From Technicians to Teachers: The New Zealand Curriculum and the Development of Ethical Teacher Professionality

Abstract

The New Zealand Curriculum mandated in 2010, requires on-going school-based curriculum development and significant shifts to teachers' practice. Will the implementation of this curriculum policy encourage the development of ethical teacher professionality? The dominant critical position in New Zealand education theory is that teaching has been 'deprofessionalised' by the reforms of the education system since 1989, while dominant 'official' discourse postulates 'reprofessionalisation' through 'effective pedagogy'. This thesis suggests that The New Zealand Curriculum breaks with the pattern of neoliberal reform, because of the influence of Third Way ideology on its formulation. The self-contradictory elements of the Curriculum provide opportunities for critical and creative implementation that enable teachers to take ethical control of their work. This thesis will elucidate this contention. Renewed attention must be drawn to an ideal of teachers' work in the context of post-1989 education reform, its key elements, and how these could be operationalised by teachers. This ideal is centred on a calling or vocation to 'ethical professionality' that is under constant renewal. This claim for ethical teacher professionality is considered in relation to the underlying ideological drivers of the reform project, and placed in the context of the concept of profession and various conceptions of teachers' work. Its operational elements are established before considering the reform context that has encouraged the deprofessionalisation of teachers' work. The question of whether The New Zealand Curriculum represents a break in the pattern of neoliberal reform is considered. As a policy, the Curriculum is subjected to critical policy analysis, permitting an exploration of the notion of 'spaces' in The New Zealand Curriculum. The Curriculum does challenge the development of ethical teacher professionality, and three aspects in particular are considered. A critical and creative approach to implementation that will encourage ethical professionality is driven by the vision of building a knowledge democracy for a critical education community. In such a community, teachers form a community of critical professional enquiry. This approach is contrasted with the vision in The New Zealand Curriculum of reprofessionalised teachers' work proposed by 'effective pedagogy', in particular 'teaching as inquiry'.