Posts by Carol Stewart
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Up Front: You're Telling My Child What, Now?, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Thanks Bart! What a great value reply.
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Up Front: You're Telling My Child What, Now?, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
So, what do Americans make of our system that spits out PhD graduates at such a tender age? (I was 26 when I got mine, and I wasn't exactly a paragon of single-minded efficiency).
Are they envious that we are out into the workforce so rapidly?
Dubious that we can possibly know our stuff after such a short research apprenticeship?
Blissfully unaware? -
Up Front: You're Telling My Child What, Now?, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
I'm going to go fume
So that's why labs are equipped with fumehoods
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Strange days indeed .. Jim Hopkins is almost making sense today.
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Well said sir.
I can feel a letter to the editor coming on.
Perhaps referring to the example of Island Bay School in Wellington, which received a brilliant, glowing ERO report in 2009 and has been staunchly opposed to national standards and league tables. -
Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Sacha,
a natural location to trial charter schools.. :)
It's like Downton bloody Abbey.
An exchange of letters in the Press over the last few days:
1) Visiting Wellingtonian is startled to hear racist abuse bandied about at a Christs College/CBHS rugby game - "Your Mum's our cleaner", the little shits said to a non-European kid.
2) Shocked responses from a few Chch residents
3) A defence from Christs College principal - I don't have it handy, but the gist was that the two schools have a long and noble tradition of bandying puerile chants about and he really couldn't see what all the fuss was about.
4) A letter today from a professional housekeeper for various families at the school, understandably pissed off at visible manifestations of class system.And today, a really aggravating editorial suggesting that the main motivation of teachers, principals and unions in opposing league tables is because they want the information to be concealed from parents and 'withheld from public scrutiny'. Grrrr!
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Sacha,
Govt is cynically trying to re-establish a wedge between parents and professionals.
Agreed.
Our current intermediate school in Christchurch is not exactly a radical hotbed. But even they have been pretty rarked up lately, in a polite way of course.
They were really furious about the budget cuts. And from the latest newsletter:As has been widely publicised in the media, the government has, thankfully, reversed the above Budget announcements. This means that for now at least, the formulas currently in place for staffing our technology and general classrooms will remain in place. This is fantastic news for all schools across New Zealand as this would have had a significant impact on us all. Parent power rose to the challenge and most statements by the Minister of Education indicate that this was the main contributing factor that instigated the 'U turn'. The fact that educators across the country were saying the same thing doesn't seem to matter!
This might appear mild, but it's the most scathing thing I've seen come out of this particular school.
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Hard News: Moving from frustration to disgust, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I think it's worse the way in which he justifies it in terms of being parent driven. It is beyond appalling that he seems more worried about what parents think than about having a constructive relationship with the education sector.
With parents "desperate" to measure school quality, league tables created by the Ministry of Education could be the best solution, Prime Minister John Key says.
FFS! What is wrong with ERO reports as a measure of school quality?
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Hard News: Briefing, blaming, backing down, in reply to Russell Brown,
When you have an intermediate school working out that it would lose seven teachers, someone hasn't done their homework.
The strength of the reaction from our intermediate school in Christchurch was quite sufficient to convince me of the stupidity of the original proposal.
On a related train of thought, it really annoyed me that Key and Parata justified the backdown on the grounds that it was causing parents anxiety. Even speaking as a parent I'm much more interested in the views of the profession. -
Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to nzlemming,
Genuine Quakers rock
I've never met a non-genuine one.