Hard News: Herself's Turn
171 Responses
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Don't forget Boenoe and Oe2....
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Beyoence
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I know a sprog who calls Ms. Knowles 'Bouncy'. Out of the mouths of babes etc...
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Earlier in this thread there's a comment about Labour's policy keeping kids in school, or words to that effect, however that's not the case. Clark said:
The policy I am announcing today is for all young people to be in school or some other form of education or of training until they reach the age of eighteen.
Labour's policy is an education leaving age, not a school leaving age. Personally, I think this is significantly better for many of the reasons stated here to do with the the diversity of kids etc. There are many pathways to suport this, possibly there needs to be more, however the goal must be around skill acquisition, not just churning people through endless programs.
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Paul, I'm still not buying it. Either you lower the bar for "education" so low that it could be anything (in which case the entire proposal becomes a meaningless compliance cost for employers wanting to hire people under 18) or you're still insisting on structured learning. Structured learning for long periods as a teenager really doesn't suit some people.
When I left school I went and got one of the dumbest, most repetitive jobs on earth: data entry. Screen here, keyboard there, pile of paper there, go. I spent a year doing it. During that year I learned nothing whatsoever that I didn't teach myself, apart from fairly obvious things like how to handle reconciling batches - which you could work out for yourself anyway. It was a blessed relief, and gave me a good period of time to straighten my head out from years of struggling with the environment of structured education. All of a sudden the whole contract seemed more clear: You go to work for X hours a day, you get X in reward for it and you have your evenings free to do whatever you want with what you've earned. That seemed far superior to school, where you work X hours a day for no tangiable reward at all, just because you have to, and it follows you home in the evening.
After a year of that I went and got a slightly more interesting job doing accounts at an airline, where I needed to think a bit more. And I enrolled to go study something I was actually interested in.
At this airline job there was a guy my age (17-18 at the time) who was on one of those hideous place-you-in-work structured industry training courses. He was getting paid about 1/8th of the amount I was, and spent his time having to go off to spurious classroom lessons about how to work in an office (!?) and write essays explaining the structure of his day at work. Assignment 1: Explain the process for applying for leave at your office. Etc. That whole situation would have driven me spare - one of the major reasons I felt better about working than school was that there at least appeared to be some kind of point to the whole thing. If it was pointless busy-work that could be eliminated you could just point that out to the boss.
Even with your proviso above, the requirement for structured education would seem to re-introduce a requirement for pointless busy-work for anybody under eighteen in the workforce. That would really, really have pissed me off. You might be an optimist and think that magically some amazing new way of advancing education in the workplace will arise, but I'd think it more likely that nationally we'll just start generating a lot more essays explaining the obvious to people who already know the answers.
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Labour's policy is an education leaving age, not a school leaving age. Personally, I think this is significantly better for many of the reasons stated here to do with the the diversity of kids etc. There are many pathways to suport this, possibly there needs to be more, however the goal must be around skill acquisition, not just churning people through endless programs.
Good point, that is better. I'm not sure about the age 18, but maybe there's international evidence indicating that this is a good age to keep people in education.
I also wonder - I finished high school at 17 and a half, with bursary and whatnot - 2nd youngest person in a 7th form of over 300 kids. I went straight into university. But if I'd wanted to take a year off and work somewhere and save money before doing that - would I run foul of this Labour policy?
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Finn, I suspect your experience is not unique sadly. I'm not sure when you had this experience, however in my experience there are now far more and far better pathways to skilled and meaningful work that include training and the achievement of recognisable skills.
There's a big push in policy circles for better recognition of non and informal learning, the stuff you work out by yourself or with your colleagues, and that might be part of the solution too however I know first hand that industry training, training to national standards/qualifications, is working for many many learner/workers and directly improving workforce productivity. This is not to say it's all good, there's a great deal of improvement that can be achieved, but I've also seen some fantastic training in-situ in a number of industries; seafood processing, forestry, in the electro-tech industry and also in tourism.
I don't think we're arguing different points, however I do think simply letting young people leave school with no qualifications pretty much consigns them to a low-skill, low-wage future.
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I also wonder - I finished high school at 17 and a half, with bursary and whatnot - 2nd youngest person in a 7th form of over 300 kids. I went straight into university. But if I'd wanted to take a year off and work somewhere and save money before doing that - would I run foul of this Labour policy?
It appears so; odd that. Possibly something they'll need to work out however I'd've thought people with level 2 NCEA and/or scholarship would generally be about 18.
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Ms. Knowles 'Bouncy'.
now that's a picture i'd go to the trouble to find.
re: edumaction. i heard sam flynn scott of phoenix foundation talking on the raedio, and he suggested that some kids (particularly boys) are better getting a mix of education and vocational training from a relatively early age. keep them mentally and physically engaged.
struck a cord with me. a potentially complex answer and application, but better than other alternatives.
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Finn - well said, couldn't agree more with what you're saying (and I say this as someone for whom the principle, if not always the practice, of high school education was well-suited).
Kyle - indeed, just about to raise this myself after a colleague mentioned his son is due to finish Year 13 (aka 7th Form) at age 17.
