I’m tired of the culture wars. I’d rather focus on what unites us, rather than what divides us. After a year of grappling with NZ education, I’ve come to appreciate the value of disagreement, the value of opposing points of view

Why we need Conservatives

Conservatives conserve. They preserve. They value tradition and like things to stay the same. There are so many things that we’ve done well in education over the past 150 years. If we were to get rid of it all, we’d be lost. Conservatives make sure we don’t throw away everything that might be working. They also challenge the new, which is important. Education seems particularly vulnerable to bringing in new ideas which turn out to be completely wrong. Anyone remember learning styles?

Without conservatives, we’d take on all new ideas good and bad and we’d have no stability or direction.

Why we need Progressives

If we didn’t have progressives we’d be where we were 150 years ago. Schools with boys (and only boys) getting the cane on a daily basis. Heck, we might not even have schools at all. I’m guessing educating our youth and getting them out of the factories was probably a progressive idea when the modern school system was first introduced. Progressives bring change which leads to improvement. If we didn’t have progressives we’d never try new things which means we’d never improve. Fact.

Why we need both!

We need the yin and the yang. There is a harmony produced, I think, when we have the balancing act between left and right, progressive and conservative. I think of it like a well-balanced family. I think kids do well in two-parent homes because the two different personalities of mum and dad balance each other out. The same goes for teaching. If we can have a variety of teachers with their different styles and beliefs of what makes good teaching, and we can discuss this openly, we can learn from each other and our students can get a better education because of it.

It’s OK if we disagree. We should be able to separate the professional from the personal. We can have conflicting views without always being in conflict.