Hard News: Dunce Dunce Revolution
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I'm gobsmacked by that news Rob!
No Early Childhood Advisors at all in Chch (and I assume elsewhere too)!Let's re-invent the wheel - very productive
madness....I've never understood the helpfulness for literacy of the Cockney sounding 3Rs - surely Acronym Central would defer to the logical RAW information (Reading, Arithmetic, Writing) or WAR if you must...
...and personally I always thought if you get through school with the ability to formulate a question, and some ability to process the answers, yer ahead of the game...
most of the rest can be merely Pavlovian...
(NB: don't flood the cellar!) -
Flexible resourcing - Reducing constraints on staffing ratios, class sizes, staff deployment and the structure of teaching programmes. For example, research shows that smaller class sizes are a relatively expensive and ineffective option, although there can be benefits for disadvantaged children in the early years of schooling if very small classes can be sustained for several years.
From treasury document "Challenges and Choices New Zealand's Long-term Fiscal Statement" (2009)
John Whitehead has probably over simplified this:
1) He fails to acknowledge the evidence about the consequences of increased class sizes.
2) He fails to apply the well regarded caveat advanced by Hattie that small class sizes don't work if you teach in a big class way.
3) This view depends entirely to the metrics that you apply to success which is a good deal more subjective than applied here.I note with some irony that Whitehead was educated at a time when Universities had substantially smaller class sizes, perhaps he would like to see what large class sizes have done to University education ?
I worry that this is just the sort of ammunition that NACT need:
I can't wait for the 'we could cut education or "une autre chose" 'replace with ACC healthcare pensions etc.
It all seems a little short sighted, I wonder where he got his education advice from ?
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I note with some irony that Whitehead was educated at a time when Universities had substantially smaller class sizes, perhaps he would like to see what large class sizes have done to University education ?
Oooooh, don't even get me started on uni class sizes. They've instituted a minimum enrolment of 100 for first-year courses here, with some very grudging exceptions for things like Fine Arts and languages. It has resulted in some excellent courses being dropped after one year because they "only" got 80 or 90 students. Fuckers.
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It has resulted in some excellent courses being dropped after one year because they "only" got 80 or 90 students. Fuckers.
Wow. Even Auckland isn't that bad. I think half of the courses I did at the start of the decade in first year would have had more than 100 students. The short-sightedness of universities in NZ is hard to fathom sometime.
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The short-sightedness of universities in NZ is hard to fathom sometime.
Budget cuts are almost starting to bite here. Increasingly first year courses are there to make money, pedagogical concerns have slid back down the priority list.
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Had to pop i quickly to thank Russel for th xx remix.
It's going gangbusters at the Walker ranch this week and prompting much chin stroking, head nodding and cheer filled moments.
chur,
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