Posts by Max Call
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Hard News: And so it begins, in reply to Yamis,
Our decile 8 high school HOD Maths told me that only 38% of our year 9s were at the level they should be for maths when they started at our school this year.
I agree about class sizes. I could never figure out why John Hattie put one-on-one time for teacher/student interactions as being very important but not class size. In my experience class size directly impacts on the amount of one-on-one time I spend with my students. I have direct experience of this - for example this year my smallest class has only 12 students in in and my largest has 30.
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http://www.hawkesbaytoday.co.nz/news/bay-city-rollers-saturday-night-hit/1348606 /
The above story also has about a dozen photos of the action on the night. They reckon around 900 people turned up to watch at the PG which is a pretty good turnout for something that is relatively new to the Bay. -
OnPoint: Some of My Best Friends are Consultants,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10798006
"The data on consultant expenditure was released to freelance journalist Keith Ng under the Official Information Act." -
Capture: Colour is the new black,
is Napier NZ's most colourful city? I think so!
http://www.artdeconapier.com/pages/the-marine-parade -
Hard News: Winning the RWC: it's complicated, in reply to Russell Brown,
same with us - love MT commentary, not so much the picture.
Had to watch TV One for the semi as the HD picture was far superior. Lucky we had so much cheering and excitement that we drowned out a lot of the commentary. Turned back to MT after the game for their post-match summing up. -
Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Kracklite,
Actually, I vaguely remember a short story, probably Irish, about someone who had died in a way that meant that they could not be buried in consecrated ground, so they were buried adjacent to but outside the churchyard. One night, the people of the village came out, tore down the wall, and rebuilt it to enclose the fresh grave.
this gave me the weird but lovely sensation of both smiling and tears welling up simultaneously. Happy and sad.
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Field Theory: Japan Part Two: It's…,
I visited tokyo about three and a half years ago for a couple of weeks. We were blown away by how amazing it was and had a fantastic time.
One day, while out and about, we wandered into a small 'Swatch' watch shop that was located just inside an inside mall. It was smallish and had clear glass walls that were covered in watches. We stood there for a few minutes looking at the watches expecting a shop assistant to pop back in any second when a gentleman came in, pushed some buttons we had not noticed. The doors closed and the whole 'shop' started moving downwards. When the doors opened we were in the real shop and felt very much like country mice in the big city.
I bought a watch though! -
OnPoint: Did you know we're in a recession?,
On the topic of teachers' pay, I do wonder if they'd settle for the extra manglement units and hard caps on class sizes along with a minor pay increase. The impression I'm getting is that most of their gripe relates to class sizes and NCEA workload rather than rates of pay.
For me personally - this is exactly how I feel. Especially the caps on class sizes. I think we could leave negotiating about pay until the next round when hopefully the recession has eased. Pick your battles and all that.
This is also the impression I get from some other teachers. Though I have only heard the opinion of about 20 other teachers individually and directly on this so it is not very precise measurement! -
Hard News: Morning in Auckland,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/discrimination/news/article.cfm?c_id=177&objectid=10678366
just saw this online - pretty good summation of how i feel (though I have only skim read it so far). First two paragraphs cmu.
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Hard News: Morning in Auckland,
"So in that spirit I apologise unreservedly to Sir Anand and his family, he is a very distinguished man I am a gippo television presenter."
What exactly is PH saying here??