Hard News: Dunce Dunce Revolution
181 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 4 5 6 7 8 Newer→ Last
-
FFS, TVNZ "news" manage to turn the issue into a toss up between teaching kids to count strawberries or putting on calf club days.
It really was an in depth analysis of the issues wasn't it? I mean it's only the education of almost every child in the country, doesn't matter how it's done does it TVNZ? Ohh look! Sheep! Cows! Pretty pictures!That'll be the influence of some mid-Western US news consultants. Everything has to be more "active", reporters (I started with "journalists", but that would have been inaccurate) have to put themselves into the story.
It might also help if TVNZ had a reporter who had some in-depth knowledge about the topic. They got rid of rounds a while ago, so now the reporter who gets handed the education story might have done a court story, a consumer story and a business story earlier in the week. They spend most of the day just trying to understand the story, which is how it is so easy for them to get captured by one or other of the various interest groups.
The other problem is they are all so young and inexperienced that very few of them actually have children, let alone school age kids, so they have little or no knowledge of what is being said by parents in the school carpark.
-
Now that I've reminded myself, if somebody needs me I'll be in the bathroom, crying.
Tears still come to my eyes if I think about poor Dukie too much. Or Randy being let down by Carver. 'You gonna look out for me? You got my back, huh?' GOD. Series four ripped my cold, cynical heart out of my chest and stomped on it with steel-capped boots. (Yet it's my favourite.)
-
what is being said by parents in the school carpark.
"How about them strawberries, huh?"
-
Reflecting on this, what unsettles me the most is Tolley's rampant anti-intellectualism in all this. She isn't interested in what the experts or the stakeholders have to say about education policy. In fact, I think she is suspicious of educational experts and dismissive of intellectuals in general, preferring a to talk in Palinesque platitudes of a "common sense" policy.
This creates an environment where objective truth goes out the window and facts are examined within a matrix of received prejudices. Any facts which don't agree with these pre-conceived notions are simply ignored and their bearers denigrated as self-serving and self-interested.
It is all seems very, very American rightwing in it's mindset and tactics, and educationalists here had better work out a better way of dealing with it than progressives and intellectuals have done elsewhere in New Zealand so far.
Simply sitting around on places like Public Address doing a passable rendition of "It isn't easy to be us" to the tune of Kermit the Frog's famous tune won't cut it.
-
Did anyone check Tolley for Act membership before she stood?
ACT. Who are they again? The Association of Caring Types? Abyssinian Cat Ticklers? or Armageddons Crushing Terminators?
Anyone up for a few beers at Kingsland's wonderful Mac's Bar? around 2 ish? -
It's worth remembering that there's no extra testing being implemented by National Standards - as yet. We are NOT being asked to teach to a test.
National Standards Test: Q1 (10 marks).
A wedge is shown in cross-section in fig.1. Please indicate by means of an arrow which end is the thin one.
-
cos-play
I admit I still think first of a food fight rather than geeky dress-ups when I see this term.
My suspicion is that cos-play was invented by some horny, frustrated male nerd (or nerds) to increase his/their chances of getting laid.
I mean, back when I was a horny, frustrated early-teens male sci-fi obsessed nerd, the number of women around was effectively nil.
Back then, if you'd suggested to your fellow losers that one day women would not only share close proximity with you at a convention, but would voluntarily - voluntarily! - dress up in princess leia slave costumes*, you'd have been sectioned.
Unknown male nerd(s), I salute you! Live long and prosper!
*Or Green Onion slave girls, obviously. And that picture was the first one that came up on a google search. No, honestly. Possibly very mildly NSFW.
-
Tears still come to my eyes if I think about poor Dukie too much. Or Randy being let down by Carver. 'You gonna look out for me? You got my back, huh?' GOD. Series four ripped my cold, cynical heart out of my chest and stomped on it with steel-capped boots. (Yet it's my favourite.)
One of my favourite moments is when Bunny Colvin takes some of his "experimental class" students to a fancy restaraunt. The students, so bolshy and abrasive in class, and so used to living it pretty tough home conditions, are introduced to a turf so utterly foreign to them that they retreat into their shells.
Of course, their re-telling of the event to their fellow students the following day is somewhat different.
Or maybe it's the moment when it suddenly dawns on Prez that the schools are forced to "juke the stats" just as much as police.
