The Greens have two great Kennedy's: Kennedy Graham, MP, and Dave Kennedy, Invercargill Green Party candidate. Our home grown Kennedy has an excellent grasp of and background in education-with-a-capital-e and has followed and described Anne Tolley's rise to the depths with real insight and detail. Here, our very own Kennedy brings the present situation, where 1/4 of all New Zealand schools are refusing to toe the Tolley-line and implement her national standards, into focus for us again and gives us the opportunity to learn what's really happening behind and in front of the scenes.
A wee Southern sample of his work:
"To suddenly have an assessment system forced on us that was politically driven, had no research base and did not fit with anything else we were working with was a real shock. The initial reaction from the profession was to look at what was being introduced to see if it was actually fit for the stated purpose (raising the academic achievement of our struggling children). Our leading educationalists and academics studied what was being proposed and unanimously rejected them.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
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16 comments:
remind me again, it was these so called education academics who are responsible for 20% to 25% (depending on the study) of school leavers being unable to read or write after 10 years of school and 40% of school leavers not having a level of literacy or numeracy that allows them to fully function in a modern society (OECD 2008).
Why do we still listen to 'academics'? Oh thats right, they support the left.
Paranormal
paranormal - don't be a daft ideologically-bound git. I know you're better than that.
Across the board, political and otherwise, our skoolin is described as very good by world standards. Our acedemics are like those in any field - learned and focused on their core endeavour. To belittle them, as you are attempting to do, because the field they work in has problems, difficulties and flaws, is churlish. Those education academics know their onions and their view on the issue of national standards is the one that should be taken most notice of. Surely you don't rate Tolley!
I'm surprised you've not done the thinking that's required to see through National's foolishness around national standards. Your 'because they support the left' claim is lame.
Back to school paranormal.
On the contrary RG I think your slavish devotion to these so called academics who have been experimenting with our children for 40 years is lame.
Look at the results they are achieving, in modern school speak. In reality they have failed our children miserably. It is their ideology that is not only failing the bottom but the top as well. Our prisons are littered with the results of their handiwork. There are some very intelligent individuals the school system has let down rotting in prison.
I have four children who I refuse to let the academics and their one size fits all system fail. Do understand I have a very serious interest in this issue.
Similarly the teachers unions need to cop their fair share of blame. They are so politically hidebound they care more for the political outcome than for the academic results of our children. Just look at the mess their self interest has made of ECE.
Paranormal
paranormal - guess I have to declare my interest also. I taught for 20 years - everything from ECE through to Uni students, ESL, Te Reo Maori, high school science,primary, you name it. My three children were successfully schooled and are thriving. I've seen the system inside and out. Academics can be irritating in the education field as elsewhere as can ideology however, a person works with what's there.However, in general terms our education system is, I believe, able to produce/foster/aid young people to learn a great deal and build a platform for whenever it is they choose to strike out on their own. Teachers are not all 'lefties' by any stretch of the imagination. Some are very liberal, some very conservative. The pedagogies are generally flexible and useful.
You don't think so? You have a better idea? There are many and idealists love to nurture the thought of them.
Shona Laing had a theme song for the rest of the Greens.
Well I'm glad!
According to international assessments New Zealand ranks in the top 4-5 in the world in academic achievement. We also spend less per child than most OECD countries to achieve this success. The apparent tail of under achievement is not as bad as it appears because once you remove all those children with permanent disabilities it leaves only about 14%.
The Scandinavian countries ranked above us are generally monocultural and have few extremes in wealth and when you compare New Zealand with other countries that have extremes of wealth, like the UK and the US we perform considerably better. The UK is around 9th in education performance and the US is about 35th in the world.
It is not our education system that is failing (this is a manufactured crisis) it is our social policy. 25% of children live in homes that experience poverty and deprivation and it is this that we should be addressing rather than attack the schools.
Absolutely I have a better idea. I want parents to have more say and involvement in the teaching of their children. I would have been the parent you would have hated at parent teacher interview night. The one asking the difficult questions.
From what I have seen the education system is as flexible as those running it. Some are ok, most are hidebound. Thats my experience.
Even amongst my four children the needs are very different. The top down system we currently use does not cater effectively even for our 'fairly normal' family. In ECE for example where there had previously been little government interference and parents had choice(until Liabours dismal union appeasement), we have utilised Kindergarten, Playcentre, Porse, and Montessori.
I would push for the Swedish school system where parents are more in control of the childs schooling. Government still sets the minimum standards but parents are the ultimate arbiter of quality and what is right for their children.
In our system there is very little a parent can do if there is something going awry at the school for their child.
Paranormal
paranormal - I feel your frustration (your sort of parent s the one I liked most at parent interview. I'm a liberal thinker (probably) and welcome a shake-up from anyone. Yes, teachers/educators can be/are frustrating. There are better ways for those who want to design their own path. Did you? Why are you complaining about the mainstream if you did it your own way? Most people don't want to tinker with the system. Are you not happy to leave them to their fate?
Sweden eh?
Multicultural place Sweden, is it?
Lower socio-economic ethnic children a feature of their schools, is there?
