Posts by Stuart Coats
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When the children realise that the teacher is everyone's lacky, parents, administrators, students, then they lose the respect necessary to enable a good learning environment.
And when do you think this occurs? I'll admit to having inside knowledge here as my father was a teacher (which, like David Cormack, may explain the lack of wagging) but I think the kids work out quite early that their teachers have very little authority. This, IMHO, is why the good teachers get even more respect (there's that word again) from their students because a good teacher makes you want to be there. They might be teaching you maths, but a good teacher does more for you than that. They help you to become a better person, which is what school should be about.
A good teacher can also work out when a kid needs a break and won't get as worried about the odd missed class. It's also less of a blow to their personal ego, but then they know the child will return because, in the end, they want to be there.
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"insensical"
This is a truly beautiful word which should be used much more widely.
Well, it goes to show that I wasn't paying attention in English class. But the more I think about it the more I like it in the sense that these rules make you angry
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Do you mind if I ask why? That sounds weird, I know, but... did it not occur? Was it out of fear? Did you just never really want to?
I didn't wag either (Central Hawkes Bay, mid 80's). I don't think it was fear, as I was always confident that I could get away with it. I just always felt that the options available to me out of school were a bit boring. The exception may have been in summer when swimming down at the river was appealing. But then I always had a choir to sing in, or a debate to participate in or a sports team to train for so I wouldn't have been able to swim for too long anyway!
I guess I see a certain amount of disobedience as a positive, and I do worry about kids who will be 'good' even when the rule they're obeying doesn't make any sense.
Anyone who has had to wirte any sort of report to any government department will know the value of knowing how to kowtow to the insensical rules that are put in front of us :)
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the Vector Arena - is it engineeered for crap sound or have I just been unlucky the couple of times I've been.
You wanna come down to Wellington and try Queen's Wharf. I haven't been to Vector, but it couldn't be worse.
IMHO venues aren't designed with sound in mind because they believe that the sound engineers for the gigs will be able to paper over the cracks. Most sound engineeers idea of doing this is to turn all of the knobs up to 10 (or 11) and rely on the overwhelming volume to pummel the punters into submission. This then leads to a muddy sound mix. -
if you went out of your way to attend a concert by, say, Nickelback, then maybe I would be having my doubts about you ...
Cheers Russell, I now have How You Bloody Remind Me in my head.
I hope you're happy....
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I had a mate who used to do follow-spot operation for gigs in Wellington (RIP Tim). He'd done gigs by Metallica, through Pearl Jam and Emmylou Harris. His own personal taste was 80's punk acts like Black Flag and Dead Kennedies.
He told me that the best gig he ever worked, in terms of the show, was Janet Jackson. As he put it "everyone else just stood there and sang - she put on a full stage act." He enjoyed it so much that he lobbied really hard to try and get to work the Michael Jackson gig in Auckland, reasoning that if little sister was good then big brother would be even better.
I suspect that he would have poured scorn on Kylie and then enjoyed it for all the same reasons. -
He was clearly in his element, speaking as he does best without prepared notes and obviously on top of his material.
I thought the problems in the elction campaign came when Key spoke without prepared notes? Or am I confusing him with our new Speaker of the House?
I also find it no surprise that Key is making the economy priotiry 1, 2 and 3. It's his specialist area, so it's kinda like Graham Henry making coaching the All Blacks his 1, 2 and 3 priority. -
Why do US newspapers come out and endorse candidates and ours do not?
Well, not explicitly...... -
United Future should be something like... who's a kind of crossover, mildly Christian, shittily average band?
Evermore?
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That's why I always had a soft spot for speedway - you can see the whole track and on demolition derby nights there were lots of crashes to watch.