From Progressivism to Instrumentalism: Innovative Learning Environments According to New Zealand’s Ministry of Education

Abstract

The imaginary of the modern learning environment projected by the New Zealand Ministry of Education marks a subtle yet significant departure from a previously progressivist hegemony in pedagogy formation towards an instrumentalist pedagogy. The chapter interrogates this imaginary and its projected pedagogical implications for teachers. Analysed is a recently relaunched website specifically dedicated to MLEs, ile.education.govt.nz. Lefebvre’s concept of mental space is key to this analysis. Document analysis is used to argue that a critical reading exposes an underlying advocacy for placing the emphasis of pedagogic formation onto the physical environment and new technologies available to the practitioner. This amounts to de-centring the child in pedagogy formation. An instrumentalist education agenda, seated within a neoliberal philosophical approach, underpins the process of this shift to MLEs. Instrumentalism in education is sharply distinct from progressivism, which understands education as an end-in-itself. This shift occurs as a result of the apparent similarity in the meanings of certain key terms which actually operate from markedly distinct philosophical bases. By retaining much of the progressive discourse, instrumentalist pedagogic approaches are gradually altering the meaning beneath these signifiers. The de-centring of the child develops symbiotically with the adoption of an instrumentalist pedagogic identity. This chapter promotes critical debate around the fundamental drivers of pedagogic formation in an innovative and modern learning environment, and what implications this presents for a national education system.