Posts by Tony Parker
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Rich people farting on about sustainability and then building massive houses.
Not always. One of the best for me was the forester/ charcoal maker who had the rights to build in the forest and used materials mainly from the forest. When he was revisited it was cool to see the additions to both his family and the house.
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Even Kevin McCloud on Grand Designs just called wood sensuous. That is about as sexy an image one can imagine and he is talking about a building.
We have an addiction to Grand Designs in our house. McCleod is the ultimate presenter-knowledgeable, humourous, slightly cynical and according to some, thinking woman's crumpet.
On the topic of men's chests. The sight of the Yellow Fever with their shirts off for the 3-0 win to the Phoenix on a 10 degree Wgtn night was not a pretty sight. And I'm not sure you'd call these men normal either.
It is good to hear from other men with more than their share of body hair though. At my stage in life I now find the amount of hair on my head is inversely proportional to the amount on my head. How does that happen?
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Why are you doing Science? Don't you know you should only be focussing on literacy and numeracy? Read to the bees and get them to count how many were killed.
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And umm... how does any government get the politics out of the classroom when the teachers unions are one of the most politically active (left) organisations there are?
Well if previous administrations weren't hell bent on policy that would have ensured teacher's pay was low and their working conditions and security was compromised (bulk funding,vouchers anyone) then I wouldn't need the NZEI to work for me. And as it is teachers and their unions only fight for what they believe so that kids can get the best deal they can
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Uh, I didn't read that into it at all. Aren't they mainly interested because of his previous incarnation as "perk-buster"?
I thought Mike Hosking challenged Hide rather vigourously last night on TV1.Hide's logic though would have my wife's trip paid for by my school next time I go to an educational conference just to maintain our relationship.
And in other entitlement news I'm not too impressed being told by a certain Maori Party MP that he "doesn't give a shit what New Zealanders think" about his large travel budget. -
Today's NZ Herald editorial backing national standards and telling everyone to shut up blithely ignores all the arguments made in Sunday's Herald on Sunday editorial.
Interestingly the very same editorial was in the Hawkes Bay Today. Probably put in all APN newspapers. So much for local content.
The thing that pissed me off was this.
In fact, the Ministry of Education has held meetings with schools and parents since May. Schools should be well prepared.
Yes we knew in May what was going to happen. The detail has only just been released and at present is only on the Ministry website so timelines for implementation will be tighter than what the editorial is saying. Our assessment procedures are sound, it's fitting them into the straightjacket of the proposed reporting formats that will be the problem.
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This creates an environment where objective truth goes out the window and facts are examined within a matrix of received prejudices. Any facts which don't agree with these pre-conceived notions are simply ignored and their bearers denigrated as self-serving and self-interested.
This has always been National's attitude towards teachers and educationalists and you only have to listen to talkback and read Your Views to see that a certain sector of the public think this too. Any time teachers as a group or through their respective unions disagree with policy or direction we are accused of feathering our own nest and protecting the supposedly "huge" group of incompetent teachers while holding parents and children to ransom.
It is all seems very, very American rightwing in it's mindset and tactics, and educationalists here had better work out a better way of dealing with it than progressives and intellectuals have done elsewhere in New Zealand so far.
Well I tried telling people before the election that this would happen. The Nat voters at my school dismissed it but are now beginning to wonder. I'm not sure what we can do. All I know is that good teaching and learning will continue because we actually care about the kids.
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Today the whole of Hawkes Bay says thank you Auckland. But only for a day.
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The basic premise is that on the day of the standardized test day (pursuant to the "No Child Left Alone Act"), Superintendent Chalmers conspires to have Bart and a bunch of the other ne'er-do-wells sent off on a 'fieldtrip' (with Principal Skinner) so as to prevent them from bringing down the school's average score.
Although they won't admit to as much similar things are actually happening in our secondary schools with NCEA because of the publication of league tables. I've also heard of a school area in Oz where certain schools refuse to enrol children with learning/behaviour difficulties so that their results do not look bad. Consequently the schools that do take these children have "poor" test results creating an ever increasing downward spiral of teacher despair and negative views of the schools.
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In my opinion what made the competition so good this year could be seen last night: the All Blacks not being removed. Look at the performance of Wellington, Auckland, Waikato and Canterbury when their top players were taken away (or not played). Suddenly league-wide parity was achieved. Some teams were able to build on this (Southland) others fell back after a while (Bay of Plenty).
Yes unfortunately HB struck Canterbury on the wrong weekend. If they had played last night's team then the result would have been very differenent and we would not be relying on other team's (mis)fortunes and mathematical equations.