Posts by Jackie Clark
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to tim kong,
Yeah, that. Although not the bit about my rant being irrelevant because, you know.
-
Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Islander,
Yup. Kia ora, e hoa.
-
Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to tim kong,
9-3? 12 weeks holidays? Oh how we laughed, didn’t we? My hours are 8-5 (our lunch hour is not paid) professional development is all held outside work hours, and the holidays get eaten away with compulsory professional development, and the MOE has decided, anyway, that kindergarten teachers don’t need that extra week that everyone else has at Xmas because……just because. And I don’t even have to write reports and do class plans. It’s bloody bollocks, is what it is. One of the things people don’t seem to understand about teaching is this: you use all of your physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual energy, every day. It’s bloody exhausting. And that’s just the bit of teaching that’s the most obvious. It doesn’t take into account the planning, the assessment, the need to be able to have good relationships with the children, their families, and most difficult of all sometimes, your colleagues. You have to have great relationships with outside agencies, and the community. You have to be able to put into practice, and articulate, all the latest teaching theories. You have to be able to write policies and procedures (of which there are many, because, you know, what happens if….). You have to be a mentor to teaching students, and beginning teachers. Teachers are, when it comes down to brass tacks, child advocates. Everything we do is for the children, about the children, and you have to be able to advocate effectively. Sometimes that means fighting for a kid to have the chance to be heard, at other times it might be fighting with CYFS. Either way, you fight every day, all day, for kids to be the safest they can be. League tables don't take into account any of that.
-
Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Kindergarten teachers have pay parity with primary teachers who have pay parity with secondary. So basically, we are all paid the same. Although there is a pay scale based on years worked and qualifications. Each year, with your performance appraisal, your salary increases, until you have reached the top of your pay scale. It takes about 11 years (7 yrs in kindergarten) to get to the top of your pay scale. There is no point me being a Head Teacher - I reached the top of my pay scale some years ago.
-
I would also add that with league tables - and Martin Thrupp is completely right - the children who most need to be there, will be excluded when schools compete for the "best" students. Which means that parents not only lose the choice of where their child goes to school, but also the schools themselves lose out. Some primary schools already exclude disabled children - there are ways around the laws - but this will just make it so much worse.
-
Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Whoops,
We don't do white flight, in Mangere. It's solely brown flight FTR. :)
-
Hard News: Women and their representations, in reply to Lilith __,
+1 to the power of 1 million
-
Cuddles.
-
Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Deborah,
I agree. A number of parents in the particular part of Mangere I work in choose to send their children to primary and secondary schools in Onehunga, Mt Roskill, and Royal Oak. Conversely, we have two children attending our kindergarten who actually live out west. Both parents make the trek to Mangere because family live there, and that's where their older kids go to school. One of our dads lived in Panmure but because his older chn went to the school next door to us, and had made it very clear to him that that's where they wanted to go, he made a trip of 2 hours on public transport to get here. Happily, he's now living down the road (well, technically he's homeless but at least he has a roof over his head). And I know quite a number of the kids who go to the school next door come from Otahuhu and surrounds. Most people in the part of Mangere where I work make a conscious decision about where their children go to kindergarten or school based on a number of differing factors. .For some it's about how close, and therefore convenient it is - to their home, or to relatives' homes (who will look after the kids till someone can come and pick them up.) For others, it's a faith based decision - where is the closest Catholic school? Why, in Onehunga. For many of our families', it's about what their child wants. And for others, it's based on sending their child to a school that's not too brown. League tables, and decile status, have little or nothing to do with the choices that our families make. And I wonder if most of NZ understands that this is not an unusual community.
-
Hard News: Women and their representations, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I was going to watch it. And then for that very reason, I decided not to. I agree with you entirely that it seems to be "different year, same shit". No, thanks.
