Figure 1.--This New Zealand prep school boy is checking out one of the new additions in the school library. New Zealand schools, both state and private, tend to have excellent libraries. |
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The New Zealand education system is a fascinating case study in the approasch of a small democratic country toward education. Except for the distinctive uniforms, schools in New Zealand will not look too different from schools in other English-speaking western democracies like Canada, England, and the United States. There are, however, some destinctive New Zealand approaches to education. We cover a wide range of topics in Volume I of our New Zealand eBook, both the formal classroom activities as well as the informal aspects of going to school. The basic goal is to provide a glimpse into everyday life in a wide range of different New Zealand schools.
Welcome to the first Apertures Press eBook: New Zealand Schools. Of course it is just the beginning of the Apertures Press eBook series. We have almost finished with Volume 1 here. We will add a few more new pages here. Most of the new pages are being added to the addition volumes of our New Zealand Schools. While considerable work has been done on our rBooks, we eventually hope to do another published book. Apertures has received quite a few inquiries about the book. As a result, we have decided on the novel new approach here--a series of E-books. This will not replace another hard bound book, a follow up on Boys Preparatory Schools. Rather this will permit readers to follow our process by viewing draft pages and pages in progress as we create them. Besides giving readers the opportunity to follow progress on the book as it develops, it gives our Quiwi friends the opportunity to review and comment on the various pages--allowing Apertures Press to incorporate a much wider range of ideas and experiences than would otherwise have been possible.
Our objective in our New Zealand school books is to provide a realistic look at everyday school life at a range of different schools. We will show the pupils from going to school in the morning to going home in the afternoon. And we will also show life at boarding schools. We have not taken staged, formal portraits. Rather we have photographed the teachers and puplils going about their everday activities. We have attempted to picture a wide range of activities at as many diffeent schools as possible all over New Zealand. Of course the primary activity is classroom instruction, but here there are many different classes and instructional approches. And there are at modern schools a wide range of activities that the children can persue including sports, fine arts, and recreatinal activities. We have visited both primary and secondaryschools of various kinds. This has including day and biarding schools, coeducational and single gender schools, public and private schools, and other different types of schools. We have primarily attempted to picture the schools from the pupil's point of view to give as accuarate a picture of possible of going to school in New Zealand.
The New Zealand education system is a fascinating case study in the approasch of a small democratic country toward education. Except for the distinctive uniforms, schools in New Zealand will not look too different from schools in other English-speaking western democracies like Canada, England, and the United States. There are, however, some destinctive New Zealand approaches to education. In many ways New Zealands schools are not unlike schools in other English-speaking democracies. The New Zealand curriculum has been strongly influenced by the British curriculum and for the most part students and teachers coming to New Zealand will easily adjust. American curriculum has also had some influence. While the New Zealand curriculum is very similar to that in that in Britain. There are some differences, reflecting New Zealand's economy and geographic location. The center of the New Zealand economy has been agriculture. This has begun to change in New Zealand as other industries including fisheries, high-tech, tourism, and other industries become more important. Outdoor education is an important element in the program of New Zealand schools, especially secondary schools. New Zealand is a small country of only about 3 million people. Outside of the major cities like Auckland and Wellington, many New Zealanders live in small towns or rural areas. Many children go to the same schools their parents attended. It is not unusual for the teachers to know a child's family. These personal relations give many New Zealand schools a family-like atmosphere. The New Aealand approach to extra- or co-curricular activities is similar. Many schools around the world have programs for stydying abroad or hosting exchange students. Many other countries have addressed the needs of student diversity through multi-cultural education. New Zealand is not unique in requiring school uniforms. Many other countries also require school uniforms. New Zealand has been notable, however, in the emphasis placed on uniforms.
