Posts by KevinHicks
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And heres a question:
Who does it benefit and who does it make feel good to (a) write something like this and (b) leave out the word “knowledge”?
“The New Zealand Curriculum identifies five key competencies:
• thinking
• using language, symbols, and texts
• managing self
• relating to others
• participating and contributing. “I’m interested in you guys opinions because out of all my extended whanau and friends I have no-one to ask these questions because none of them have a wit idea why the politicians come up with the non-solutions to the problems.
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Ben, that is a good point. The current science curriculum is far too rigid in being "selected topics in science" and being able to opt in and out of little modules is ludicrous. Science, and I suspect learning, just doesn't work like that.
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Well we had our 12 year old daughter come home from school laughing that they had been taught that man has never landed on the moon. If that isn’t seeing through BS I don't know what is.
Point taken about history although my kids never got anything as useful as what you describe and I certainly did not get from my history that there was much else going on other than in Europe and NZ.
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Tom, we're talking kids education here! Teach them something interesting and they'll lap it up and think as well. My daughter laughs openly at the BS parts of the syllabus and I have always encouraged her to try hard in everything. The kids see through the BS for themselves and are not interested in MOE vision statements.
Take history for example – it is the worst taught subject at school and is arguably one of the most important. Most of the stuff I’ve seen my kids bring home I would have said amounted to a month’s work of their entire school lives in “selected topics in social justice”. And I see no mention of redressing the balance regarding the down-playing of Asian history in the new curriculum.
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Richard, in NZ we already have the system where a random selection of the papers goes to another university to get remarked. We have reasonable quality control and I was just saying the quality control would have to be very carefully audited if we brought in a system of fully funding our brightest student. As you will have detected, the idea of investing in NZs future by ensuring our brightest graduates aren't mortgaged up to the eyeballs is abhorrent to the very people who railed against the American type user pays system when it is brought in. When they realised that this system could be harvested full out for wealth redistribution I don't quite know but perhaps one of them can enlighten us.
You guys in the US have a system that pumps out knowledge and drives your economy which many here do not undestand. Perhaps you could share your thoughts about how a small country (4 million people) which wants all the first world goodies like health, education and social welfare, should develop its education system and target its education dollars.
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Rich, that is a major problem for our economy if you want your kids to stay here and for us to be anything more than a retirement home for PJ and his Hollywood mates. The problem is that some around here seem to be so attached to their ideology that they are happy with that scenario.
Yes, there are a small number left behind, which the politicians and the mainstream mdia focus on relentlessly, to no avail because the problem has got worse over the same 50 years that we have poured more into them.
So excuse my cynicism but I consider the pontification of politicians in the MSM about the underclass to be just nouveau-baby kissing for all the good that it does.
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David, thats a good point. I'm not totally opposed to those ideas just to the emphasis placed on them and the idea that they are right for everyone. And I bet you have a bloody good memory too - comeon truth time...
Of course previously thay were just as cherished its just they weren't written down in some bureaucratic vision statement.
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No Don, your ideology means that you would naturally think a sociologist gives more clarity and reason than a scientist.
Take the example of university science education. It has been cut to the bone because it is expensive compared to humanities. We have gone from 4 hrs lectures and 6 hrs labs per week down to 3 hrs lectures and one 3 hr lab per fortnight if you are lucky, and yet the government keeps saying it wants a knowledge economy and scientists and engineers to drive it.
Thanks Max, I am overjoyed to hear that practical work still is highly regarded in teacher training.
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"Education and teacher training wouldn't work."
Why not?
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Breaking down the fire(walls) that separate us in the hope we may progress this country.
Ok, just for you guys I’ll slow down my typing a bit and stick my pinky out when supping on the tea. Now if any of you would like to give me a rational argument against what I have been saying. Or point out the irrationality of my arguments then I would be very interest. I am genuinely interested in your opinions - that’s why I am here.