Responding to the Coalition-government’s radical plan to actually teach children mathematics, Hipkins pointed the finger squarely at National Standards. That’s the John Key-led National government’s assessment system Hipkins consigned to the educational dustbin in 2017. In so doing, Hipkins has created a fascinating new branch of mathematics where cause and effect operate in reverse.
Not to be outdone in the race to educational regression, the Primary Teachers Union has its own concerns. They worry that a structured curriculum focused on numeracy skills might not meet the “diverse needs of learners.” After all, why teach children to count when we can currently count on their diverse inability to do so?
Union spokesman Martyn Weatherill bravely pointed out that a “narrow curriculum prescribed by policy makes teaching harder, not easier.” It seems the Union would rather not bother with tougher standards and instead continue our proud tradition of educational underachievement.
The Union also frets about the “incredibly short timeframe” of five months to implement the curriculum changes. One wonders what this says about the state of teaching if mastering a curriculum designed for 5-10-year-olds is cause for alarm. How many more cohorts of primary school students are we willing to consign to the innumeracy dustbin until the Union feels ready to tackle basic arithmetic? Perhaps in the grand scheme of educational progress, another generation with poor maths skills is a small price to pay for a leisurely policy rollout.
After decades of sliding towards the bottom of the international rankings, we can take comfort in one thing: Our education system excels at finding creative excuses for not teaching maths. Between Labour’s time-bending blame game and the Union’s commitment to diverse innumeracy, we’ve mastered the art of educational stagnation.
However, with the National-led government insisting on a structured maths curriculum, we face a new crisis. We might actually improve our international standing. Imagine the horror of our students understanding basic arithmetic or, worse yet, excelling in mathematics. What would we do with a generation of numerically literate citizens?
One thing’s for certain: if this reckless pursuit of educational improvement continues, New Zealand might have to find a new claim to educational fame. Perhaps we could lead the world in nostalgia for educational mediocrity.
Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014. This article was first published HERE
Union spokesman Martyn Weatherill bravely pointed out that a “narrow curriculum prescribed by policy makes teaching harder, not easier.” It seems the Union would rather not bother with tougher standards and instead continue our proud tradition of educational underachievement.
The Union also frets about the “incredibly short timeframe” of five months to implement the curriculum changes. One wonders what this says about the state of teaching if mastering a curriculum designed for 5-10-year-olds is cause for alarm. How many more cohorts of primary school students are we willing to consign to the innumeracy dustbin until the Union feels ready to tackle basic arithmetic? Perhaps in the grand scheme of educational progress, another generation with poor maths skills is a small price to pay for a leisurely policy rollout.
After decades of sliding towards the bottom of the international rankings, we can take comfort in one thing: Our education system excels at finding creative excuses for not teaching maths. Between Labour’s time-bending blame game and the Union’s commitment to diverse innumeracy, we’ve mastered the art of educational stagnation.
However, with the National-led government insisting on a structured maths curriculum, we face a new crisis. We might actually improve our international standing. Imagine the horror of our students understanding basic arithmetic or, worse yet, excelling in mathematics. What would we do with a generation of numerically literate citizens?
One thing’s for certain: if this reckless pursuit of educational improvement continues, New Zealand might have to find a new claim to educational fame. Perhaps we could lead the world in nostalgia for educational mediocrity.
Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014. This article was first published HERE
9 comments:
The primary teachers who taught my generation had often not finished high school themselves and had then gone to Teachers College for a couple of years. They regarded their jobs as revolving around reading, writing and arithmetic - the 3 R's - with some social studies thrown in, and spent the next half century teaching kids the basics and, on the whole, teaching them well.
Now we send them to university and fill them full of psychobabble and marxofascist bullshit. They now regard themselves as activists and social engineers and many of them can't write a grammatically correct paragraph or add up a row of figures themselves.
Some call it 'progress'..........
The teachers who taught me 60 years ago must be turning in their graves.
I agree with Barend on the dreadful destruction of primary education by Progressives who have never been focused on the 3Rs .
American, John Dewey , the main instigator of Progressive Education , described attention to the basics as a fetish. Holy smoke this man came out of the 19th century . Yet he is largely responsible for today's student teachers' indoctrination into 'Marxo Fascism ' instead of effective teaching of the basics . Can we please shed ourselves of this nonsense from the past . How much more evidence and years of failing schooling is required before the truth sinks in ?
A Breaking View contributor has suggested that a TV channel be used to provide the same syllabus as Maths is to be taught in NZ schools giving parents a chance to understand and assist their chilfdren if they are falling behind . The maths tuition available throuhout NZ would assist learning at home pupils , correspondence pupils and an opportunity to the thousands who cannot do simple maths .
This suggstion deserves btter than a comment from Political Parties . It needs to be instigated and can be reused for decades and must be very cost competitive education.
Educating the masses, not the Marxist way, it can only lead to people being able to think for themselves.
Have a look at the Khan Academy to see what a teacherless process can achieve.
Sack the teachers who consider this worthless on the basis that that will be a proxy for the activist thinkers and back-fill with Khan to accelerate the changes needed.
Hipkins: his huge incompetence is matched only by his slyness and talent for passing the buck.
Another thing is for certain, no matter how many times our declining education system hits the headlines or is (rightly) a prominent item on the TV News, you won’t see the Ministry's Chief Executive & Secretary providing comment or in any way being held to account.
In very recent history, Kimberly Cheatle, the Director of the Secret Service, had the decency to resign for obvious reasons. More locally, Tonia Haskell, the CE of Wellington Water also stepped down over a $51M budget error. But, Iona Holsted, who over her eight-year tenure has arguably caused more generational damage and cost than either of those two over not just one incident but years of declining KPI’s, can’t even be made to front up?
But rest assured, give it a few more years at the helm, she’ll no doubt be honoured for her ‘services’ to education, just like her colleague in crime, Rose Hipkins. What a disgrace.
there's no need for a tv channel with math content. khan academy is already available for free. whether one likes the concept of common core standards or not, it's hard to argue that this free online resource would not benefit every student in this country. the primary emphasis on ensuring you sweat out at step 1 before moving to step 2 with full confidence is what's missing in our system :(
Two things need to be done to improve childrens basic education. Firstly bring back Sesame Street on TV. Made learning fun for youngsters. Secondly, take teacher education away from ideology driven universities and set up dedicated Teacher Training Colleges again, with proper instructors who know about the classroom environment. Also clean out the corrosive Ministry of Education (Sorry that's three things)
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