So what you are saying is that any farmer or farmer’s daughter can run for parliament, get appointed education minister and micro-manage the education of our children.

Luc actually has a very good point here. It’s bloody similar to a complaint I once had. Helen Clark was a farmer’s daughter but she wasn’t education minister -something far more dangerous.

But that’s representative democracy for you. Fortunately then, there are teams of domain experts to help these dullards out.

Which handles here are Substandard trolls ?

1) Luc?

That’s just a ridiculous statement.

So what you are saying is that any farmer or farmer’s daughter can run for parliament, get appointed education minister and micro-manage the education of our children. That being in defiance of pretty much every education expert and professional in the country. And imposing such a system that has demonstrably failed, or failed to yield mooted results, anywhere it has been tried – eg. the US, Britain, and Japan (a nation well-known for its outlandish liberalism – not – but which chucked out standards after only three years).

Yes, it is the duty of our elected representatives to set policy and implement change, based on the advice of the very best experts and professionals in the field.

If the farmer’s daughter happens to be Anne Tolley, she could go be the CEO of Fonterra next, since she knows everything. Obviously every dairy farmer in the country would welcome her with open arms.

Sadly, as has already been noted, we are now suffering the results of Lange’s ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ , combined with the influx of the worst aspects of the US Afro-American gangsta/hip-hop culture, a culture enthusiastically embraced by both Maori and Pacific Island peoples, initially for the music and rhythm which resonated-well with their natural musical abilities.

However, like Magpies, the culture and viciousness of the society which spawned hip-hop was also picked-up and quickly absorbed (especially by the young and impressionable) and as this society was one which held-to a viewpoint that it was cool to ‘stick-it to da man’ (specifically whitey), evolved in New Zealand into a unique culture which now effectively says that it is quite OK to acquire all the whiteman’s (or anyone’ else’s if you feel so inclined) goods by any means but working for them, that it is quite OK to be ignorant and illiterate, since it didn’t require much brain to acquire things – only a gun or a knife, and if you killed someone for his jacket, so. what – ‘not my problem man’. After-all the hip-hop heroes such as B.I G, Puff Daddy and their ilk did it and if they did, why can’t I?

Unfortunately the resulting culture (and it IS a culture) combined with the liberalism and deliberate destruction of traditional social roles and values which ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ introduced into schools has inevitably meant that the negative aspects of hip-hop and such-like have become established – a fact not helped by the carefully-cultivated sense of entitlement of the treaty grievance group, resulting in the creation of a generation who are ignorant (and proud of it), have an overweening sense of entitlement to anything, and who believe that work is something that is for the olds and that theft, robbery and physical violence is a perfectly-acceptable alternative to work; so long as they can emulate their rapper heroes (and most of all their life-sty;es – ‘bling’ et al) anything goes. The means justifies the end!

This is NOT to say that the ‘phenomenon of ignorance’ is exclusively Polynesian – it is just more heavily weighted in that direction.

And the result of all this? Ignorance (it’s ‘cool to be dumb’) combined with reproduction means that a generation of semi-literates inevitably has children who are even less literate than their parents, while these same children grow up in a ‘family’ ( the word is used very advisedly) where the F-word is used in every sentence, where abuse (physical, emotional and sexual) is common and where even simple things such as the need to use pegs to hold clothes on a washing line are unknown. The ‘family’ unit is also one of transient ‘dominant males’ who move on after impregnating the mother and are never heard from again – or at least not until further children are required – or the parents meet-up again and sex over-rules everything, before the cycle repeats again, and again and again . .

The government (of any political shade) of course, out of sympathy for the (repeatedly) pregnant mother subsidises her actions and provides money for a lifestyle which continues on and on and on . .

And the children of such a situation?

They arrive at school because they are required to attend, frequently not because the mother actually wants to give them an education, but because it gives her a break for a few hours (one less child to worry about), knowing nothing, caring less, already abused and invariably surrounded by a very, very strongly-constructed shell of hardness – a shell put-there by shear necessity – the need to somehow survive (often literally!) These kids know little about the world outside their ‘home’, but, curiously, are familiar with TV and whatever programmes their ‘parents’ watch (frequently porn) since TV is a great babysitter and can neither read or write and care little about this. They are also inevitably either very violent and anti-social or have learned to be silent, so just sit and shake with fear.

Kindy and pre-school would of course be something that their ‘parents’ would know little about – especially as it would cost money anyway (a waste when compared to the amount of alcohol, weed, P etc that could be bought – or, just sometimes, food)

What these new-entrants DO know about is how to survive; how to live in the ‘school of hard knocks’ which the average teacher (invariably female) of educated middle-class origins, would have no idea about, and if they did would probably be able to do little about anyway – they wouldn’t have a clue! Yet these same teachers have to somehow try to cope with the newly-arrived and try to teach them what tehy don’t already know – how to read (and the need to read), how to be clean (I kid you not), how to be ‘peaceful’ (this to a kid where violence is the norm), how to speak properly (without the F word – and others as well ), how to . . . (fill in the spaces) before turning the child out at the end of the day to go back to a way of life where these sorts of things are NOT the norm) and to have to confront irate ‘parents’ when the new-entrant child dares to start speaking and using its new-found freedoms (and knowledge) in a house where to do so could be literally terminal!!

And so it goes on – and on, and on, yet the NZEI and NZPF do little to change this, while bleating piously about the need to protect the techers but NEVER about the need to protect the kids.

Perhaps, if the unions were so concerned about their charges (the children that is – not the teachers), they should be teaching the parents and leading by example, since if you educate the ignorant (the parents) you must inevitably educate teh children.

