Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Back then the official thinking was parents should not teach kids to read before they started school but should leave it to the experts.
I'm not sure what the official thinking is now, but personally I'd endorse that.
I knew how to read before I got to school, and my brother had taught me my times tables.
It wasn't until intermediate school that I stopped being bored with school teaching me a bunch of things that I already knew, and started to actually work.
Oh, I forgot to answer the question. Rangi, 1988-1991 (no seventh form - I skipped it, much to my teachers' disgust). We called it wagging and I think I did it occasionally in the last year of school, which was the annus horribilis. Lots of authority-questioning (my side) and weird power trips (teachers' side). I was a high achiever in everything except maths.
Same school, except I stuck around for our final year. I never wagged, though I had umpteen orthodontist appointments, so I was away from school in Takapuna at least once a month, and not necessarily hurrying back to school.
Also a high achiever, though mostly in the non-arts subjects, until I hit university.
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on the contrary. giving due respect to authority figures whether they deserve it or not is mandatory for maintaining our society and our own well being.
be they police officers, doctors, judges or traffic wardens.
If a doctor doesn't have my respect, it's probably because they're not a very good doctor. In which case, I'm not likely to let them do any doctoring on me.
In which case, respect isn't mandatory for maintaining our society and well being, lack of respect can often help maintain your well being.
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Also, when it comes to teaching, it's not hard to find MPs with direct experience who can head the education portfolios. Finding former cops and soldiers is rather more difficult.
Probably. But I think you could also make an argument that having experience in the Ministry (or most likely, one part of it) could be a bad thing.
A former secondary teacher, for example, might push the secondary barrow a long way, and neglect the other parts of our education system.
Also, and this is just my impression, there seem to be a lot more people from the secondary and tertiary education sectors in politics, than primary and early childhood.
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Makes you wish Stephen Fleming had run a blog. Be interesting to hear about his captaincy decisions, probably something that a lot of young players could have learnt. Vettori would make an interesting read as well.
Bracewell's blog would also be interesting, but for different reasons.
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This time, though, it was to explain to me that absence notes were a MinEdu requirement, designed to ensure that schools weren't inventing pupils for funding purposes.
How bizarre. Wouldn't the enrolment form, signed by the parent, and, y'know, a legal document, be a better indication that the pupil was real rather than a scribbled letter "Johnny was sick yesterday"?
I can just imagine a headmaster turning up to Ministry audit with a box of absence notes for sick kids and dentist appointments and slamming it down on the desk. "Look, you can't say that these kids aren't real, here's the proof that they exist, but aren't ever here!"
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As a footnote, Ian O'Brien is still blogging (daily during this test, not sure if his content has changed at all), his blog has moved into officialdom, and he's getting a link from the front page of cricinfo.com. Probably increasing his traffic 10-fold.
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Out of interest, what Education experience does Anne Tolley have?
To me that's not really the question. You could be a perfectly good Minister of Education (or indeed, something else), without having been part of the system. How many Ministers of Police are ex-police officers? Ministers of Defence ex-military?
The question comes back to 'why is this so urgent?' And given that there doesn't seem to be a good answer for that, why doesn't it go to select committee where all the people who are experts can have their input included and the Minister can manage that process.
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Middle-class people accept that there are 'good schools' and 'bad schools' and they don't want their children to go to 'bad schools'. That's an unconscious way of accepting a two (or more)-tier system, and wanting the advantages conferred by the upper tier, surely?
Hmm. See Jolisa's comments earlier about the conflict between wanting to stay in the public system and demand it be better, and move to the private system because it is better.
I don't see a conflict between wanting your kid to go to a good school, and wanting all schools to be better. In fact, enough of the second, and everyone gets the first.
I'd like to know how many people don't understand teacher feed back about there children's progress, necessitating urgent "common sense" legislation. maybe its the part of the adult population that's a bit thick :)
I've never found that I've had trouble understanding teachers. I have found sometimes that they've been pretty slow about giving me information.
When my son was younger and moved up from one class to the other, the new teacher quickly organised a crisis meeting because his reading was well behind, and he was struggling. He got put into reading recovery and made great progress.
I've always wondered why the teacher of his earlier class had never mentioned that he was falling behind. We were always told that he was doing OK.
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Herceptin. Only those of a redistributionist mindset believe that someone else has to miss out on medicine when National increases funding for one drug. Genuinely growing the economy means Herceptin and all the other new drugs can be funded more quickly rather than writing pre judged reports to justify the choice forced by limited funds. I am a strong supporter of what Pharmac does with limited resources. But there is no way National can tell them it comes out of someone elses drug spending. It must come out of general taxation. FWIW for most of the last 9 years spending on health as a % of GDP has been lower than under National.
Wow. That was a complete bunch of crap. It's like putting a scenario into the computer, and out comes stupid right-wing talking points.
Such a two-tier system suits the middle class bedrock of the National Party, because for the middle class the primary purpose of the education system is to tilt the playing field to their advantage as early and as comprehensively as possible.
Hello broad brush!
Having gone all the way through Allan Peachy's school, and coming from a middle/upper (depending how you define it in NZ) family, some of whom vote National, I can't think of anyone who thinks that's part of the purpose of the education system, consciously or subconsciously.
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Pardon me if I've ranted about this before, but I can't let it pass.
Kerry, you should go tell your story to the Select Committee when this bill comes before it. Ah wait, sorry, nevermind.
Perhaps since you've been denied that opportunity, you could write it down and send it to all the members personally. Even though it won't affect this legislation, it'd still be good for them to hear.