This post will be about the new Curriculum, of course, but first a bit about the draft curriculum that preceded it.
In August last year, there was a Zoom meeting between representatives of ACARA and AMSI (and of member organisations) to discuss the draft mathematics curriculum, a delayed response to AMSI’s submission calling for a halt of ACARA’s curriculum review. ACARA was under political pressure to consult with mathematicians, but the meeting was a farce. ACARA’s first and foremost concern was to defend their draft curriculum. ACARA did not want to listen.
One aspect on which ACARA refused to listen was the importance of mastery. AMSI’s submission noted,
[AMSI] Members also expressed concerns that this new emphasis [on inquiry and problem-solving] comes at the expense of mastery and fluency. Mastery of mathematical approaches is needed before student problem solving can be effective. … AMSI believes that removing reinforcement and repetition of key concepts is risky, as these are important methods for developing mastery.
AMSI’s concern for mastery was explicitly on the meeting Agenda, and was addressed, absurdly, in ACARA’s absurd Elaboration of the Agenda (at 3.6). In the meeting itself, the Minutes note ACARA attempting, badly, to reassure AMSI:
[The ACARA representative] stated that ACARA considered feedback from AMSI and AustMS around ensuring that the curriculum is not losing the focus on mastery. [They] provided examples of content development revisions aimed to reinforce mastery and fluency:
ACARA included an additional content description in Year 3 to explicitly recall multiplication facts mastery until Year 4.
ACARA revised the leading statement in the Year Level description to emphasise the importance of practice, learning and doing mathematics, and sequence development built on learning experiences from prior years.
In the chat to the Zoom meeting, it was noted that the word “mastery” did not once appear in the draft curriculum. This was also addressed by ACARA, in a subsequent written response to the chat:
The key considerations section of the introduction [to the draft Curriculum] describes proficiency in mathematics including reference to fluency. Each Year level description has a lead in statement that references “develop understanding of concepts, procedures and processes through making connections, reasoning and practice”. [Gaps in the original.] Terms such as recall are used in content descriptions and achievement standards to convey the expectation that students have control of content. The term ‘mastery’ has not been used to avoid confusion with pedagogical approaches characterised as ‘mastery learning’. This is in line with ACARA’s position that the curriculum should not promote particular pedagogical approaches.
That last line is absolutely hilarious, but first things first.
It was not made clear, but the provided extract from the “Year level description” is not from the published draft curriculum. Rather, the excerpt was presumably from an updated and still invisible redraft. The following is the corresponding excerpt from the final, approved Curriculum:
Students engage in a range of approaches to learning and doing mathematics that develop their understanding of and fluency with concepts, skills, procedures and processes by making connections, reasoning, problem-solving, and practice. [emphasis added]
When written out in full, it doesn’t quite have that “mastery” flavour. And funny how the quoted excerpt just happened to leave out “problem-solving”, but without any ellipsis to indicate the omission. Obviously simply an oversight.
Demonstrably, the new curriculum has no proper concern for mastery, or even for bare competence. And of course the term “mastery” still does not appear. True, use of the term might have created confusion with “mastery-learning”. But for some mysterious reason ACARA were not similarly concerned that using the term “inquiry” might be confused with “inquiry-based learning”, or that “problem-solving” might be confused with “problem-based learning”, or that “play” might be confused with “play-based learning”, or that “investigate” might be confused with “investigative learning”, or that “modelling” might be confused with “learning models”. Nope, none of these terms worried ACARA whatsoever. All this is of course entirely consistent with “ACARA’s position that the curriculum should not promote particular pedagogical approaches”.
If, however, ACARA couldn’t be convinced to adopt the term, or any interest in, mastery, they have found a phrase that they clearly adore. Here are lines from Year level descriptions in the new Curriculum:
Foundation
Students further develop proficiency and positive dispositions towards mathematics and its use …
Year 1
Students further develop proficiency and positive dispositions towards mathematics and its use …
Year 2
Students further develop proficiency and positive dispositions towards mathematics and its use …
Year 3
Students further develop proficiency and positive dispositions towards mathematics and its use …
And so on, all the way to Year 10.
It clearly doesn’t matter if the students can do any maths, as long as the students feel good about it all.
Let’s extrapolate the ACARA approach to mathematics education in say trigonometry (years 9,10 and11), to driver education
A learner drives a car for:
1 hour per day over 2 weeks in 2020 in a simplified driving area simulating some aspects of traffic
1 hour per day over 2 weeks in 2021 in a simplified driving area simulating some aspects of traffic
1 hour per day over 3 weeks in 2022 in a simplified driving area simulating some aspects of traffic
Hence they are now proficient at driving
Absurd
When I was young it was more “displays appropriate attitude”
and that may not have been a Ministry of Education thing.
Hopefully it will not be a toxic positivity the Mathematics students are now developing.
[or “further developing”].
Thanks, Adelaide. You are right, the “proper demeanour” thing has been there for decades. But now, in mathematics at least, there is little else. ACARA’s refusal to utter the word “mastery” is telling. They didn’t even have to mean it, but they refused to say it.
Maybe they thought that “mastery” was sexist.
And racist!
If you don’t mean it – it is better [for me] not to say it.
Saying it brings all these implications; all these overtones and undertones.
The consequence is that there is a whole torus full of nothing.
There are ways to talk about skill development which don’t hit those buttons
[the ones about being inoffensive and not hurtful].
And yet if you’re afraid to hurt it is harder to learn.
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The Australian Curriculum HAS *tried* to be *anti*-racist.
Especially when it comes to the cross capabilities like the Asia-Pacific world and the Indigenous Australian world.
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Also mastery is a very medieval thing.
It comes from the world of guilds and from work.
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The “proper demeanour” is very much a relic of employment and employment advice.
What I meant to say is that it is a REFLECTION or a REFRACTION.
And when I read Kristin Ferguson’s Wednesday column – like about the Secret Santa and the office party culture more generally.
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So I understand the curriculum is one of DEVELOPMENT and not of MASTERY.
The ways in which the pressure politically was directed [eg: consulting with mathematicians].
And I do see mastery-related goals in
* Engagement
* Understanding
* Fluency
[and fluency is a way of SHOWING mastery].
And engagement is another way of that “positive disposition”
[I did think what would happen if you “disposed” of things – like attitudes and values which were no longer serving or never did serve].
Or, people could have fewer hair-trigger buttons.
And, in a similar manner, the ‘Master of Teaching’ in which I am currently submerged could be rebranded ‘Fluency of Teaching’. However, considering it’s nature, I believe that ‘Effluency of Teaching’ would be more appropriate.
Maybe we can just declare that ACARA is more concerned with the production of misstery than mastery. Although the “t” may be silent.