Daily review 21/10/2022

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, October 21st, 2022 - 63 comments
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Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

63 comments on “Daily review 21/10/2022 ”

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  2. Cricklewood 2
    21 October 2022 at 6:15 pm

    So NCEA results on reading writing and math are crashing… in my opinion this is directly attributable to Covid lockdowns although no one seems to talk about it.

    I was lucky my wife and I had the means to have a good internet connection enough devices for my wife and our daughter and even then it was tough just through lack of space.

    Both my wife and I had colleagues that had 2-3 children that really struggled they basically had to ration time in 'class' through lack of devices.

    Worse through my wifes work, dealing with families in desperate need, we got a real understanding that it was impossible. Both parents 'essential' having to go into work to keep a roof provide food… their children fell behind in a huge way… how can they afford 2 or 3 devices and the internet connection to match plus provide the help and supervision….

    Talk about a slow moving disaster….

    • Anne 2.1
      21 October 2022 at 6:34 pm

      Yes. It has had a huge impact on school children and students generally. And its going to take a long time to redress the situation.

      But lest we forget:

      we were in the first throes of a worldwide pandemic. We had no vaccines… no nothing to fight the virus other than isolationist policies and mask wearing. It took 12 plus months to get the country into a position where Covid could be managed and to ensure a minimum of death and economic destruction.

      Many NZers have incredibly short memories. Too many have already forgotten how much we owe this government for saving the lives of so many of our mums, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends and indeed children. Rather sad.

    • Nic the NZer 2.2
      21 October 2022 at 6:40 pm

      Really, ours weakest areas all improved dramatically due to the extra attention to the subjects.

    • X Socialist 2.3
      21 October 2022 at 6:46 pm

      For me the problem more stems from our education system focusing too much on environmental and cultural topics, and inadequate time on basics. The first move to remedy this situation should be streaming. But they are currently removing the last vestiges of streaming from our education system.

      The pathetic quality of teachers is another problem. My grandchild's tattooed teacher is current up on charges for assaulting a police officer. She had previously told me she loved the open plan classrooms as it allowed he to wander into the adjoining class to have coffee and a break. I thought the staff room was the place teachers went to have refreshments?

      • Nic the NZer 2.3.1
        21 October 2022 at 7:02 pm

        Sampling error, all the high quality teachers use the staff room.

        • Incognito 2.3.1.1
          21 October 2022 at 7:10 pm

          From a fairly limited sample, admittedly, I’d say that ≥ 95% of NZ teachers have a tattoo, somewhere. There’s only a weak correlation between teacher performance and inked skin area.

        • X Socialist 2.3.1.2
          21 October 2022 at 7:35 pm

          Your facetiousness is duly noted. Not all teachers using the staff room are high quality. But I bet most teachers who dawdle into an adjoining classroom to have a cuppa during class time are piss poor educators. Maybe that's one reason why open plan classes are under review? There's much more I could say about my case and why open plan classroom where implemented into our education system. However, such candour would have me moderated faster than you could say ''Aotearoa grows dumber by the year.''

          • Incognito 2.3.1.2.1
            21 October 2022 at 8:21 pm

            So many cheap and lazy stereotypes in such short space of time. You must have enjoyed excellent education once upon a time.

      • Cricklewood 2.3.2
        21 October 2022 at 7:07 pm

        From my experience it's more down to individual teachers rather than the system per say, but at school age a missed year is absolutely massive developmentally especially for those that do best in person or with practical teaching in person.

        • X Socialist 2.3.2.1
          21 October 2022 at 7:16 pm

          My comments aren't meant to negate the undoubted affects Covid had on education. I said at the time the hardest thing regarding Covid and education would be getting kids back to school. That has been proven the case with many kids who pre Covid had poor school attendance records. Covid gave them the means and excuse to go completely off the grid.

          • Cricklewood 2.3.2.1.1
            21 October 2022 at 7:24 pm

            I dont agree when it come to means and excuse… schools a habit once broken it's very hard to recover from. You're correct in that kids with poor attendance pre covid dissapeared completely but covid sent a whole lot more kids into that group and a heap more through no fault of their ownand in got left behind. Current NCEA results back that up.

            • X Socialist 2.3.2.1.1.1
              21 October 2022 at 7:38 pm

              It's not good however you look at the situation. Do you expect improvements under National? Or will it be more of the same?

              • Cricklewood …
                21 October 2022 at 7:50 pm

                No I don't… it needs massive investment all the way through the system, Nats wont do that.

        • Muttonbird 2.3.2.2
          21 October 2022 at 7:33 pm

          All the best teachers are poached by private schools which are now advertising for 2029 enrolments.

          Work it out.

