Education minister

A fucken retard? I agree, but I don't know ALL the details. Tell me!

http://www.smilecity.co.nz/Community/ForumPost.aspx?topicid=184547

Got to go to uni... but I (I mean, Erin) will tell you why later.

National testing is bullshit, we already know where children are failing, which children are failing, and why children are failing. Testing the children again is akin to treating a person with HIV by taking another blood test and confirming they have HIV... again and again. She is wilfully ignorant of the history of National standards and how it has a negative impact on teaching and learning. It has been proven (over and over) that standardised testing leads to a teaching culture of "teaching to the test" which is beneficial to politicians alone. Results are raised, actual learning and higher-order reasoning is lowered.

She is scrapping enviro-schools... I actually know little about this issue, but it just seems counter-productive to the general aims of New Zealand in its maintenance of image. I have worked in enviro-schools and have found that their learning programmes are rich and well implemented. This may not be the case everywhere though.

Finally, her latest policy; fresh from the good ole US of A. She now wants to bolster teacher numbers by accepting any old faggot with a masters off the street as a teacher. How insulting! It is bad enough that people with a degree can become teachers after a year of study rather than going through three... but to say "no worries, you have a masters in Science, come and teach these kids about science" is ridiculous. I say this with the utmost respect for my wife... she couldn't teach a baby to shit its nappies. No-doubt there are those with a masters that are natural teachers but that has nothing to do with them having a masters. What will happen is that masters graduates will flood the education system because the path/education they pursued has no real-life application "Oh shit, turns out I can't so anything with my masters in applied bongo drums, I will become a teacher". Do you want that?

Note: I realise that bongo drummers are unlikely to be hired, but the principle remains the same; teachers need to learn to teach before they teach. It is not fair on students to place an unqualified teacher above them and have the kinks and flaws taken out over time... content knowledge =/= a good teacher.

Yeah I don't get it why there has to be more useless testing, when they are already doing it, and quite well. As a parent, I know where my kids are doing OK and where they need to apply themselves more, the teachers are quite capable to explain that to us parents without the pointless ministry's guidelines on how to do it.
As to hiring people with no teaching degree - that's bloody disgraceful, when last I've heard, they require a full teching degree for ECE teachers. What the hell??

The only thing this testing will do is allow schools to advertise how well they are doing and discredit other schools by comparison... when it could be that the second school is actually doing a better job at teaching higher order thinking.

But we all know how much that is valued in NZ... hell DB is a parent... and a rabid National party supporter, I am almost certain he will be in favour of National testing.

Psalter wrote:The only thing this testing will do is allow schools to advertise how well they are doing and discredit other schools by comparison... when it could be that the second school is actually doing a better job at teaching higher order thinking.

It's funny, but the reason I am against binding referenda is because of the ability of politicians to be informed by experts, and make good decisions that Joe Public is much less capable of making. In the case of Off-her-Tolley, this has obviously not happened.