There is definitely a narrative that our education system has become broken but when you look back at historical experience school broke a lot of peoples curiosity focussed on the wrong skills for a different time and had a lot of bias built into it.
With the explosion of technology and knowledge we now have.
The accumulated trauma from our old systems we ask a lot of schools much more than we ever did.
Yet we grasp at the academic myth of the past vs looking properly at how we build new systems to support a curious and future ready population.
It is much bigger than academic standards, a big part that is missing is the treatment of education is something you get done to you as a kid vs the village raises the child.
Suburbs are deserts compared to earlier times, kids have to be escorted and booked into extracurricular activities.
Kids without the benefit of wealthy families with connections struggle to escape and are punished by almost punitive measures from a government dominated with children from wealthy backgrounds who don’t understand their good fortune, never had to struggle and often lack understanding of the real world….
We need to be measuring employability and innovation.
Science and maths is undervalued by society but desperately needed.
By cutting funding for public science why would kids want to excel at science/maths, where will our teachers come from, if you are into science what does Aotearoa offer you???
Out of strong scientific institutions will come not only great connections to schools but also more startups and innovation in all sectors.
Boys in particular often don’t know what they should do or excel at until 25 and they are not very well catered for by our society which currently expects them to have a clue and be organised by 17….. Many men who excel at life find their path in their mid to late 30s
Kids are not all the same, curiosity should be rewarded but we also need to move to more wholistic models of education that are life long.
Much of the failing in our political system is a lack of curiosity and participation by an uneducated electorate who have decided to leave learning to others as our education system has told them they don’t have what it takes when they were at school.
We need to support our kids growth mindset everyone starts with one!
One of the big problems and you identified it, we have a lazy and uneducated electorate, that tend to listen to the rhetoric of the ‘Right’ and not question it, they do not do the analysis, they have no foundation of information. Unfortunately National won the election on lies and misinformation that became the ‘false truths’ that people believed and those lies and misinformation communications continue wth National in Govt. Luxon has spun a story about education which the research does not support to implement a new direction, and people believe without question. I very much like your comments and perspectives, enlightening!
Well expressed - your viewpoint on bringing the best out of each student! But Black & White thinkers like Luxon have no comprehension of this - he’s a measurement guy. That’s his entire approach to everything - metrics and outcomes! We want more of the Gurdon’s to come through. That’s why education must be a creative environment!
A very salutary tale. I'll bet that there are many adults who suffered the same accusative commentary during their school days. As a teacher, I tried to never be negative in a students report, figuring that celebration was always going to be a better way to lift performance. I have a complete contempt for Luxon, Stanford and Seymour who know nothing about education yet are prepared to insult the profession by introducing ridiculous hurdles and hoops for kids and teachers to leap through like circus dogs. If I were a math teacher I would be telling all three to feck off.
Such a timely reminder not to go down the same old tired path of testing to make sure people can pass tests. We desperately need divergent thinkers, probably more now than at any other time in human history, given the appalling mess we've made. Hammering kids into submission (and failure) by testing them ad infinitum is not going to achieve that.
I especially liked the bit about wanting to do the work "his own way". Gurden was showing a creative thinking that contrasted with the rigidity of his teacher's thinking and training. More recently we've been wanting children to think creatively and find new ways of doing things. That's how society progresses. More lateral thinking should be encouraged not squashed by "national standards" and testing. Music and art encourage creative thinking and lead to innovation. This government has no idea how people learn and grow. Their own limitations are being imposed on the next generation and I think that is unforgiveable.
One of the problems I think is classes have always been too big teachers can't give the individual attention that students need & I don't think any government we've had has addressed that issue .Adding to that problem we now have even more young people affected by alcohol & drug problems from parents before they were born plus everything else that causes massive issues.o
Love how your post remind us always of hope. In a African story it is the cracking of old social order( education perpetual promotes such order) that cracks are where new life, new gods, appear to bless us. Thank you. Your report reveals this of this amazing man
Quite right. Our experience was with a child whose teacher didn’t understand them. Having received some very good advice, we went through the process of assessment which not only tested the child, but surveyed the teacher. The assessment of the teacher was the child was at best mediocre. The testing of the child showed 95th percentile. In Finland, the top performing educational system, they have trusted teachers to set their own curriculum. Here in NZ some ill informed pols convinced of their own intelligence are determined to make changes despite any evidence. I believe this was defined as a thing by Dunning and Kruger.