It was a pleasure to meet New Zealand teachers and staff and the pupils at the schools and disccuss education and school issues with them. Their enthisiasm and interest in our project was a great help. The younger children tended to be very enthusiastic about their schools and were very anxious to tell us all about their activities. The older peoples tended to be a bit more jaded, but this tended to be the case in other countries as well. They tended to be more critical of their schools, often more conceed with life style issues than academics. We are very grateful for the toime school staff spent with us explaining the school program and patiently answering our questions. Interestingly quite a number of the the private schools we visited seem strongly influenced by British scools. Many of the state schools seemed more like American schools.
Click here to have a look at the various sections of New Zealand Schools, the first E-Book released by Apertures Press. Our E-Book New Zealand Schools is composed of an illustrated written essay desribing New Zealand education and the different types of schools, essays on going to school in New Zealand, and a series of photo essays on different aspects of the school experience. Interspersed with the photographs are short excerpts written by the children themselves or a variety of releases and publications provided by the different schools. As time goes by we will add several other features.
There are a number of advantages to our new E-book. You get to see the New Zealand book now instead of having to wait until we actually publish the book. You get to see the book as it evolves. You get to participate, if you wish, in the books publication as Apertures welcomes comments or submission of written work, short literary pieces, art work, and photographs. The E-book will also include much more color photography than will be feasible in the published book because of the high cost of color printing. In addition, we will load pages on our E-Book that will not be included in the published book, again because of cost the published book will be limited to 125-150 pages. We eventually hope to load about 200 pages and 300 images for our New Zealand E-Book.
Apertutres Press welcomes contributions from New Zealand on our schools book. We were able to visit only a small proportion of the schools in New Zealand. We did visit over 100 schools covering a wide cross section of New Zealand education. That, however, only scratches the surface. If you would like to contribute material about your school or your school experience, we incourage you to do so. Contrubutions can be photographs, drawings, essays, or just little written snipets--what ever you may care to contribute.
Our first published book was Boys' Preparatory Schools about British preparatory schools. We do hope to eventually publish a hard-back book on New Zealand schools as well. This project, however, has been delayed as we are now working on some additional E-Books. We will keep you posted here on the progress we are making toward publishing our New Zealand book.
We are doing our New Zealand eBook in several different volumes. We have already begun Volume II, although only a few pages are completed at this time. Volume II will focus on New Zealand school uniforms. We have made more progress on Volume III which will include student descriptions of their schools.
This New Zealand Schools E-Book is part of a major effort that Apertures Press has under taken to put a human face on schools arounf the world. The objective is to draw a realistic picture of the school experience in different countries around thge world.
Apertures Press began our New Zealand schools project in 1988. It was a continuation of our work in British schools. We have since visited over 100 schools in every end of New Zealand from the ?? Peninsula to Invergargill. (Sorry we didn't get to Stewart Island.) We have visited a wide range of schools from day care to high school, state and independent, catholic and secular, coed and single gender, urban and rural, and many other types of schools.
N ew Zealand of course is only one of the many countries we are working on. We also have worked in America, Australia, England, Italy, Scotland, and Ulster. We hope to publish addition paper and E-books on these countries as well. We have published an eBook on British Preparatory Schools which readers may find of interest. In addition we are looking for authors and photographers who would like to have their work on school published. This can be done as a large volume like our Boys Preparatory Schools or New Zealand Schools or short magazine style articles. If you are interested, please contact the authors. We would be pleased to discuss the project with you.
We have relied heavily on information from New Zealand schools for the written material in our book. Inteviews and conversations with the staff and students of the various schools we visited is a primary source. We have also relied on the publications the schools gave us during our visit as well as postings on the internet. We have also consulted a variety of MOE and academic publications for needed background.
If you have any questions about New Zealand schols or our New Zealand E-book, do not hesitate to send us an e-mail. We will be glad to answer your questions about this exciting inovative new Apertures Press project.
The concept of an E-Book is still fairly new. Many of you have asked questiions about the book and how it is set up. Check here for some of the most frequantly asked questions as your question may have already been asked and answered. There is also some information about out future plans for the book.