Make sure that what you want matches what's possible. Otherwise, move to Sweden. Those aspects of my children's schools were a blessing, though at the time I wasn't so sure. What do you want your children to learn? Do you want them to fully understand the community they live in or do you want them to function in an idealised environment?
Just askin'
Maybe you should understand what Swden and other countries that have followed the same system have acheived before discounting it RG.
We're not talking about wholesale change (as much as I'd like it).
In Sweden the government still provides the majority of schools. But what has happend when 10% of parents went and did their own thing, all those public schools lifted their game and improved how they operate with obvious improvements in results.
And cut with your multi ethnic mumbo jumbo. It works even better for multiple ethnicities.
And don't give me the "we're doing lower socio economic children better" either. We are failing them more than ever. When schools in Otara were failing because parents were taking their children out of the area, what did the governemnt do? Rather than improve the schools in Otara, they put zoning in place to trap kids in the area schools. One of the worst/best interviews I heard on State Radio was a teacher from one of those schools admitting he had written the kids off before they arrived (fortunately the good thing was he'd been shown the light following the introduction of Donna Awatere's programme).
The Swedish system works because it makes the schools value all children.
Paranormal
"Mumbo-jumbo" - where'd that come from para? deep in your psyche?
10 of parents 'doing their own thing' - are you a closet hippie?
Nothing wrong with that of course.
My wife and I are contemplating establishing the kind of 'school' you might well like para. Shaped by the parents who would have their children attend, but with core principles that we have distilled over our years as teachers and community people and gardeners and so on.
What would you have as core principle?
10%
Again Robert, quite the opposite to a hippie.
As for mumbo jumbo - I was trying for a polite way of saying bullshit. Blaming teachers failure on children being poor and/or brown is just disgraceful.
The core principle I would have is excellence. Everything flows on from there.
Our eldest is about to move schools again for intermediate years. We have chosen the school she is to move to for a number of reasons, the main one is the headmaster said - "we don't do things because we have to, we do them to win". Not a closet hippie at all.
Paranormal
Winning, excellence, above-average (para normal) - I can see where you are coming from and why you are frustrated by a school system that also caters for people who are unlike you or at least the way you've styled yourself (para - above, normal - ordinary) - most people do not see themselves as 'above the mass' and I guess logically, that's the way it will always be. Your favoured principal - does he/she not listen to New Zealand education academics? I wonder where he/she takes he lead from then?
You've jumped the gun with your 'disgraceful' comment btw. My point is that different communities have different emphasis and expectations for their children. For example, some might desire that theirs stay close by as they get older, rather than scatter to the 4 corners of the earth. Others might value peregrination. Surely you don't want to impose your particular ideology onto all students?
Out of interest, what is the decile rating of the school you are sending your Year 7/8 child to?
Bet it's not a one.
Robert - you are so far off the track on my nom de plume. It relates to two of my pastimes, one being my favourite firearm. Although I would guarantee I wouldn’t fit into what you would consider normal.
Regardless of what a community may decide their emphasis is, there is no excuse for 20% to 25% of school leavers being illiterate and almost half not having literacy and numeracy skills capable to survive in a modern environment.
You know I don't know - or for that matter care - what the decile rating of the school is. It's the attitude of the teachers I see as important. Our eight year old daughter's literacy and numeracy is only just recovering to normal levels 2 years after suffering at the hands of a senior teacher and lecturer. This was at a vaunted decile 10 school. At the parent teacher interviews the harridan had the effrontery to suggest we were overanxious parents and implied our daughter was thick and that’s what we should expect. Red rag to a bull. I took the time to stand outside the classroom whilst this teaching disgrace bullied her charges. My daughter who is very independently minded (who would have thought) just did not respond well and retreated into herself.
If only this was an isolated case. We had relatives in a southern North Island school who had exactly the same issue – a bright daughter who was not reading to normal level (let alione what they knew she could achieve) and a teacher suggesting they were overanxious. Turns out she had a form of dyslexia that when addressed she had no problem reading and writing. It was only discovered when the parents moved her to another school.
The difference between the left and right is the right see the benefit of equal opportunities – whereas the left demand equal outcomes. Mediocrity is the outcome. I fervently believe all individuals have the ability to achieve excellence in their particular aptitude. One of my friends was useless at school – not because he was thick, far from it. He just wasn’t cut out for academic achievement. He went on to be the best (and very wealthy) plumber in town and builds highly technical race cars as a hobby. He couldn’t have done that without literacy and numeracy skills.
Paranormal
I firmly believe that parental influence/interest/contribution has more bearing on a child's educational "success" than the decile number of their school.
My son attended a decile 10 primary, (which surprised me as it wasn't a hugely affluent area), and encountered teachers who I would describe as ranging from fabulous to abysmal, with the vast majority somewhere in the middle. It's simply the luck of the draw.
Like you Paranormal, it was implied we were over-anxious parents as we saw our son slipping further behind with his reading and writing. As a stay-at-home, educated mother of one, I was 1.well-aware of it despite the assurances of the school (later red-faced when he needed reading recovery, and 2. able to put in time at home and assist him.
I think bsprout's comment is the most telling...if kids are turning up to school hungry, cold and deprived of basic human needs, a whole lot of potential learning simply ain't going to happen, which is absolutely tragic. I agree, it's a social issue, not an educational one.
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