By PETER CALDER
John Morris first made his name standing in a soccer goal. When he took the field in the 1970s for Blockhouse Bay, for Auckland and, later, in 14 internationals for the All Whites, he was the last hope, the man all eyes turned to when the defence and cover defence had failed.
He was not always unbeatable. The headline on an ancient, yellowing report of Auckland falling 0-7 to Dundee screamed "Morris Muffs It!" - the raw injustice of which only goalkeepers and their wincing parents can completely understand.
For the goalie, there is no ambiguity. The edges of the goalmouth's yawning rectangle mark the line between success and failure.
As the netting limply sways and the scorer is buried by jubilant teammates, the goalkeeper stands alone and bereft, his failure visible and demonstrable.
John Morris still moves in a world devoid of ambiguity or equivocation. And, at least in the eyes of his supporters, he's been pedagogy's equivalent of the goalkeeper this week, dashing back and forth, punching away the curving cross-kicks from the educational reformers who seek to breach his defences.
The headmaster of Auckland Grammar School been an outspoken critic of the proposed National Certificate in Educational Achievement (NCEA), which is to replace School Certificate and Bursary in 2002.
Mr Morris, who also chairs the Education Forum - the educational equivalent of the Business Roundtable - says it will result in the dumbing down of academic standards and create a system that "eradicates challenge and demotivates effort."
He has gone one further, revealing that Grammar has signed an agreement with Cambridge University in England to offer its A-level entry qualification to students who wish to sit for it. He has written to 35 other schools about the plan - 24 have expressed interest.
Surprisingly, perhaps, his idea came under fire this week from three women one might have expected to be among his stauncher allies. The principals of three elite girls' schools, Epsom Girls Grammar, St Cuthberts College and Diocesan School for Girls, jointly backed the new national assessment in a piece on the Herald's Dialogue page.
"We are behind in the major task of developing in our young people an extensive, flexible range of knowledge and skills," they wrote, adding that standards-based assessments "result in more focused and effective teaching and learning [and] improved levels of achievement, even as measured by today's exams."
The woodwork in the reception area at Auckland Grammar has been replaced in recent years and is blond, new and shiny. But (some things never change) the brass plate on John Morris' office door is still engraved with the word "Headmaster." The more modern, gender-neutral "principal" has no place here, and as Mr Morris pours coffee and seats himself next to a roaring imitation-log gas fire, he apologises for the crisp air temperature.
The fire is more decorative than functional, he explains, and the sun scarcely ever peeps under the eaves of the roughcast stone mission-style building which has been Grammar's home for almost 90 years.
But the headmaster's machine-gun style of speech (he talks like a man who wants to fit two hours' work into one, and a phrase like "Secondary School Principals' Association" emerges sounding like six syllables rather than a dozen) ensures that the conversation maintains a feverish pace.
If he is galled that the principals of what might be seen as Grammar's sister schools have broken ranks, he shows no sign of it. He remarks, without naming names, that two of the three have asked to be kept informed of how the Cambridge proposal develops, and says their opposition has "at least brought this matter into public debate."
"It's never been debated. They say there will be moderation [in the NCEA] but what it is is quality checks; it doesn't look at outputs, it looks at the tests you set, and if they are valid they assume the result will be valid. That's a hell of a jump. You've got no guarantee."
Mr Morris says the deal with Cambridge will ensure that his school - and others of like mind - can continue to offer forms of assessment in tune with their philosophy.
"We believe in externality, national standards, accountability, consistency. It works for us. I've never said it should work for everyone, but the whole tenet of Tomorrow's Schools was diversity and choice, and now we have a Labour Government trying to take us back to a 'one-size-fits-all' mentality."
Critics of Grammar's announcement have ridiculed the notion of New Zealand kids sitting English A-level exams designed for blazered, upper-class twits in boaters. But, Mr Morris explains, the exam concerned is the International A-level, which is administered throughout the world.
It will cost students $45 to $60 a paper and will, he says, be an improvement on the alternatives: the New Zealand Education and Scholarship Trust, a privately funded exam set up when the University Scholarship exam was abolished, and the International Baccalaureate, which imposes compliance costs of up to $100,000 a year on schools and entry fees of up to $1000 for each child.
He admits that the "Englishness" of the Cambridge exam will pose some problems, but says there is "potential" for teaching local content; local courses, validated in Cambridge, would be marked here and sent across the world for validation.
He takes issue with criticism that it sounds a lot like the internal assessment model being used on an international scale, because in moderated internal assessment "you don't look at the outputs - there's nobody marking kids' work."
Mr Morris makes much of wanting simply to exercise Grammar's right to choose rigorous external examination. He reviles the NCEA's scale of assessment, which classifies pupils as having achieved credit, merit or excellence in a given subject.
"If they use the same scale as they do now for Bursary, 42 per cent of all the grades we get here will be excellent - which means over 70 per cent. Where's the challenge in that for the real top academics, the few who want to get 96 or 98 per cent? They can cruise quietly through and get their 70 per cent, and that's excellent!
"We are just thinking of our kids here and what we can offer them: academic rigour and excellence and an indication in very plain and simple terms of how they are performing. If I can't do that, I'm not doing my job."
Yet he cannot escape the suggestion that he is speaking for the educational right, nor the suspicion that a more broadly based assessment of educational achievement might erode the traditional superiority of schools like Grammar.
He denies fearing that the Grammar "brand" is under threat.
"We would still be up there. But I oppose the NCEA, yes, because I think it's flawed, based on kids reaching supposedly transparent standards."
Success in life, I suggest to him, is based on mastery, not marks. You don't get 44 per cent in a driving test - you pass or fail.
"You can pass something but can you pass it to your best potential? It's all very well to cruise through life. In fact, that's probably what's wrong with New Zealanders in large measure; they just cruise through life. But if we want to compete on a world stage, we need to give the opportunity to those who want to go beyond that."
<i>Calder at large:</i> John Morris - still the last line of defence
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