When Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis was a principal, he got rid of streaming and says it earned results. He now wants other schools to follow suit.
He and Education Minister Chris Hipkins are backing teachers who voted on Wednesday to end the practise by 2030.
Davis said the Government would not immediately move to mandate that streaming be stopped, but he said he saw no justification for it. If principals failed to change, he said the Government may have to intervene.
Union delegates attending the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) annual conference voted unanimously to transition away from streaming, after being presented with a research paper which said it was detrimental for many students.
The paper said it was harming Maori, Pasifika, female and disabled students in particular, contributing to low self-esteem and results.
It also said that getting rid of streaming had not “stunted” highly academic students.
At the conference, Hipkins applauded the decision and said streaming had “no place” in a modern education system.
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Don’t you just love how Kelvin Davis calls himself a ‘principal’? Not sure how that works in a one teacher school, but hey…go Kelvin, the dunce who became a principal.
He also forgets that when he was principal it was a) of a primary school and b) it had barely 70 students. Who streams at primary schools anyway? If there was any streaming it would have been for the big lads and the rugby team.
Once again, though, we have politicians and teachers treating Maori and Pasifika as too stupid to know what is good for them. Imagine going through life where at every turn politicians and teachers tell you you are stupid or underprivileged or the new catchphrase “vulnerable”. Say it enough times and it becomes self-fulfilling.
Streaming may not be perfect, but dumbing the system down so that everyone is at the same level as the average dullard is hardly a recipe for success.
In real life, we are streamed. The best salespeople are in the best teams, and the worst get the sack. Diligent and conscientious workers get the highest pay. Slackers, the terminally stupid and the indigent get stuff all. That’s the way of life.
But no, this Labour Government of special kids wants everyone taught the same, no matter their intellectual ability or lack thereof. It is arrogant and condescending, and will further erode what little is left of our education system.
Look, some people won’t get degrees, and that’s OK. There are other lucrative career opportunities for the less academic to excel at. In fact, many go on to be successful small business operators as builders, plumbers, electricians and mechanics. It’s just a different sort of intelligence.
But our system, designed and operated by the woke and the stupid, is pushing more and more people towards useless tertiary study, condemning them to poor educational and life outcomes.
I went to school at a streaming school. It was also all boys. So the claim that streaming boys is harmful is kind of moot when it is at an all-boys school. Our classes were streamed from A-K, as in 3A, 3B, 3C etc. I had good mates in H, J, and K. One became a draughtsman, another an airline pilot, plenty in my class (3C) went on to become partners in law firms, accountants, lawyers and doctors. Plenty of the A stream crashed and burned in life.
The teachers hated our class. It was because we were smart enough to be in the A/B stream, but not dumb enough to work harder to do so. I well remember how one teacher complained in an exasperated manner to my mother that “It’s like Cameron reads encyclopaedias.” My mother just laughed at him and told him that is precisely what I did. And that was the key to my education. To be perfectly frank, I learned nothing at school…not even how to behave. I excelled at learning because my parents took an interest in learning and ensured that I had access to as many books as I could get my hands on. Even in my cot, I was given books to entertain me.
The problem with our school system is many parents have ceded learning for their children to a bunch of dullards who went to school, then went to teacher’s college and then back to school. Most teachers have never left the system; it’s their cosy blanket, and parents stupidly think that all teachers are smart and have the best interests of their children at the forefront of their feeble minds.
The old saying goes ‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.’ George Bernard Shaw was right then, and he’s right now. Ending streaming won’t change that.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. This article was first published HERE
1 comment:
A great description of the C stream. It fits many who did not impress at school but did afterwards when their interest was engaged. Streaming at primary level is perhaps debatable but I cannot fathom how a seconadry school can function without. English teachers would be discussing Jane Eyre with some whilst others alongside can barely read or write, except perhaps in te reo. Little wonder escapism/absenteeism is so prolific. If they cannot be streamed presumably dullards are forced into alternative low demanding subjects, streaming in disguise.
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