy and numeracy coaches are working in specific lessons – like, for example, a literacy catch up session, either with a whole class or a small group, is that going to confuse the message that the teachers are trying to communicate to students? Let me explain: we all know that learning is a complex and intensely personal endeavour: by having special ‘literacy’ classes, are we risking confusing students with the idea that literacy is something that is only done in ‘literacy’ classes – and not in history, geography or any other lesson? Surely, literacy and numeracy is something that should be delivered through every subject in the curriculum – and not just on odd occasions.
That idea, however, requires a significant change from many teachers, who have to realize that they are not just science teachers, but also literacy and numeracy teachers. And it’s got to be more than simply a spelling test for every unit; it needs to be a consistent, methodical approach in line with the whole school goals.