But hey, it’s not about the children any more is it – its all about the politics and sticking it to the government. The children are irrelevant and as for ‘professionalism’ . . . .?

Bottom line is that when parents don’t care about education, then its pretty damn hard for even a good teacher to do anything about it.

The truth that dare not speak its name is that we know precisely who these parents are, and precisely who the kids are. Sadly Celia Lashlie (sp?) was correct, we also know precisely what is going to happen with them.

But its colonialist, or racist, or elitist, or classist to point it out. Bugger of it is, that the kids are the ones who will suffer. In a world where all the manufacturing jobs are in China, and they are too ignorant to work in trades or services, they will be permanently sealed into an underclass.

Am I altruistic? Hell no. Gangs of unemployable youths running amok is not my idea of a country worth living in, particularly once I am old.

TEC – thats Tertiary Education Commission – google it

Briefing to the incoming Minister – this is a little report they write every election where they try and encapsulate (thats a big word that means “explain” or “tell it to the (wo)man” for you Luc) the big issues in their policy environment, and their best advice about what to do about it.

The document is here.

http://www.tec.govt.nz/Documents/Publications/bim-2008-oia.pdf

Try page 22 before you start pretending you know what you are talking about. Or as I suggested, talk to an employer, because you are clearly a teacher or bureacrat.

Equally, I am unimpressed of the rank ignorance,stupidity,rudeness and naivity of some of the bloggers on this site.

Rank ignorance, stupidity, rudeness and naivety are the four pillars of Kiwiblog comments

That’s a novel idea. Didn’t the mayor of Wanganui say something along those lines?
Black, white or whatever; skin colour aside, money should be offered to stop scum bringing more scum to this world.

Transmogrifier, yours could be at least partially addressed by bringing back the requirement to attain a certain level of achievement before being able to advance within the education system at ALL levels i.e. failing pupils and making them redo years they do not achieve those standards.

“Transmogrifier, I think you teach older kids? If you get barely illiterate students at that stage how hard is it to turn things around for them? Do you have the time or resources? Or by then are they a bit of a lost cause? ”

Assuming you meant “barely literate,” I encounter this particular tragedy among “kids” aged between 18 and 50 … people who come to university, motivated by the belief that a degree or diploma will be somehow beneficial rather than the learning opportunity on offer.

Good on them for aspiring to get on in the world, but I wish they would see that opportunities to acquire knowledge and learning how to apply it to real life are the best reasons for being in education.

A regrettably large minority of students are incapable of expressing coherent ideas. My time is fully allocated towards the learning and teaching associated with the subject matter of a given course. I am definitely not resourced to undertake remedial literacy measures.

I think once I’m a bit more experienced (and have a good foundation of lessons, resources, activities and know exactly how the year is planned out), I would have more time to spend on students falling between the gaps (catch up sessions, creating more individualistic worksheets etc), but at the moment it is tough to keep track of all of them, especially as you only see them 4 hours a week and especially if you have other, more pressing classroom management issues to deal with.

In a perfect world, primary school would take care of literacy and numeracy primarily, and high school would then use that as a base from which to teach more specific content based on what the students are interested in. But we don’t live in a perfect world.

In my short time in the profession, I’ve seen some Y13 students with remarkably poor writing skills and inability to even present information in an appealing way with a computer, which is a simple function of a lot of subjects no longer marking things like grammar, structure, spelling, or presentation. This I don’t like.

They will do whatever it takes to do less work, increase their pay and the relentless indoctrination of NZ children. As someone rightly said it: “they are true child molesters of the mind”.

The union bastards deserve to be treated with the contempt they deserve.

transmogrifier; To some extent you are correct but the old adage of ‘oh the gift that God did give us to see ourselves as others see us” is food for thought.
There are many fine teachers but for some reason too many of them have abdicated their own reponsibiltiy to manage their own affairs.
They allow the failers and the bullies that infest the union movement to control their lives rather than overturning that feudal system and achieving what they really could achieve.
It amazes me that I can hire labourers with more employment savy than most trained teachers. People who have theoretically been trained to handle the daily lives of children and young adults but yet are so lacking in self cinfidence that they have to have a union to determine the pay rates and working conditions.
even more insidious is that they are manipulated by those same people.

And that really is the problem. Replace those class rulers from the unions with bulk funding and individual contracts and watch to pumpkins turn to princesses.
There is no war for them to wage anymore as apart from working hours and hourly rate almost everything else is governed by legislation.
When teachers get that they will become much more valued and they will earn the respect they deserve rather than what their union reps earn for them.

But in making their argument, people with this desire often try to remove the choice and power and freedom of the teachers and schools themselves. It’s never expressed, but if it was a proper business model, then many schools would be refusing entry to a great number of students for both behavioural and economic reasons – after all, what business would survive by being forced to take customers that a) don’t have enough money to pay for the services received and b) are likely to disrupt the quality of the service to the paying customer causing those quality customers to go elsewhere?

I’m not against the standards at all, and in fact think there should be clear progression for students to follow and for parents to be able to check on. It’s just common sense to me. However, I’m a teacher, and I’m frankly amused at how patronising most people are with regards to my job. I assume its because most parents assume teaching is something anyone could do, and thus is a profession staffed with low quality individuals who couldn’t do anything else with their lives. And with this erroneous impression as a starting point, it’s little wonder that these type of important issues descend into the demonization of teachers whenever they have the gall to have an opinion on any aspect of what they do for a living.

In other words, instead of a discussion along the lines of “I disagree with the teacher’s union because…” which is fine and clear and an argument that I would certainly make, around here it becomes “Teachers suck and don’t know anything and are selfish and trying to corrupt the kids and can’t teach (except for that male “best friend” who leaves the profession in disgust)…”