Posts by Hilary Stace
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This gave me hope for education today. I went to hear these kids present to parliament’s education and science select committee on 21st century learning environments and digital literacy. It wasn’t lost on the MPs that the kids and their teacher had to work out their own assessment for who would represent the class at the committee. Like computer literacy it is not part of the narrow national standards.
Stephanie (the first year teacher of this class) also told the committee that in the holidays she had quietly rearranged the classroom – removing the desks and bringing round tables for students who wanted to work in groups and some bean bags for those who wanted to curl up in a quiet corner. And how it had improved their learning. (It made me a little sad thinking of all the kids with ASD and ADHD I’ve heard about recently excluded from schools because teachers and schools aren’t prepared to do such simple adaptations)
One of the MPs tried to suggest that teachers get 3 months holidays a year but Stephanie dealt with that well too.
Here’s her blog with today's oral submission. http://traintheteacher.visibli.com/share/NO1mXc
(Now if we could just get rid of those uniforms.)
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I like the new set but is is possible to stop the constant movement on the screen behind? It seems to be a television fashion at the moment that you must have a moving screen or set behind a person on the assumption they are not interesting enough to take your whole attention. Instead it makes it very hard to concentrate on what they are saying.
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Find an excuse to get that nice young journalist Alex Tarrant on. He has been doing some good interviews on the Nation lately. He and John Hartevelt also took on John Key with a complete lack of the obsequiousness that some of the older journalists have around the PM.
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The Wellington stadium was built on railway land and it is quite successful for sport because it is close to the railway station and train timetables are adjusted to the games. But it is still only full a few times a year eg the Sevens. But they also use it as a conference/seminar venue and Otago University briefly used it as a base - and that doesn't seem to work very well. It also requires a lot of commercial sponsorship and doesn't seem to ever make a profit. So a stadium needs to be near a public transport hub but the idea that is going to be used for a lot of other popular activities is a bit naive.
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There was an interview on Nine to Noon this morning with property developer Richard Peebles . He sounded pretty devastated that almost all his plans for redeveloping historic buildings and sites were wiped out in the plan. Don't know enough about the detail but he sounded absolutely deflated, when surely he should be one of the enthusiasts/ inner circle.
It also seems a bit rich giving no costings for anything at this stage. Someone suggested it was going to cost ratepayers $500 a year for these amenities yet no one seems to care about their broken homes. The launch (as shown on Campbell Live) seemed to be populated by balding white men in suits. Not much diversity evident.
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Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Kumara Republic,
I love Michael Moore (even though Brian Edwards doesn't). He is so fearless.
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Double dip recession too.
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Trevor Mallard has posted a copy of the letter
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Busytown: “Glory! Glory! There’s the salt!”, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
The Librarian and the Robbers is a nice little story featuring a librarian heroine called Serena Laburnum.
Memory is a pretty amazing young adult novel.
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Muse: OPEN HOUSE: Margaret Mahy, The…, in reply to Danielle,
I love this photo. What an appropriate tribute to MM.