“Our sense of who we are depends in large part on who the world around me says I am” (Tatum, 2000, P.5.)
When this quote was put forward to me in one of our lectures recently, I started to reflect on it while going through my second practicum.
To put it into some perspective, I was recently observing a class at a decile one school in South Auckland, where they were starting a new year 12 health unit. They were discussing achievement standards with their teacher for what is needed for an achieved, merit and excellence. What struck we straight away were some of the student’s responses to those standards. Most were already discussing what the ‘achieved standard’ was and how they were going to focus on that as the merit and excellence seemed in their minds ‘too hard’. Furthermore, this deficit thinking by the students resulted in the teacher focussing on the achieved and merit level when discussing with the class and only brushed over the excellence level.
This situation got me wondering what if there was no achieved and merit level and only the excellence level was available. Would students only know the excellence and work harder to reach that level?. Furthermore, if they didn’t get to the excellence level, would the level of work they put forward not put them into the category of merit?
A report in 2006 highlighted the fact that the NCEA can encourage a ‘minimalist approach’ with many students lacking the motivation to do more than the bare minimum to pass (Meyer, McClure, Walkey, McKenzie & Weir, 2006). It is no surprise as having options to do the bare minimum will encourage students to get through and not push themselves in their learning.
Furthermore, I believe NCEA and its environment can also affect how teachers construct their lessons. For example, teachers might focus on content that helps students at a lower level instead of extending their students in their learning.
In my view, I believe NCEA does create some form of deficit perspective by the way it offers the ability for students to make the minimal effort. Students do have the option to aim for excellence but in my opinion you give them an out or more comfortable opportunity such as achieved and in the case of this decile one school, an environment where no one believes in their ability to aim for more than achieved you are creating a culture of mediocrity across the education system.
Meyer, L., McClure, J., Walkey, F., McKenzie, L., & Weir, K. (2006). The impact of the NCEA on student motivation. Report submitted to the Ministry of Education. Wellington: College of Education and School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington.
Tatum, B. D. (2000). The complexity of identity: Who am I. Readings for diversity and social justice, 2, 5-8.
Silly Point 
True words @matcow25. Creating units that motivate our students to aspire for excellence, as opposed to the minimum attainment; setting attainable parameters that link to the New Zealand Curriculum and in language that can be freely expressed by both teacher and student can only be done by knowing the capabilities of the class individually. Let’s create a part of the world that says our students can be anything they dream of and strive for excellence!
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Hello,
Thank you for the post. While I am reading your post, I find my opinion lying on the same line. Even though NCEA has done a good job of giving the students choices and reducing the pressure of passing the only one final exam, I also find it inferior in several ways.
In my second practicum which was at the beginning of term 3, there were a large number of students who wag the classes with parents’ permission because they have got all internal credits to pass an NCEA level.
As being an Economics teacher, I do not agree with the choices given to students, in the NCEA system, to study either microeconomics or macroeconomics. For me, these two matters are the two faces of the same coin. Without the knowledge of either of them, my students would struggle when they attend higher education.
However, I am a bit opposed to your opinion in one aspect relating to the deficit thinking in grade. In any education system, including CIE or IB, there are always guided answers for the different grades. The original purpose of it is to provide guidance to both teachers and students. I think the cause of the deficit thinking that you referred in your post is more likely to fall onto the individual teachers. How the excellent is interpreted and how much attention the teacher pay to any particular part of the grade really varies among individuals. We need to aim high to cultivate their growth and success.
Overall, I agree with you that our NCEA system creates a lot of gaps which limits the potential growth of our learners.
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