          • Peter 2.3.2.2.1
            21 October 2022 at 7:38 pm

            Work it out? Does 'working it out' include working out how it is worked out who the 'best teachers' are?

            • Muttonbird 2.3.2.2.1.1
              21 October 2022 at 7:52 pm

              From my experience, one thing which has a huge effect is teacher movement rather than teacher quality.

              This is amplified in a market where private schools are free to raid state schools for the best performers. The movement and the loss felt by state schools affects student performance.

              It is yet another example of how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

          • Cricklewood 2.3.2.2.2
            21 October 2022 at 7:53 pm

            Just had a quick look…the teachers that for my daughter and from my perspective were fantastic at are still at the same public schools.

            • Muttonbird 2.3.2.2.2.1
              21 October 2022 at 7:55 pm

              Good for you! What are you complaining about then?

              • Cricklewood …
                21 October 2022 at 8:01 pm

                Sadly they were in the minority and that's probably where you are right. But there are some great teachers in the public system just wanted to point that out I guess.

          • Jack 2.3.2.2.3
            21 October 2022 at 8:24 pm

            That’s because the private schools have the freedom.

            So the good teachers have a choice. Move and be rewarded for their skills. Or stay in the public system for the love of the job but accept they get the same pay and conditions as the completely hopeless ones.

            • Muttonbird 2.3.2.2.3.1
              21 October 2022 at 8:45 pm

              Thanks for that.

              What is your point?

              • Incognito …
                21 October 2022 at 9:48 pm

                I think Jack’s point is that hopeless teachers & staff stay stuck in the slimy sewers of public schools and that the best and only the best rise to luminous and lofty heights of private schools. Metaphorically speaking.

                • Muttonbird …
                  21 October 2022 at 10:30 pm

                  I'm trying to get Jack to comment on his vision. It must be for all schools to "have the money freedom" to poach good teachers from other schools.

                  The described environment is David Seymour's wet dream. Education vouchers distributed to parents as soon as a child is produced.

                  Then it's a game of Rob the Nest, with real life children involved!

      • Peter 2.3.3
        21 October 2022 at 7:34 pm

        You know enough of the specific day to day workings of your local schools, in their classrooms, to be able to stay they focus too much on environmental and cultural topics, and inadequate time on basics?

        • Cricklewood 2.3.3.1
          21 October 2022 at 8:15 pm

          In hindsight yes, to a degree anyway. Actually think that was also down to the confidence of the teachers especially with subjects like maths.

          Also think some moving away wrote learning for things like basic maths was mistake and that's a governance issue. To be fair I didnt realize that myself until lockdown and having the ability to sit in class with daughter. Not knowing by memory the answer to say 7*9 slows down working through more complex equations by quite alot. Hurts in timed exams.

      • GaynorChapman 2.3.4
        22 October 2022 at 1:31 pm

        Unfortunately , focusing on the basics will not fix the problem since the teaching of the basics has been thoroughly corrupted by many destructive philosophies in education.

        For rigorous reading scientists,the evidence that the sound pathway is used in reading is as conclusive as research on complex human behaviour can get. Yet less than 20% of new entrants in NZ are taught to read using phonics early ,thoroughly, systematically and explicitly which is what is needed for the pathway in the brain to be established for at least 60% of children . This teaching is structured literacy.The token phonic readers introduced recently by the MoE combined with predictable readers could do more harm than good since for many children they are incompatible reading systems and It can cause them to become overwhelmed.

        Failure to have children learn their tables by rote assures the child is disadvantaged in arithmetic. The numeracy project adds more destruction with its failing experimental approaches to basic arithmetic manipulations, instead of using time tested methods as Asian countries do .NZ is now right at the bottom on international achievement tests.

        The horrible philosophies cooked up in academia and promoted by MoE has produced all this stupidity and failure . Don't blame classroom teachers for this ..

    • Muttonbird 2.4
      21 October 2022 at 8:01 pm

      The both parents working scenario is not peculiar to the pandemic. This idea has been central to the neoliberal cause for many years.

      Every adult must work to achieve the growth required to support the high castle. This means kids which in generations gone by would have had some parent support at home no longer have any.

      Now, we pay one parent for a few months of work to rear the child and call it job done!

      • Cricklewood 2.4.1
        21 October 2022 at 8:03 pm

        Once schools were closed there was nothing left to paper over the cracks wrought by Neoliberalism.

    • Shanreagh 2.5
      21 October 2022 at 9:57 pm

      So NCEA results on reading writing and math

      As they say, 'this grinds my gears'

      math instead of maths.

      I always wonder about the focus when people use Americanisms when they are in a different country. I wonder about the point of view……

      After every disaster there have been affects on those who can least afford it……children having to leave school during the depression to help bring food to the table, people who were little more than children going to fight in various wars, children who never had the support of a father because he had been killed during WW2.

