Posts by Chris Waugh
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Hard News: Who'd have thought?, in reply to Kumara Republic,
What concerns me more than the juku (and in that wikipedia article they don't sound so bad... ) is the government taking a step towards a system where success and failure or almost mathematically defined and measured purely and simply by tests and schools are ranked. It's a sick system that does nothing to produce mature, capable, well-rounded citizens.
And so many have already pointed out that NZ already has a curriculum, ERO, and consistently good results in things like PISA. Seems to me the system ain't broke, but the government is determined that it will be.
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Hard News: Who'd have thought?, in reply to Scott Chris,
I like the idea because it is compatible with my philosophy of education which is, in a nutshell, setting clear educational aims and expectations and measuring the level of attainment relative to those stated aims and expectations. Makes assessment and evaluation of performance so much easier on a broad scale as well as an individual scale.
I think you'd like the Chinese education system. It does a great job of stuffing kids with facts they can regurgitate in tests. But it's quite depressing seeing how woefully ill-equipped for life my students are by the time they get to university. Trouble is, people aren't machines. You can't just install the reading, writing and arithmetic apps then test them to make sure they're working properly. But everybody else has explained all the bits of education missing from your philosophy better than I could. So how's about we persuade this government to stop trying to force failed experiments onto our kids?
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Hard News: Who'd have thought?, in reply to Jackie Clark,
A colleague and friend has his daughter in a kindergarten here in Beijing, and if you ask him about it, he's not happy. Lots of "sit down, shut up, listen, obey!", precious little letting the kids explore and discover for themselves. Like me, he's determined to get out of China before his daughter needs a primary school.
I just like watching my daughter banging away on her xylophone and singing incoherently, stopping periodically to spin around in some kind of 'ritual' dance, or giving her paper and a pencil and letting her scribble, or watching her run around the garden just exploring.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying I really like your philosophy. I think I might try and find your kindergarten if we get back to NZ early enough.
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A New Zealander, wartime. My grandad.
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Capture: Two Tales of a City, in reply to Gudrun Gisela,
Situated on Madras Street they are the latest attraction in Shake City.
Christchurch is to be renamed "Gerry Brownlee's China Shop"?
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Capture: “These are New Zealanders” -…, in reply to Nora Leggs,
Ah, got it, thanks.
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Lilith __,
There’s a Ministry for Ethnic Affairs? Never even heard of it!
An Office of Ethnic Affairs, which does have a minister. It's part of Internal Affairs.
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Capture: “These are New Zealanders” -…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Unfortunately your link gives me an "Attention! Delivery not permitted. The page you are trying to see has expired, please close this tab and reload the page."
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Richard Llewellyn,
My experience has been that in general, if asked, a Ministry will be more than happy to explain why a Minister is going overseas.
Well, yes. Judith Collins is in China right now in her capacity as Minister for Ethnic Affairs. I found out about this through the Chinese media. A google.co.nz news search found me a press release on the Beehive website, which Scoop ran, a few articles on websites I've never heard of, and articles in China's English-language press (Global Times English, China Daily, etc), but nothing from what I thought were the NZ media big players. Searching the Herald and Stuff sites got me plenty about Collins' adventures as ACC minister, but nothing about her coming to China. Maybe they've since picked up the story - I haven't had a chance to check today - but experience says probably not. That's the kind of thing I'm complaining about, and this sort of thing has happened to me a lot this year.
So yes, there are good journalists and columnists doing good work, but they're not enough.
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Richard Llewellyn,
Really? Because I'm not seeing much coverage as a result of all this, and that's not from a lack of looking, and I have the impression that Kiwis tend to be woefully uninformed about China, and yet our government is sending a lot of people over here and they keep talking about expanding trade and attracting Chinese investment in NZ and building relationships. And several times this year I have gotten more information about the visits of central and local government officials to China from Chinese government websites than from NZ media.
On the other hand, there's plenty of media resources given to telling us everything we never really wanted to know about the antics of celebrities.
Having said that, I did appreciate Fran O'Sullivan's take on the Shanghai Pengxin bid for the Crafar farms. Actually, I found the Herald's approach to that affair quite refreshing - it was nice to see just how much farmland has been sold to North American, European and Australian buyers without generating any public outrage compared with how much Pengxin was trying to buy.
So, I dunno, I guess the potential is certainly there, but it would be nice to see fewer resources devoted to exposing the most intimate details of people who are famous for... something or other.... and more resources devoted to issues that might actually be kinda important for New Zealand's future.
