Posts by Kerry Weston
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Offering to train Halal butchers? There are 210m Moslems here? You don't think they have some experience in this. Or 100 Chefs? I'm thinking there is little NZ could teach Indonesia about cuisine at any level, or the preparation of it.
And since Indonesia, with a middle class who love to consume and number 40m or so, is expected to grow 4% next year despite the global FUBAR, it makes sense not to piss them off too much.
But wouldn't there have been some discussion around what each party wanted - why offer to train Halal butchers otherwise? I agree, it's sending coal to Newcastle and seems pitiful on the face of it. I would have thought that Indonesia fitted the criteria for nearby Asian nation with growing m/c likely to want our stuff. Maybe the China deal precludes it somehow or NZ govt thinks we don't need more than the China deal?
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I'm particularly proud of my instructions for making mitred corners in the paper lining for sponge roll tins,
Love that chocolate sponge roll recipe - I had an obsession once to make the perfick one, just like mum's, but alas, it cracked on rolling. Still tasted damned fine. The Kenwood Food Mixer - I inherited my mum's and got it out to make pav, somehow managed to destroy its motor...possibly because I never cleaned the dust out after it had been packed away a long time in a dusty box. Duh. kenwoods are very fine machines indeed.
One of my aunts had been a hospital "Sister" when they still wore nun-like veils and was suitably battleship-like. She insisted on mitred corners on every bird (and ironing handkerchiefs, tea towels & underpants) and fluoride tablets every morning for yr teeth. I was totally in awe of her.
Damn, I meant mitred corners on every BED, not bird. I'm obsessed with birds atm, creatively speaking on a sunconscious, but breaking through, level. I enjoyed yr blog Deborah.
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anything where you're trying to tell someone how to use a system. It's a surprisingly wide field....
So, do you have be techno-geeky for this, understand it all yourself, or is it actually quite useful to be at the new-user end of the spectrum - as then you don't have taken-for-granted knowledge, make assumptions, that mean you miss out steps that newbies need spelled out? You have to think like a novice is what i mean?
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This tech-writer thing is starting to get a wee bit scary.
What does a tech writer do - is it something like gathering all the relevant info for a set of processes, breaking it into logical steps, written so that a newbie can grasp it? Sort of?
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Myself, I'm not a high achiever, the gardens overgrown, there's leaks in the roof, the car needs an oil change and I've got unfinished art projects, literally stacked to the roof.
Ditto to that too. I don't know if I did the tests talked about on here - i presume so as my schooling was 60s/70s. I got pushed through primary & ended up in 3A as the youngest pupil in the class. I was terrified. Lost my social niche, felt pressured to perform academically as it seemed the only thing that justified me (family stuff) and consequently cracked under pressure. i got through high school by passing exams. Funny - I didn't take art past 4th form as the art teacher thought I wasn't realist enough.
Creative process is so different. I've not found it useful in the employment world despite all the rhetoric around needing creative thinkers, they still want smiley people who do what they're told and don't complain and know their place.
What does anyone do with a history degree now anyway?
I've found the research, analytical and communication skills pretty useful in a few jobs so far. High-end transferable skills for the win.
Yeah, that's the theory, hope it works for me.
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I'm prone to fits of intense activity followed by fits of intense arsing about. I can put up with any amount of ridiculousness in the short term.
My partner (also not the most devoted to his schooling) and I both have a problem with not understanding when things are 'not our job'. We're both too prone to tell higher-ups that what they're requiring us to do is dumb and should be done differently.
Snap. I have to say I've never found my niche in the employed world. I am happiest and function best as a painter and generally creative person, but it doesn't gel with the need for regular income to pay mortgage, bring up kids etc. So now I'm a part time undergrad and faff about doing other people's housework. (When I'm not teaching my son how to pass assessments for Correspondence, haha). I even did a small business course in case i go that road, suit me better maybe. What does anyone do with a history degree now anyway?
I know. I'll be a teacher.
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I've blogged about it here if anyone cares.
Simon: that link from Felix in yr blog of john Key as Tourism Minister talking up NZ as a wonderful holiday destination - come on down, folks! - is pretty bloody stunning:-b I wonder where it's running? Indonesian tv?
Interesting read about Indonesia - i confess I know SFA about it - and, yeah, it looks a mingey (mingy?) offer from us. i wonder why we try so hard for the FTA with the US when other possibilities might be better?
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very cool rules, tim kong. It's the intrigue of them, don't you think? They're open-ended, riddles almost, so you are hooked into thinking about what they mean - quite different to being told what to do.
And they address the vexing question of how one is 'meant to be', how you might go about it.
Authoritative teachers aren't all bad, though. My favourite high school teacher, for ss and geography, was rather peremptory, short-tempered and quick to blow a fuse with the naughty boys in class, but on the plus side, was a fascinatingly good imparter of knowledge and v. witty. Sadly, he was killed in the Erebus crash. RIP Charlie Jennings, Colenso High School, Napier.
I never wagged Charlie's classes - wouldn't have dared. But as one of the Quiet Ones, I got away with a bit of wagging, in 5 & 6 forms - looking for adventure. Mostly i couldn't align the worlds I read about in books with the excruciatingly dull real one.
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Raising the literacy & numeracy levels of the strugglers is purely a matter of:
1) Identifying, not disrespecting, the strugglers
2) Immediately (not years down the track) putting in the resources - the specialists who have alternative strategies to suit all learning types - these people are like gold, we don't have enough of them
3) not expecting the classroom teacher who has to deal with the vast array of abilities & potentials of 30 kids to successfully manage all of the variables, all of the time and keep them all on task.
4) stop suspending & expelling kids, who then aren't accepted by any other schools, whose education is then down the tubes. They also get expelled from Correspondence School if they don't submit the required amount of work - and who keeps them on track? The parents who are either working or "don't care" or are unable to informally teach their own children?
5) Dreaming up new ways to cope with (4) is the challenge and the answer isn't Boot Camp. -
Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Sir Ken is brilliant, for sure. His description of creativity as "being prepared to be wrong" is apt. I call it the Art of Making Mistakes. This over-riding idea that we don't have time to make mistakes (we're moving so fast now) and consequently reward being 'right' and stigmatise being 'wrong' is anti-creative.
Occasionally I've been able to spend some time doing art, monoprints mainly, with primary kids. It's a blast, but the sad thing is they are already conscious of doing the 'right' thing, something that looks just like something they've seen somewhere, is recognisable, is safe. it takes alot of time - time to really relax into it and play around - to relearn not to be disappointed with the first or second effort, but to think of it as having good bits that you can carry over into the next one. That is actually the recipe for original thinking - to get lost in the process and play.
Contrary to the popular thinking that we are a DIY nation, i think those skills are being lost. We don't use our whole selves, to play, dance, make stuff, make stuff up; we are trained to be consumers and workers.