There is definitely a narrative that our education system has become broken but when you look back at historical experience school broke a lot of peoples curiosity focussed on the wrong skills for a different time and had a lot of bias built into it.
With the explosion of technology and knowledge we now have.
The accumulated trauma from our old systems we ask a lot of schools much more than we ever did.
Yet we grasp at the academic myth of the past vs looking properly at how we build new systems to support a curious and future ready population.
It is much bigger than academic standards, a big part that is missing is the treatment of education is something you get done to you as a kid vs the village raises the child.
Suburbs are deserts compared to earlier times, kids have to be escorted and booked into extracurricular activities.
Kids without the benefit of wealthy families with connections struggle to escape and are punished by almost punitive measures from a government dominated with children from wealthy backgrounds who don’t understand their good fortune, never had to struggle and often lack understanding of the real world….
We need to be measuring employability and innovation.
Science and maths is undervalued by society but desperately needed.
By cutting funding for public science why would kids want to excel at science/maths, where will our teachers come from, if you are into science what does Aotearoa offer you???
Out of strong scientific institutions will come not only great connections to schools but also more startups and innovation in all sectors.
Boys in particular often don’t know what they should do or excel at until 25 and they are not very well catered for by our society which currently expects them to have a clue and be organised by 17….. Many men who excel at life find their path in their mid to late 30s
Kids are not all the same, curiosity should be rewarded but we also need to move to more wholistic models of education that are life long.
Much of the failing in our political system is a lack of curiosity and participation by an uneducated electorate who have decided to leave learning to others as our education system has told them they don’t have what it takes when they were at school.
We need to support our kids growth mindset everyone starts with one!
One of the big problems and you identified it, we have a lazy and uneducated electorate, that tend to listen to the rhetoric of the ‘Right’ and not question it, they do not do the analysis, they have no foundation of information. Unfortunately National won the election on lies and misinformation that became the ‘false truths’ that people believed and those lies and misinformation communications continue wth National in Govt. Luxon has spun a story about education which the research does not support to implement a new direction, and people believe without question. I very much like your comments and perspectives, enlightening!
Well expressed - your viewpoint on bringing the best out of each student! But Black & White thinkers like Luxon have no comprehension of this - he’s a measurement guy. That’s his entire approach to everything - metrics and outcomes! We want more of the Gurdon’s to come through. That’s why education must be a creative environment!
A very salutary tale. I'll bet that there are many adults who suffered the same accusative commentary during their school days. As a teacher, I tried to never be negative in a students report, figuring that celebration was always going to be a better way to lift performance. I have a complete contempt for Luxon, Stanford and Seymour who know nothing about education yet are prepared to insult the profession by introducing ridiculous hurdles and hoops for kids and teachers to leap through like circus dogs. If I were a math teacher I would be telling all three to feck off.
Such a timely reminder not to go down the same old tired path of testing to make sure people can pass tests. We desperately need divergent thinkers, probably more now than at any other time in human history, given the appalling mess we've made. Hammering kids into submission (and failure) by testing them ad infinitum is not going to achieve that.
I especially liked the bit about wanting to do the work "his own way". Gurden was showing a creative thinking that contrasted with the rigidity of his teacher's thinking and training. More recently we've been wanting children to think creatively and find new ways of doing things. That's how society progresses. More lateral thinking should be encouraged not squashed by "national standards" and testing. Music and art encourage creative thinking and lead to innovation. This government has no idea how people learn and grow. Their own limitations are being imposed on the next generation and I think that is unforgiveable.
One of the problems I think is classes have always been too big teachers can't give the individual attention that students need & I don't think any government we've had has addressed that issue .Adding to that problem we now have even more young people affected by alcohol & drug problems from parents before they were born plus everything else that causes massive issues.o
Labour was aware and was in process of changes, listening to Chippy this morning. .
Love how your post remind us always of hope. In a African story it is the cracking of old social order( education perpetual promotes such order) that cracks are where new life, new gods, appear to bless us. Thank you. Your report reveals this of this amazing man
Quite right. Our experience was with a child whose teacher didn’t understand them. Having received some very good advice, we went through the process of assessment which not only tested the child, but surveyed the teacher. The assessment of the teacher was the child was at best mediocre. The testing of the child showed 95th percentile. In Finland, the top performing educational system, they have trusted teachers to set their own curriculum. Here in NZ some ill informed pols convinced of their own intelligence are determined to make changes despite any evidence. I believe this was defined as a thing by Dunning and Kruger.