Posts by Paul Webber
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Apologies for coming to this late, and for indulging in a less important sideline to a more important issue… But comments like this trigger a pet rant of mine:
We often recognise that students from underachieving schools do just as well at Stage I as their privileged peers. Indeed, in some cases (I'm now arguing from anecdotal evidence), the students from the 'better schools' often perform worse at Stage I than their rivals because they think that, having been to a better school, they can coast at uni.
Here is my anecdotal evidence. I went to two schools in Auckland in the 80s. I started in a decile 3 school and ended at a posh (though not as posh as it is now) private decile 10 school. The educational differences were stark.
At the decile 3 school, the 3rd form intake was c.120 and the 7th form class size was c.20. At the decile 10 school, the 3rd form intake was c.150 and the 7th form class cohort was c.110.
Now assuming, I think reasonably, the intakes at both schools had largely the same average IQ and the children that dropped out first tended to be lower than average IQ or just be poorly suited to academic achievement, then you have the following 7th form outcomes:
• at the decile 3 school, class sizes of 5 to 15 comprised of children with IQ in the top 20% of society or at least who learn well and perform well in tests;
• at the decile 10 school, class sizes of 20 to 30 comprised of children with essentially average IQ and academic aptitude.Not surprisingly, bright children that had drifted to the top 20% of their cohort taught in small classes were very well prepared for university. I think almost all graduated. Many have done very well. But that’s still only 20% of the intake.
Of my decile 10 7th form peers, many struggled in their first few years post school. But some were well below average IQ. Others just drifted along with the pack to university and hadn’t made a good decision about what they should be doing…
In any case looking at the Stage 1 dropout stats by school is, I think, completely missing the point. League tables at their worst. What about the 80% of students from my former school that left school in their mid teens with a tiny education, making life changing decisions at a time of embryonic self awareness?
If I had a dollar for every kid I knew who started off doing law with a 400+ bursary grade from a top ranked hothouse school and ended up taking five years to get a BA in Classics
I agree with Mr Graham that this is not failure. It is probably a better result than drifting into a panel-beating apprenticeship at 17. Maybe not. But, I think, it likely is. The later in life children make decisions about careers (and many other things), the more information they’ll have to make that decision and the more mature their decision making.
On balance, I think I’ll be sending my youngsters to one of the posh schools where they’ll probably get a mediocre education accompanied by some prize twits but at least they’ll be less likely to make a woefully uninformed decision about their career at 16 before they know anything about who they are. My hope is that they’ll make a marginally less uniformed decision at 21, when I run out of university/travel/play funding for them.
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Russell, Did your research or the PAS cloud turn up a decent solution? I think this Canadian product is exactly what I need. Maybe it'd work for you too. CAD$68 with free shipping is c.NZ$90. Watch the video... at the 5min mark they show the headphone output cable that allows you to accept phone calls. Did you come across anything similar in NZ?
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I quite liked “bikoi”. The word just sounds natural and elegantly describes a hikoi on bikes. For a cross-language graft, it hangs together well.
As for the philosophy of the inaugural bikoi, that hangs together less well. Riding a motorbike carries with it a very high probability of an accident that leans heavily on the health system, so a decent insurance premium seems justified. Which reminds me of a word I first heard in Perth in 2008-ish: That bloke diving up gap between two lanes of traffic (or otherwise driving his bike recklessly) is a “tah”… from “T.A.” for “temporary Australian”.
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Sacha, The NZ Herald’s editorial on Saturday was excellent:
The Act Party's Justice spokesman David Garrett's spluttering that it is "not judges' business to direct or even advise executive - that is a basic constitutional rule" was even more laughable. It is safe to say that if there were any gaps in the Chief Justice's understanding of the constitutional role of the judiciary, they would not be quickly plugged by advice from Garrett.
Do they have a new editor?
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In Australia, automatic superannuation enrolment was widespread from 1986 and increasing superannuation contributions have been essentially compulsory from 1992. Today most Aussies divert 9% of their income into superannuation investments.
So for two decades (more or less), Australian superannuation fund managers have been looking for places to invest the great wads of cash that flow in from employees and employers each week. Much of that money has been invested in Australian businesses and some of it finds its way into tools, machinery and technology that improves productivity.
By comparison, in NZ successive governments have allowed us to manage things for ourselves. We have elected to spend our money on buying each other’s houses and frequently upgrading to bigger and flatter Chinese televisions. Not much of that money is helping us produce more stuff with the same workforce.
This is the only time you’ll here me say this: Winston was right.
Also this is wrong.
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There is an ACT Party member living a few doors down from our house. During the campaign, she invited neighbours along to a “lounge meeting” with Rodney Hide. Because I like the idea of a Liberal Party (and because my wife had booted me out so that the preschool committee could hold a meeting about playground refurbishment), I decided to go along.
The start time was 7pm on a Friday night. I quickly threw down dinner so that I wouldn’t be tempted to scoff nibbles at an impolite rate. I needn’t have worried: these ACT guys take fiscal responsibility seriously. Either that or they were concerned about the EFA implications of a few sausage rolls and lamingtons. There no money was spent on catering. No food. No booze. No cup of tea (!). It was Rodney for entrée, main and dessert.
I have to say that the entrée was unexpectedly impressive. Mr Hide talked about his time in Parliament. He talked about the bullying culture. He believes that general behaviour is atrocious and regrets that he was caught up in the name-calling rubbish for most of his time there. He commented on the improvement to behaviour that the Maori Party (and, to a lesser extent, the Greens) brought to the debating chamber.
He was generous in his praise of many members: Dr Cullen is apparently easily the brightest member of the NZ Parliament since the retirement of Richard Prebble. He was critical of others (Winston was not given a good review) but his criticisms weren’t ideologically biased as far as I could tell.
This little reflective introduction was full of self-deprecating humour, his arguments were nuanced and his observations appeared poignant. Despite obvious campaign fatigue, he was very good when talking about people, culture, etc. He was positive and charismatic. If someone had videotaped the first 45mins and put in on YouTube, I think ACT would have got 13.5% of the vote instead of 3.5%.
Then came the policy stuff… whereupon he reverted to the usual political caricature, complete with sound-bites, generalisations and over-simplifications. The only exception occurred when he talked about education, for which he appears to have a passion (to use the most over-used word in politics, business, sport and careers advisory).
Anyway, the policy discussion brings me to the point of my post… ACT wants to scrap the proposed ETS. Maybe that’s a good idea. I could accept such a policy if argued along the lines of, “Whatever the source of global warming, reduction of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions is a good idea. However the proposed emissions trading framework is not the socially optimal mechanisms for achieving the required reduction”. But that was not his argument.
Nor was his argument that the globe’s warming is natural, unrelated to human activities.
As far as I could tell, his position is that the globe isn’t warming. Or at least not warming significantly. From what I understand, the members of the scientific community that agree with that statement would fit into his SMART car!
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The podcasts of the past couple of episodes haven't been working.
The podcasts have not been working for me either. Same symptoms: Episode 29 AWOL, and iTunes can only find part 1 of Episode 30.
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I retaliated by warning him not to go hiking alone in the bush in NZ, since lack of mammalian competition had led to rats growing to enormous size to fill the niche normally occupied by foxes and the like, and these enormous "bush rats" were known to attack lone trampers in packs.
Hmmm... 50% of Americans would see through that story. Changing size in response to environmental factors smacks of evolution. Surely NZ rats, like US rats, are sized in accordance with God's plan, independent of the presence or absence of foxes.