Posts by Hadyn Green
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a classic false binary distortion - all better than 'adequate' are elevated to excellent, while 'adequate' and the ?10% worse than that are all implicitly condemned, and the message taken, as intended, is that 30% of teachers are useless.
The ERO report (which I totally happened to have open) says:
In contrast [to the 70% who are doing well], the remaining 30 percent of teachers had little or no sense of how critical it was for children to develop confidence and independence in early reading and writing. These teachers had minimal understanding of effective reading and writing teaching, set inappropriately low expectations and did not seek opportunities to extend their own confidence in using a wider range of teaching practices
Sadly the Minister's quote above does, as you say, make it sound more of a quantitative statement. Also, there is the caveat, that the ERO report is only about Year 1 and 2 teachers in Reading and Writing.
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So you think literacy depends on a series of tests after someone gets to school rather than what happens before they get to school?
I'm fairly sure that's not the bit they were calling bullshit on. But to consider that literacy would depend on the single variable of parent-child interaction is a little hard to swallow.
There is plenty of research that shows that parents are definitely are large contributor to their childrens' learning progress but kids spend a lot of time at school, and while there they are (hopefully) learning the whole time.
Of course tests don't increase literacy rates. Anyone suggesting such should be looked at through squinted eyes. Tests (and the multitude of other assessment methods) are done to discover the lay of the land, allowing teachers to plan the next steps for the students.
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if I may be permitted to mix some metaphors
Just don't screw yourself in the foot
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Was that the Sterling talk which comprised stream of consciousness waffle mixed with errors so fundamental as to completely discredit it in the minds of people who were familiar with the subject matter?
Ah yes, it was.
I believe that was the sound of a gauntlet being thrown. Possibly down. (in my head I'm singing Glove Slap! Baby, Glove Slap! )
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Bruce Sterling's talk caused so much fuming and grumpiness that he had to put the transcript up on Wired.com
I was in the "I loved it" camp. I thought it was useful not least because it introduced a whole lot of people who were and are touchingly serious about what they do to the concept of being gently mocked. He struck me as a classic American raconteur -- a sort of modern Mark Twain, if you will.
True story: a guy at the table in front of me started playing World of Warcraft on his laptop during Bruce's talk.
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I completely forgot about the Onyas! And the workshops and all of the other stuff that goes on around Webstock (including the pre-Webstock tweet-up the Wellingtonista are hosting)
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National Standards in numeracy FTW!
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especially once they've been wisely integrated into the system by people in our MoE who know just how lucky we are, Frederick
We love you too Giovanni :)
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The repeated misspelling of Snedden's name, though, I'm not sure about.
Update: I'm an idiot.
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The repeated misspelling of Snedden's name, though, I'm not sure about.
I wrote "Sneddon" twice. The second time I put it past the media person and the reply was "yep, oh wait, 'Snedden', 'don', 'den', I don't know, I think that's right"