The misalignment between what and how we teach, and the learning goals to which we aspire.

As a parent and an educator, when undertaking my due diligence on a suitable school for myself and/or my children, I have always found myself drawn to the wonderful, aspirational mission statements that adorn prospective school's websites. I see fabulous terms such as 'change-makers', 'future leaders', 'lifelong learners', 'community-minded', 'global citizens','creative problem solvers', 'innovators', and the like. I am energised by these statements as they reflect the reason I chose to become an educator, and the type of education I dreamt of for my own children.

In recent years, and perhaps a hangover from Covid, we have seen a surge in the discourse concerning the urgency in supporting learners to develop the knowledge, skills, dispositions, capabilities, competencies, or as most recently coined, 'humanics' required by young people to thrive in their post-school lives. Afterall, the world has changed and so has what students learn how they learn, it and from whom they learn.

In 2020, Learning Creates Australia conducted a series of sessions with young Australians from diverse backgrounds and asked them to reflect on their 10-12 years of education. Given the declining level of student wellbeing, behaviour, engagement and motivation in Australian schools, it was no surprise that these students reported "...they were not complimentary about what they learned at school and its relevance [my emphasis] to the world they live in. They did not favour the notions of success that their schooling embodied. Many believed that much of the learning that they regard as fundamental to their success was not on the curriculum. They were critical of the dominance of academic content such as mathematics, science and social studies. They wanted more curriculum emphasis on the personal and social skills they needed to achieve success in the community and at work."(p. 9).

Astonishingly, following a senate inquiry into the worsening trend of behaviour in Australian schools, our education policy-makers have suggested that the panacea for 'all things bad' in Australian education is a 'behaviour curriculum'. [Source: abc.net.au]

It is clear from this suite of recommendations is that the responsibility of the shift in attitude toward schooling rests solely on the shoulders of the teachers. #Déjàvu But more importantly, we are not listening to our learners, nor are we harnessing the curriculum documents we already have that were designed to emphasise the personal and social skills young people need to achieve success in the community and at work. Let's now focus on one such tool, ACARA's General Capabilities and possibly why they are not the lead documents in our syllabuses.

Version 8.4 of the General Capabilities describe them as "...a key dimension of the Australian Curriculum, supporting young Australians to become successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens." Version 9 appears to be slightly pared back with, "In the Australian Curriculum, general capabilities equip young Australians with the knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions to live and work successfully." Both statements reflect similar aspirations that schools, educators and parents wish for the young people in their care.

A few years ago, I was very fortunate to work with a team of educators who were committed to providing opportunities for their K-12 students to be such 'successful, confident and creative individuals'. The team reported difficulties in authentically teaching and assessing (recognising) their students' strengths across the K-10 progressions in the General Capabilities and their sub-elements. They had an outstanding grasp on complexity of learning expectations, specifically the taxonomy of surface, deep, and transfer-level learning. What troubled the team were two things:

1. That very young learners aren't expected to, nor exposed to, opportunities that reflect their innate creativity, problem solving capacity, nor curiosities. For example, in the Critical and Creative Thinking Capability, young learners (Level 1 Foundation) are relegated to low level thinking of 'identifying' until they reach Years 7 and 8 where they are finally recognised for their capacity to 'evaluate'. This is concerning given the findings that very young children's higher-order thinking, in conjunction with their early talk, grows over development from 14–58 months, and that it readily becomes increasingly more conceptually and linguistically complex. (Frausel, et al, 2020)

It is even more concerning that young students aren't recognised for their questioning of unfamiliar ideas and topics until they reach Stage 3 (Years 5 and 6). Respectfully, I challenge this reductionist view of our youngest students who are renowned for pursuing knowledge about their unfamiliar world. Indeed, if preverbal children are capable of recruiting information via gestures, vocalisations, and facial expressions (Chouinard, 2007), then it follows that by the time they reach Kindergarten, children are well- equipped with more advanced questioning skills.

2. A progression, as defined by Oxford Dictionary is "the process of developing or moving gradually towards a more advanced state". This suggests incremental complexity as learners develop their capacity in ACARA's General Capability sub- elements. Again, in the Critical and Creative Thinking Capability, the 'Transfer Knowledge' sub-element aligns reflective thinking from Foundational level with deep level knowledge (seeing connections between ideas); yet at Level 6 (Years 9 and 10), students are considered reflective when they revert to surface level learning with 'identify'.

It appears that rigour is absent from the General Capabilities, yet these form the foundation of competencies that school graduates require if they are to flourish in a rapidly changing world. If educators are required to bring integrity into the recognition, assessment and reporting of these capabilities, then they need to be part of the next 'curriculum reform'. The case for the review is compelling, given the attention of Australian States and Territories' to creative thinking at jurisdictional level, compared to the rest of the world.

Dare I suggest that a fixation on syllabus 'dot points' and an antiquated, standardised assessment of our young people at the conclusion of their 13 years of formal schooling is not going to develop the next generation of 'change-makers', 'future leaders', 'lifelong learners', 'community-minded', 'global citizens','creative problem solvers', nor 'innovators'. In fact, neither is a confusing General Capability framework. In the meantime, can we please desist 'stabbing in the dark', suggesting teachers need greater pre-service training on order to fix the problem with education in Australia.

#humangenerated