That fourth season was the most devestating, but it was also the most moving. It really was a leap in the dark for Ed Burns and David Simon to think its audience would go with it. The late, great Alan Clarke would have been proud.
-
That fourth season was the most devestating, but it was also the most moving. It really was a leap in the dark for Ed Burns and David Simon to think its audience would go with it.
Probably because by that stage there was enough other stuff going on in parallel with the schools storyline to keep dragging the viewers along.
Barksdale-Stanfield-Omar-Police interactions, basically.
-
what is being said by parents in the school carpark.
"Does my bum look svelte in this?"
Yes, the Harold tells us the big concern is whether my outfit competes effectively with the other mummies dropping off young Jeremy and Jemima. That's the level of coverage we're talking about, though at least they had the decency to put it in their Lifestyle section rather than the Politics one.
-
princess leia slave costumes*
Now that's educational. I see how the excitement about green onion slave girls is unlikely to be about the onions.
-
Actually to be fair the Herald on Sunday editorial - Let teachers teach, not count - is quite good.
It's worth remembering that only two years ago the Education Review Office found that primary schools used assessment information well in 80 per cent of cases for reading and writing and 75 per cent for maths. In short, there is no assessment crisis. What is more, the evidence is that a system incentivising assessment will improve scores, without necessarily improving achievement.
The unpalatable truth which does not fit with National's ideology is that there is an achievement crisis. And under-achievement is correlated with socio-economic status, which is reliably correlated with ethnicity. This approach is like fixing a leaking tap by putting a leaking bucket under it and measuring the amount of water that's being lost.
-
This creates an environment where objective truth goes out the window and facts are examined within a matrix of received prejudices. Any facts which don't agree with these pre-conceived notions are simply ignored and their bearers denigrated as self-serving and self-interested.
This has always been National's attitude towards teachers and educationalists and you only have to listen to talkback and read Your Views to see that a certain sector of the public think this too. Any time teachers as a group or through their respective unions disagree with policy or direction we are accused of feathering our own nest and protecting the supposedly "huge" group of incompetent teachers while holding parents and children to ransom.
It is all seems very, very American rightwing in it's mindset and tactics, and educationalists here had better work out a better way of dealing with it than progressives and intellectuals have done elsewhere in New Zealand so far.
Well I tried telling people before the election that this would happen. The Nat voters at my school dismissed it but are now beginning to wonder. I'm not sure what we can do. All I know is that good teaching and learning will continue because we actually care about the kids.
-
And then there's floating the idea of increasing police powers
The Search and Surveillance Bill:THE BILL
* Removes right to silence for person suspected of having evidence in crime with three or more suspects.
* Widens provision for searches without warrant.
* Allows copying of material stored on computers and remote searches of computers.
* Increases covert investigative powers of the Commerce Commission, the Reserve Bank, Customs and Ministries of Agriculture and of Fisheries.
* Gives power to detain anyone at scene of search.Will be going thru the fine print, it better be fucking comprehensive.
-
Will be going thru the fine print, it better be fucking comprehensive.
It won't be. Every law passed by Labour (this was a Labour Government bill, now adopted by National) has had few safeguards.
Expect some of the most extreme provisions in this bill to be removed, and a few token safeguards to be appended, in order to make it seem more reasonable.
The Labour of Geoffrey Palmer is buried and dead. The Labour Party that wrote the Bill of Rights Act. It infuriates me.
I believe Helen Clark killed it, having seen her relentlessness in pursuing Zaoui, and her willingness to destroy rights to get there (you only have to look at the Immigration Act which she promised to enact after Zaoui's appeals were heard, and which is now law). There are members of the Labour Party who I refuse to speak with any more, because they refuse to stand up and publicly defend human rights.
-
Hmmm, that sounded like an angry rant.
-
Excellent
-
Sounded good George. These things need to be discussed. There does seem to be a certain sense of powerlessness expressed in your explicit referral to Helen Clark rather than the democracy of New Zealand as a whole.
-
There does seem to be a certain sense of powerlessness expressed in your explicit referral to Helen Clark rather than the democracy of New Zealand as a whole.
I'm thinking of a very specific quote from Helen Clark herself, where she expressed the wish in 2006(?) to reform immigration law, and said that changes would be made once Zaoui was out of the system (presumably so they could learn what doors they wanted to shut). A more general reference from 2007 can be seen here.