      I know that we had to educate via device and that this meant some lost years of their education, though it is simplistic to throw the blame on the 'Gummint' for everything. There are some who will make up, some that won't.

      I think we will have to be clear eyed about this and have a realistic safety net for those who may not have achieved, cannot achieve. This could be with second chance education, and adequate access to suitable housing and benefits and supplementary payments. Fair wages etc.

  3. Jack 3
    21 October 2022 at 6:40 pm

    Main criticism of Truss seems to be she never admitted when she was wrong and never listened to advice.

    Sounds amazingly familiar to 2022 NZ.

    • AB 3.1
      21 October 2022 at 7:04 pm

      Absolutely – it's amazingly similar to Luxon in New Zealand in 2022. Because he:

      • still believes the 40 year old neoliberal fantasy that tax cuts favouring the rich produce economic growth rather than just asset price inflation
      • is a craven disciple of the same mad, libertarian, privately-funded, right-wing think-tanks (such as the IEA) as Truss – and which celebrated her mini-budget as essentially their own creation implanted into her mind
      • won't accept or admit that when it comes to economic matters he is consistently wrong-headed, won't listen to advice and mistakenly thinks he is some sort of incisive genius
      • has only one tool in the toolbox – tax cuts for the big end of town
      • like Truss, can barely form a sentence that has any meaningful content – rather than slogans raided from a tatty 1980''s neoliberal rucksack he picked up somewhere along the way

      I said to a family member earlier today – "how long before the RW media start inverting reality and compare Truss to Ardern?" Little did I know that someone called 'Jack on the Standard would be leading the pack on this distortion. Well done mate!

      • Jack 3.1.1
        21 October 2022 at 7:29 pm

        I suspect the reason you were already discussing it this afternoon is because you too could see the obvious comparisons. Well done.

    • mary_a 3.2
      22 October 2022 at 2:29 pm

      "sounds amazingly familiar to 2022 NZ"…

      In what respect @ Jack (3)?

    • Cricklewood 4.1
      21 October 2022 at 7:37 pm

      Good odds on the stoats… although a Yorkshirmans trousers stuffed with ferrets would definitely be better.
      Compo for pm?

    • AB 4.2
      21 October 2022 at 8:00 pm

      It has to be someone who doesn't care that they will probably lose and so never get another shot. Or someone who is deluded enough to think they can win. That means a masochist or a lunatic. Tories prefer to inflict pain rather than receive it (cue Uffindell) which means masochists will be short on the ground.

  5. pat 5
    21 October 2022 at 7:40 pm

    "The energy strategy follows a recommendation from the Climate Change Commission. It will be developed over the next two years, with the final strategy due in December 2024."

    https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/118118/energy-and-resources-minister-megan%C2%A0woods-unveils-terms-reference-energy

    What have they been doing for the past 5 plus years?

    • Poission 5.1
      21 October 2022 at 10:03 pm

      What have they been doing for the past 5 plus years?

      Planning for change with a zero discount rate,now the reality of real interest rates (the post gfc low or negative central bank rates were an anomaly)

      The reality now is it will cost a lot of money,with an appreciating interest burden and a Government that has a high current account burden,and budget deficit which will worsen,munting the export sector will not lessen the economic emergency.

      The options they were exploring was for more overseas investment into generation,but that was effectively just a transfer of profits,and interest rates offshore increasing the current account deficit.

      There are big differences in the aspirational goals of 100% renewable electricity by 2030 and the engineering and economic reality.

      Its a bit like the high speed rail problem.

      https://www.facebook.com/workingdogprod/videos/high-speed-rail-in-australia/290431978141075/

      • pat 5.1.1
        21 October 2022 at 10:19 pm

        It would appear that they havnt even reached the point of determining viability of anything irrespective of funding costs….all they appear capable of is announcing reports and aspirations….and then re-announcing the revised reports and aspirations…ad infinitum.

  6. joe90 6
    21 October 2022 at 8:55 pm

    Life imitating art.

  7. weka 7
    21 October 2022 at 10:07 pm

    anyone know what happens if none of the tory leader candidates get the 100 votes needed to be PM?

    • Anne 7.1
      21 October 2022 at 10:55 pm

      It won't be allowed to happen. If it looked dicey, a deal would be done behind closed doors and the losing candidate would be 'compensated' either by way of a rapid promotion or their personal finances would take a rapid turn for the better.

      Getting paid off under the table is normal practice among the Tory political elite – and their equivalents elsewhere.

  8. Grey Area 8
    22 October 2022 at 7:37 pm

    The NZ Herald and RNZ report that Charles Windsor may visit our shores (at our expense I'm sure). Do we get a vote to tell the parasite to fuck off?