I've been puzzling over it, especially since it popped up last week, over why it is that we have this truancy problem and why we have parents on both ends of the parenting spectrum who are as casual as they are about school.
Why have we got what I would consider to be delinquent parents, who just don't care if the kid goes to school?
And why have we also got parents who you would consider to be caring, given they're taking the kids on a holiday to Fiji- why are they happy for the kids to bunk school for a treat like this?
How do we explain these quite different groups of parents both having such a casual attitude?
And this morning, I realised what the problem is. Neither of those groups of parents see real value in school.
And both of them are right to some extent, aren't they?
NCEA is a joke qualification where you can’t really measure anymore where a child sits in their understanding of a subject. You have no idea if your child is 56 percent proficient at maths or 76 percent, and there’s a big difference.
Even at younger levels, there are plenty of kids not learning to read and write and do sums at a level they should be for their age. Only slightly more than half the kids at a recent year 10 mock reading assessment passed. Which means nearly half failed, that's massive.
So when the parents think it's not a big deal if Johnny misses a week of school, or a couple of days of school - are they wrong? Probably not. Because Johnny's not learning that much anyway.
What this means is that forcing the kids back to class is only one half of the solution. The other half is probably more important, which is to make that class time count.
Fortunately, this Government has plans to do that.
They've already told primary and intermediate schools to make sure there’s an hour of reading, writing and maths every day, they’ve taken the phones out of the classroom, and they've set a target of 80 percent of Year 8 students to be at or above the expected curriculum level for their age in reading, writing and maths.
But they’ve just delayed the NCEA changes by two years. To be fair, it sounds like it was out of their hands and the schools weren’t ready to implement it. But that’s at least two years away from being fixed.
So absolutely, the Government is 100 percent right to force the kids back to class. But then there has to be value towards those classes- and that’s the harder bit isn’t it?
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
Nowadays the giving out of certificates for so called good results is OTT. Teachers time would be better spent teaching than writing out certificates for dubious good actions.
Bevause of the brainwashing going on instead of teaching the basics. Come on heather,, would you want your lad to be taught all this woke nonsense, critical race theory, white is bad, gender theory, heavy sex education at a very young age etc? No.wonder parents are reluctant
You really should read the works of former New York State Teacher of the Year John Taylor Gatto, including “the underground history of compulsory education” and “dumbing us down.” Compulsory education isn’t about the welfare of children. It has never been supported by the majority of parents. It is about reshaping the society of the future along predetermined ideological lines by shaping the minds of children. All freedom loving persons should be opposed to it. The Catholic Church (Pre-Vatican II, not the post-Vatican II Freemasonic imposter) has always opposed the state running education institutions with the exception of military academies and the like because it is the sole duty of parents and the family to educate their children for this life and the next one. Not that of the state. The current government should defund the education system, refund the costs to taxpayers and let the marketplace determine which ideology leads to the best life outcomes - hint: it isn’t the one being taught to all children in our public school system.
On occasions over the many decades I have found myself out of my depth in education and in employment. The situation is incredibly dispiriting. At school we mix children whose parents have read and talked intelligently to them with others brought up as unwanted stray dogs receiving none of that, and often inheriting a lesser IQ as well. The solution is to stream and fail them to their level as was so successfully done in education for 50 or more years pre WW2. The strap also had a huge concentrating effect. I always found the very occasional week off due significant illness very disjointing, yet now all apparently do it regularly. Teaching methods are now so obtuse only the most able parents can replicate at home to help their charges keep up. Phonics and simple arithmetic process, even if not theoretically understood, were easily grasped and appliedboth by students and parents. The endless parade of loquacious female teachers does not inspire many boys. (although sadly with modern PC approach much of the appeal of characteristivally male teachers would now have to be suppressed, making them as tedious as women)
Based on what my kids told/tell me about the average school day, a significant amount of it, if not all of it on occasion, contains no productive learning whatsoever.
And based on what they actually learn in science, versus what I was taught at school, they cover a fraction of the subject, often ignoring the basic foundations which make what they are learning impossible to put into context.
When parents get feedback like that on a regular basis you can hardly blame them for putting a low value on school attendance.
I see it as a four part problem. First, parents failure to ensure kids are in class. Second, the low quality of in-class instruction. Third, an inappropriate curriculum. Fourth, the breakdown of discipline in schools. Target these areas and genuine progress is possible.
Commenting on Anonymous 7:18 I agree parents should decide on the nature of the education of their children but with so much dysfunctionality in our society and the unfortunate need for both parents to work to pay the rent or mortgage it isn't practical for many parents to home school their children.
Before mid last century we did have a world class education system in NZ whereby children were educated well in the basics and at secondary level possibly of even higher standard than many private schools now. Unfortunately Progressive Education took over from Traditional Education and we have gone downhill since then. Effective traditional teaching methods have mostly all gone this century.
Now we have an ideologically driven education hellbent on indoctrinating children into a materialist socialist agenda which has little concern for academic achievement, discipline, work ethic or morality.
Maybe you can arrange alternative education to avoid this diabolical system but
most of the population can't so we need to fight to change it for the majority
of our children.
Sweden has banned screens from schools because of their proven detrimental effect on developing brains but our Min.of Miseducation has overloaded our children with them. This occurred particularly during covid when students worked from home during the infernal lockdowns. Now there is little incentive to go to school because you can still just jump on your Chrome book and do school work at home. That is what my friend's child told me as a reason for not going to school.
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