Powerless? Pretty much. There are good MPs within the major parties (even a few in National), but they are almost always a minority round the cabinet table, and because of very strong party discipline in NZ compared to other democracies (by no means a new thing), whatever is decided by the PM and a handful of senior ministers tends to become law. Labour's retrenchment to conservative positions has marginalised the activist wing within the party. The Greens are a glorified lobby group, by virtue of their position vis a vis the major parties.
Of course, as the thread about being overseas discussed, while you're out of the country you can feel even more powerless, and sometimes, as a friend said to me recently, you feel like you no longer understand the country you were born in.
-
Immigration Minister David Cunliffe said the new law would streamline the process to remove illegal immigrants and make it easier for desirable migrants to enter New Zealand.
On a bit of a tangent;
I'm always dubious as to the Government's definition of 'desirable'. when 90% of what you hear to define this description is either qualifications, money or cheap labour. It seems there is very little consideration as to what can be done for the greater good of society. It's telling in the specifics of the China/ New Zealand FTA that the working positions allocated to Chinese don't include repairing electronic equipment. When there are countless unqualified citizens here able repair computers, cellphones etc whose selective immigration to New Zealand would save the average New Zealander $100s a year.
These kind of practical considerations seem almost untenable to the leaders who are far more interested in new levies and taxes. To the extent they're content to draft an immigration policy that sells off our land, hikes our property prices, sells off our educational opportunities to those who would cheat. The immigration system offers very few benefits to the incumbent New Zealander.
and that's without even looking at the rights of immigrants....
I'm still staggered that the tax payer is required to pay for deportations of foreign nationals.
-
Since we've dragged this discussion off topic (perhaps someone will come back and talk about primary edication), I though this was particularly insightful:
Quintessentially Kiwi: New Zealanders will only fall out of love with John Key when they cease to admire the image in the mirror he's become.
I'm not usually a fan of Chris Trotter, but this essay on how John Key is positioned in the popular imagination is worth a read. It seems that, like George W. Bush, his obvious failibilities and weaknesses endear him, rather than distance him from the population.
His fall can only be tragic – and Labour will have nothing to do with it.
Because New Zealanders will only fall out of love with John Key when they cease to love the image in the mirror he’s become.
The final lines give us some idea about how the Key era might end.
-
Back to standards for a moment
Daniel Tammet is a really clever guy with Aspergers whose autobiography ‘Born on blue day’ has some really interesting reflections on what worked and didn't in his own education. His second book ‘Embracing the Wide’ sky tackles topics such as measuring minds, what is intelligence, IQ testing, memory etc. He shows that the 'one size fits all' type of assessment- which the national standards testing regime encourages- is the opposite of what is required for many children, and is instead a disincentive for them
.
These standards also have a requirement that students can show the workings of their answers. Many idiosyncratic thinkers like Daniel come to the correct answers in unusual ways and are frustrated and confused by the 'normal' ways that are expected. Many of them think visually and in patterns which are not easy to describe.He shows that IQ is culturally constructed by devising a test from the perspective of a North Queensland Aboriginal tribe. Similarly, what will strawberries mean to refugee children in our low decile schools?
He also talks about embedding ideas and illustrates this by discussing the concept ‘spider’. From a literacy perspective you learn about spelling but a scientific approach asking a question like ‘Is a spider an animal?’ leads to more challenging thinking and embedded memory.
A great book from an inspiring thinker, and very relevant to this current discussion.
-
Hmmm, that sounded like an angry rant.
working for Matt Robson in the Zaoui years was, shall I say, never boring. And I developed working relationships with a number of people which stand me in good stead to this day.
-
Having been offline for 48 hours, I see lots and lots of really important discussion on education, standards, etc etc.
what is the next number in this sequence: 20, 1, 18, 4, 13, ?
But for those interested in trivia and who can't figure out why Tim Hannah and James Butler realised the answer is 6, here is a clue. The question is usually asked when the quiz venue is a pub.
-
Phil - a profound 'Ahhhh!!' -& many thanks!
Hilary- thanks for that title- as someone who doesnt think in quite usual patterns, this may be an illuminating read-
Post your response…
This topic is closed.