While I have your attention class…

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, June 8th, 2012 - 6 comments
Categories: activism, education, schools - Tags: , ,

A coalition of parents, teachers, and educational organisations at all levels has just forced the government into a substantial backdown on its ill conceived plan to increase class sizes.

Well and good – but don’t waste the momentum! While the links and the energy that drove them are still fresh, while the public’s attention is focused on educational issues, use the platform to press for change on the Nats other damaging educational initiatives, national standards and charter schools. Like increased class sizes they damage children’s education, and like increased class sizes they can be chucked out if there is sufficient opposition…

6 comments on “While I have your attention class… ”

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  1. ianmac 1
    8 June 2012 at 1:02 pm

    I hope that the coalition seeks to save some millions by canning the Charter Schools until the details have been displayed along with the rationale and research. Save millions by canning National Standards too. Yes Anthony.

  2. Macro 2
    8 June 2012 at 4:44 pm

    And don’t forget the Post grad fiasco as well!

  3. maffoo 3
    8 June 2012 at 8:18 pm

    The post-grad desicion will lead to a shortage on teachers within 5 years. No-one is going to do post-grad & then go on to be a teacher. Why? Well a post-grad is 4 years minimum, usually 5, then a graduate diploma in secondary teaching must be completed, so 5-6 years of training. 40-50 thousand worth of training, to go to a job where you earn about 50 grand a year , & get treated like shit by both parents & the ministry.
    Yup, that will work.

  4. prism 4
    8 June 2012 at 9:33 pm

    maffoo That does sound as if the idea of every teacher with degrees etc has concrete boots. Apparently just gaining university degrees turns ordinary people into the superior teacher beings the government has their tongues hanging out for. All the present teachers are being insulted daily – I haven’t heard if any have commented on how they feel.

    The problem with education is that it is both an aspirational marker and economic thing – all developing countries have used education to advance themselves, and developed countries to keep ahead of innovative competitors. And if this country is not advancing then education must be the scapegoat in preference to looking at the major causes. Because education is an internal expense it then encourages shakeups and belt-tightening by government. Yet this country produced Sir Ernest Rutherford from a country school in the wop wops.

    Can someone advise if the sports academy school type is similar to charter schools. Is this where the government got its impetus from?

  5. Rodel 5
    9 June 2012 at 8:39 pm

    Education policy stuff:
    The one that grabs my attention is a dickhead named Hattie (can’t be bothered to check the spelling) who presents as a trendy academic with beliefs that larger classes have no effect.I’ve been there and I’ll wager he hasn’t.. god save us from such idiots.and are universities so corporatised that they are giving away post modernist Education Ph.ds now with every purchase of weetbix?
    In my day……../Oh fukit I give up!

  6. BernyD 6
    12 June 2012 at 11:34 am

    My 2 cents worth ….

    Teachers and Trainee teachers need an educational budget as much as the students they teach.

    The modern world will not wait for anyone, if they aren’t up to date then those children are disadvantaged for life.

    We’d be better off spending money on Education and Health than enforcing laws designed to
    “Keep them inline” after the social damage of no educational direction takes it’s toll and they all start drinking to drown the memory of life in NZ.

    Kids today have nothing to do, that’s why they go out a drink themselves dead.

    As any educated person will tell them, there’s more out there than anyone can do in one lifetime.
    All you need is an informed approach to life and life will have everything you need and want available for you.

    This probably sounds like “Old School” rhetoric to some, but it still holds true today.

    Teachers need more authority in the classroom, the modern day PC approach to teaching disempowers them.

    That’s why I have said every class should have two teachers, a senior and a junior.

    All the current rhetoric says class sizes will continue to increase, we aren’t building new schools and our population is still growing.

    Again I say we need to look outside the square and consider is one teacher per class really giving our kids a fair run of their education.

    I’m going to go further and say “Why is Clinical psychology such a Scary thing”
    Every bloody school should have one !!!

    We have thousands of young people drinking themselves blind every weekend, why ?

    Are they scared to talk to a phsycologist ?

    Let alone the “E” , “P” , “” problems.

    These people a self medicating themselves to deal with their lives !

    And the government asks us if we should ban drinking, raise the legal age etc etc etc

    In other words…
    “Let make a Law about it so we can send them to prison and forget they existsed.”

    More prohibition just keeps Undercover cops in a job and gives politicians something to distract you with.

    It’s not an answer to the social problems rampant in New Zealand today.

    Labour had it right when they were pushing techology and a knowledge based society.

    We should be expanding on the good things they started, this means taking it into the Universities as well.

    There’s probably a large amount of R&D cash out there from many different countries especially in the Power Industry, our universities could really benefit from that cash if they had an infrastructure to actually research these things.

    We need reall alternatives. Not more Dogma and Hype based on reactionary themes.