Posts by Russell Brown
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Burnside High, 1976-1980.
As I recall, both bunking and wagging. But, perhaps unusually, a lot of it internal.
In the 5th form, I was the chair of the divisional council, and thus able to conjure excuses to be out of classes I was bored with.
I think I had similar excuses to get out of a few 6th and 7th form classes later in the years, especially 7th form maths, which I'd realised was of no possible use to me.
I was high-achieving academically, and also somewhat trouble-prone. I got struck off as a prefect at the end of the 6th form (stealing signs from teachers' office doors, and a stand-up public argument with a teacher I felt was trying to bully me) and then reinstated in the 7th after organising a 7th form dance where my friends' bands played.
Apart from that, there was a handful of bunks to a rich kid's place, to drink beer and blow shit up in the microwave.
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It is experiencing the system that makes you realise how shit it is. John Key grew up in a shitty area and went to state school. helen clark was a boarder at a posh auckland state grammar school.
Sage, you're just making stuff up.
Key grew up in a nice area with a mix of state housing and a good private housing stock, and went to one of the best state schools in the country.
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Is anyone who has this inconsistency in his or her position concerned about this?
I think it's more that I don't recognise the comparison.
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Score me as another parent who condones their child's truancy. Fine me, jail me, call me names.
I hear ya. How does this little cracker from the new minister strike you?
Tolley made no apologies for increasing the fines for truancy. "The maximum fine for (not) registering your dog is $3000. I think it is more important you send your children to school than register your dog."
Frankly, if I wasn't somewhat responsible for keeping up the tone around here, I'd be unleashing some very foul language ...
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The present National Coalition Government may prove to be just as legislatively deficient as previous Labour Coalition Government.
But as someone pointed out above, it took Labour years to get that shabby. National's doing it in its first week.
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Tom:
You never stopped being a rancid little fool, so full marks for consistency and 'not achieved' on every other count.
Try and debate the topic rather than calling names, Craig.
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Played into National-Labour, you see National playing the stern parent and saying "don't wag, you naughty boy!" and implementing stern consequences for failure to obey Daddy John. The ideal Labour truancy consequence, I suspect, would be Community Hug Therapy. I am exaggerating both sides, but I think there's some truth in Lakoff's views and that they do apply here in NZ.
Nat, there's a side to this that's really not amenable to philosophical metaphor. A very practical side.
1. I think most people who know us would say that we've been devoted to our children's education in difficult circumstances. But even so, we've run close to these kind of breaches, simply because there haven't been good options available to us. Jacking up penalties to merely appear to be doing something is bad, m'kay? Especially from the same people who sermonised about the passing of law without consultation.
2. I can't find a quote from anyone actually involved on the ground with these issues who thinks it's a good idea. Truancy officers, school principals -- they all seem to think it's poor policy that won't actually work.
3. Even if National has a mandate for its policy, it doesn't have a mandate to rush it through without scrutiny. It's an abuse of urgency, and one that was not signalled before the election. The actual text of the bill is a joke, and National doesn't seem to know what it means either.
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if there's an editor in the house, could all this '160@ ...' business be removed?
just ain't workingI fixed it. The ampersand in the URL confused the system into thinking it was an email address, but I made a TinyURL that works now.
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My brother has dyslexia. How on earth would enshrining in law the requirement that all children learn to read, write and do maths assist my brother, who all through his school years, struggled with those subjects? What I am saying is that the proposed 'testing' regime is a one size fits all, when clearly, it doesn't. Children have different abilities (and for proof of that, look at the adult population). Educational policy and laws need to recognise this.
I've blogged about this this morning. They're saying "we're not going to provide you with any good options -- and we're going to come down on you like a ton of bricks when it doesn't work out".
I'm personally glad my kids are now at the other end of the education system. Other people won't be so lucky.
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If you have any more suggestions, get 'em in. I'll harvest the candidates from this thread in the next few days and get a voting thingy in operation.
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