This blog shares a commentary by Andrew Higgins on his two recent articles published in JOFDL that provide an historical perspective on open, flexible and distance learning in Aotearoa New Zealand. This are DEANZ and FLANZ Tracing the Development of Distance Learning in New Zealand and the Professional Association Supporting it, and Winds of Change and Paradigm Shifts Correspondence, Distance and Open Learning. Both published in JOFDL Vol 27 issue 2
The purpose of this commentary is to elucidate how scholarly and experienced educators transformed the idea that distance and flexible learning became central to modern educational provision, especially in New Zealand and Australia and overcame a perception that it had a second-rate status.
Cinderella worked in the kitchens in this fairytale. A fairy godmother gave her the chance to attend a ball, which she did, but departed early, leaving her slipper behind. The prince found it, fitted to her foot, cast away her unfriendly sisters and made her a princess.
Our understanding of what constitutes education is derived from the ancient Greeks. Students sat at the foot of a teacher, who sometimes held a chair. The teacher spoke, students listened and used whatever assistance might be needed to learn. Put simply, education requires the co-location in time and space of a teacher, some students and a place where resources might be found. This is the paradigm of Western education. The absence of any of these elements produces an education that is believed it was less than it might be. Romans, Muslims, and early Christians all used this paradigm as a model.
Our understanding of what constitutes education is derived from the ancient Greeks. Students sat at the foot of a teacher, who sometimes held a chair. The teacher spoke, students listened and used whatever assistance might be needed to learn. Put simply, education requires the co-location in time and space of a teacher, some students and a place where resources might be found. This is the paradigm of Western education. The absence of any of these elements produces an education that is believed it was less than it might be. Romans, Muslims, and early Christians all used this paradigm as a model.
Articles in the Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning (https://jofdl.nz) challenge the established paradigm because they demonstrate that learning occurs often without the physical presence of a teacher and a place to learn.
In the antipodean experience, Education Acts in the 1870s mandated that pupils be taught in a system that was “free, secular and compulsory”. This could be done in places where students could be gathered, but what about those in isolated and remote places?
Education systems used travelling teachers, the postal service, correspondence lessons, broadcast radio, two-way radio, satellites and the internet to reach out to students in pre-school, primary, secondary and to tertiary students. The articles in the Journal show that these various methods, adopted over the years, not only reached out to students but that the students learning success equalled that achieved by their colleagues taught in classrooms and lecture theatres.
Some argued that this form of education lacked a proper philosophy to give it legitimacy. Educators such as Locke, Bentham and Dewey showed that the pragmatic approach to educational provision demonstrated that distance and flexible learning wa legitimate, efficient and effective.
Some of the Journal articles examine how educators organised educational provision in New Zealand to service the needs of students and used their organisation to influence government policy and practice for the provision of education to their students.
Distance, and now flexible education, has lost its Cinderella status and taken its rightful place as a significant and successful education strategy to serve all students.
Andrew Higgins – 12/12/2024