That's not entirely uncommon ... and if you're good enough to finish up all that high school has to offer I'm buggered if I can think of a reason for the state to compel more 'education' until you hit the magical age of 18.
Re: the education leaving age vs. the school leaving age, etc. I think that, in practice, school rolls will generally increase with kids who would otherwise have left.
Which will, I suggest, make the experience all the more shit for many of the teachers who want to teach, and students who want to learn.
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Re: the education leaving age vs. the school leaving age, etc. I think that, in practice, school rolls will generally increase with kids who would otherwise have left.
Which will, I suggest, make the experience all the more shit for many of the teachers who want to teach, and students who want to learn.
If that in fact occurs, I agree it will be unsuccessful. Youth Apprenticeships however may reduce this risk however the challenge is to find employers willing to take on the responsibility - some employers bitch and moan about the shortage of apprentices but don't appear to be prepared to do much about it themselves.
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I'd've thought people with level 2 NCEA and/or scholarship would generally be about 18.
Nah, there'll be pots of seventeen and a bit year olds legally required to run off and do two to four months or so of 'training' after completing high school. My daughter will be one of them, as will pretty much anyone else with a birthday April or earlier. This is why I would have thought 'years of schooling/training completed' would have been better than a flat age.
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This is why I would have thought 'years of schooling/training completed' would have been better than a flat age.
Good point. I assume you mean years completed with achievement.
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Not to harp on too much .... but we might want to think about whether, for example, 16 and 17 year olds have rights, including the right to do with their lives what they will (subject to the normal strictures of criminal law), and are not in fact the property of either their parents or the state.
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This is why I would have thought 'years of schooling/training completed' would have been better than a flat age.
That doesn't work either. Everyone starts school on their 5th birthday here in NZ (well almost everyone). You do approximately 13 years of high school. If your birthday is over the summer, you do exactly 13 years.
If your birthday is after school starts, you will typically do less. My birthday is in June, I did 12.5 years of school. I skipped room 7 in Primers. If my birthday had been much later, I probably wouldn't have skipped room 7, and would have done 13.5 years.
A friend of mine who was actually a month older than me got put into room 7, and for the rest of his life he was a year behind me at school. He did 13.6 years, and was long eighteen when he finished school.
It's a peculiarity of our system where we start on birthdays, as compared to many systems where you start the first school year after you turn 5 (or in some places 6). Primer classes are partially about sorting out where the kids with May - July birthdays go.
The only way for me (and many other kids) to complete 13 full years in school would be for all kids to be held back no matter what the teachers (who we hope are experts in this) think about the correct side of the line for them.
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I didn't mean 'full years', because that would stick you with exactly the same situation. I don't think how many months you spend in year one ends up making much difference thirteen years down the line. But I should say, I'm not in favour of ANY inflexible line in the sand, years or age or achievement. I just thought that if you wanted a hard line, setting an age which a substantial number of kids are under after they've legitimately finished school is... well, silly.
And yes, I had a good friend who skipped fourth form and was actually sixteen when she finished hgh school.
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Ms. Knowles 'Bouncy'.
now that's a picture i'd go to the trouble to find.
Well, the poor kid hasn't quite got the undies/togs distinction yet; because she once capped it with, "Poor Bouncy. Someone stole her dress. Is she cold?"
What do you say? 'That's a bikini, I don't think so, and has anyone told you you're a scary kid?"
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I may have pointed this out before, but Bjork sounds amazingly like Little Jimmy Osmond, a lot of the time.
I would pay quite a lot of money to see Bjork covering 'Crazy Horses'.
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Well, I don't know how she was at the BDO in Akl, but she was pretty disappointing in Sydney (but I'm not a hardcore fan) although perhaps it was partly a function of having seen the Arcade Fire the day previous who were fantastic!
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Youth Apprenticeships however may reduce this risk however the challenge is to find employers willing to take on the responsibility - some employers bitch and moan about the shortage of apprentices but don't appear to be prepared to do much about it themselves.
Or don't have a mysterious financial problem that causes apprentices to be laid off just before they qualify and need to be paid grown up wages......
I would pay quite a lot of money to see Bjork covering 'Crazy Horses'
See surely being the operative word....
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Finn, I suspect your experience is not unique sadly. I'm not sure when you had this experience, however in my experience there are now far more and far better pathways to skilled and meaningful work that include training and the achievement of recognisable skills.
Hum. I'm very dubious. My experience was in the UK, but I'm pretty happy that there's no way you could structure something robust enough to stand up to legal obligations that wouldn't have bothered me. When I was 16-18 I hated formalised training schemes and assessment of any description. I just wanted to be able to work, ask questions where I needed to and do something I cared about for its own reward in my spare time.
I don't engage well with topics I find innately dull or which I can't relate to, while I'm very good at learning things I find interesting. Generally it takes a real practical application to make many everyday things interesting enough to be absorbed. Practical work with a good opportunity for initiative and problem-solving is, consequently, just about the best learning environment I've yet encountered.
That's not something I'd promote as a personal strength, but it's definitely been a reality since I was very young and I've had little success with changing it substantially. In short, I've got to be able to see the point in what I'm being asked to learn and do, and "so you can prove you can" never seemed like much of an answer.
