Posts by Aaron Dick
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I was part of the initial survey, I think. Done through Horizonpoll, certainly not called Kiwimeter at the time.
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OnPoint: Because Statistical Rigour, in reply to Carol Stewart,
While I understand your frustration with this, it is exactly this sort of story that they are going to bring in actual National Standardised testing, which brings with it all the non-creativity, teaching to the test, etc that we have been warning about this whole time.
Did you get any reference to the actual tests or OTJ activities used to make those judgements? Were the schools telling you where your child would be at the end of the year or just where they were now (Often below as the Standard is for the end of the school year)?
We have never been told where the line is for the Standards properly. A lot of us are hoping we've guessed right when converting the developmental, precise, well-understood (by us) tests that we were already using to the W/B/O/A of the Standard.
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Hard News: Guess that Prince thing was…, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
As a proud bogan, I have to say, nothing about this lineup is really making me willing to part with, what will it be now? $140?
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"There are a lot of things wrong with the implementation of the standards, but not necessarily with the idea of the standards, if you wish to ascertain which schools may be under or over-performing in relation to the composition of their student population. If they're under-performing, I think the community needs to know, teachers and management need to know, hell even the ministry needs to know, so they can see how to correct that. If they're over-performing, it may be useful to know how it came about and if those methods can be replicated elsewhere. The standardised tools that are there at the moment are just to piece-meal for that kind of information to be of real use."
Sorry, I know it's a huge quote but I figured it covered things the best. I am agreed that having a Standard is not in itself a bad thing. We need to have a benchmark for lower ability kids to aim for at least.
But so far as I can tell, we have those standards already. When I began my training I was given curriculum documents and a variety of assessments. They all tested different things, yes, but it was clear how each related to what the average standard.
So that makes me wonder why it is constantly said that at least these new National Standards provide that benchmark. We already had that! We have ERO to investigate how well the school is performing for its community and what outside influences it has etc. If you're really worried that poor teachers are getting udner the radar, I would invest in ERO.
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I haven't had time to read through the comments yet, but I was just thinking, what is the publishing cost of a small initial run as suggested? I understood that the reason for publishers was that they could spread the cost over a larger printrun, allowing books to be more reasonably priced.
Otherwise, why not just have a conglomeration of Lulu NZ authors at one website?
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1. I'm sure I recall being told that tax cuts were going to be part of what got us through the economic torubles that were already brewin during the election. Why is it that suddenly they can't be done if they're supposed to help things?
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I was never really clear on this part of the EFA. If I want to spend up to $12,000 telling people to vote for Party X, I need only include the promoter's address, yes? And, that could mean just including my address?
Have I missed something in that understanding?
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Because we tend to go online in the privacy of our own homes, or offices, we automatically think that what we do online is somehow private, when it so often is not. We create this illusion, understandably, that as we need to use various passwords etc to get into places, what we are doing is somehow secure.
I don't konw if this very human response will ever change, but it is defintiely woirth bearing in mind .
One of the papers I did in my Teaching Diploma discussed just this sort of thing. Getting students to realise that the internet is a public space (and also how to research without copypaste and wikipedia) is something we were told to work on all the time.
So, maybe just maybe, people will begin to change.
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George Darroch
Posted at 7:49PM on 7 Jul 08.The anti-smacking bill should be scrapped, and replaced with the repeal of section 59 act .
Oh thank goodness someone said this.
After Drinking Liberally last week, I was talking to a mate of mine and he was talking about how he had heard there had been no prosecutions under the anti-smacking law. The implication was that the law was pointless as it had no effect.
And my answer was that of course there were no prosecutions, because they didn't introduce a law that outlawed smacking. What they did was remove a clause that allowed a defense for assault if you were discipling your children.
I think it would be worth refusing to say "anti-smacking bill" ever again and using the repeal of Section 59 instead. Trying to reverse the tide of received wisdom anyway.
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I have a mate who is a hairdresser (and rather smart and switched on also, just to ensure no stereotypes are used here). She said that she ahd a client who claimed to work for the company in the ad.
so, while she is annoyed that the ad is fake, she's mostly annoyed that her client lied to her. As to the company not being real, she doesn't really care...