Ironically all of that actually was my path to skilled and meaningful work. I think if I'd been forced to partake in substantial mandatory training and assessment schemes during those years I would probably have ended up unemployable due to mental illness and would have been scared off working in the same way that I was scared away from education. The absence of structured educational requirements gave me the time to clear my head and find a way to operate in the world that worked for me. At best these plans for continued compulsion would have just delayed that for me by two years; at worst it might have left me severely mentally unwell. I was certainly right on the brink of that at sixteen, and I'd already been out of school for a few years at that point before returning briefly to attempt getting some A-levels.
I'm coming up on 27 now, and I'm well-paid, have been consistently employed (or profitably self-employed) for nigh on a decade now and have done a variety of interesting things. I've written professionally, built IT systems of various descriptions and worked for myself as a music teacher/freelance music programmer and as a web developer. I've also got a lot of general work experience, because when I can't find something to engage with I just go and temp. I have virtually no qualifications in anything other than music, but I can get work because I have real, tangiable things that I've built that I can point to and I have good references. I'm definitely blocked from working in some jobs and industry sectors because of all of this, but it's considerably less than I would have been blocked from working at if I'd had a complete mental breakdown at 16/17 and been unable to attend work or school.
I'm all for giving people more choices, but this Labour's proposal would directly cut off the direction in life that worked for me without putting anything resembling a tempting alternative on the table. I'd fear for the sanity of kids going through the same things as my younger self.
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I would pay quite a lot of money to see Bjork covering 'Crazy Horses'.
You know, that would kind of work. At least, better than 'Long Haired Lover from Liverpool' or 'Gonna knock on your door'
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Generally speaking I think there is a lot of fixing that needs to be done before any further education (of any type) should be forced on modern yoof.
The western model of education is in many ways stuck with the idea that early education prepares you for a particular career or at most a small range of talent specific occupations (I do remember the trouble I got into when I listed drug dealing as a possible career). In the modern context, careers for life seem a bit dumb. There is no such thing as a job for life and I abhor the idea that personal development should cease with your first “proper” job. I don’t think employers and politicians really grasp this with respect to the education that they want to create I’m not even sure educators get it sometimes.
I’m with Finn on this one, I got thrown out of school at 17 wasted time pretending to go to college between 17 and 20. I finally went to Uni at 25 when I’d made up my mind what I wanted to do and why. At which point I achieved something of value. I would almost go so far as to say kick ‘em all out at 16 and don’t let them back in until 18 or over. Education is appalling when it comes to supporting returning adult learners; same loans, just less time to pay then off in.
Last thought for the time being at the end of a tertiary education in NZ without Postgrad I end up with an ordinary degree at the end of the same period of education in the UK I get an honours degree. Can someone explain this, from my perspective it just looks more broke….
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My biz partner dropped out during 7th form, aged 16. He was highly motivated and was doing fine at school but his reasons for leaving to begin work were all good:
1. He was from a poor family and needed the money
2. He was not learning anything that would help him in what he was 100% certain his choice of career direction was (computer programming).
3. He absolutely was not going to be going to varsity. He examined what they taught in various tech computer courses and realized he already knew all that shit.He is now a millionaire owner of a number of successful software products. I don't think holding him in school for another year and a half would have helped him one iota. It would have just prolonged the hardship which was the reality of his life at the time.
Thus I don't like the idea, and I'm not just thinking of kids who are underachieving in school. There are also a few people at the other end of the spectrum.
To me it's just a numbers fiddle to dick with unemployment figures. If people want to continue getting educated, they will. If they want to work, they should be allowed. It's only those who want neither that are a big problem. And I'm not that convinced the number of people like that really is that big a problem. If it is, it's a factor of the kind of work or schooling that they want not being available. Which is addressable without putting strictures on everyone else. Or they are the kind of people who just want to slack around. If so, they will slack around at school or in the workplace, whichever they are forced into. No real problem is solved by forcing them to do their slacking where they can maximize the disruption to non-slackers that they are causing, but a lot of problems are caused.
Our current solution for such slackers, to let them slack around on the meager pickings of welfare until they wise up, or indefinitely so long as they don't make trouble, actually works quite well. I don't buy into a direct connection between being a slacker and entering a life of crime. A life of crime beckons slackers and non-slackers alike, and is a mindset in itself which has always seemed to me to have little to do with simple laziness.
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Not to harp on too much .... but we might want to think about whether, for example, 16 and 17 year olds have rights, including the right to do with their lives what they will (subject to the normal strictures of criminal law), and are not in fact the property of either their parents or the state.
Sure.... and might not the same arguments be applied to 13, 14 and 15 year olds? and then 11/12 etc.?
Age limits are frequently arbitrary, and do involve the removing of rights.... so discussion of what the age should be is definitely worth while.... But you've got to realize that there is going to be 'injustice' in setting them.... especially most apparent near the border-line...
Just because a prevailing age limit has been in use for some time, doesnt change the fact that it is already affecting "rights".... and so changing that age limit doesnt actually introduce new injustice... only who it applies to.
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