Every Wednesday, New Zealand Initiative staff meet to discuss our columns for the week. It is part of our routine. Our meeting on 23 October, though, was a little different than usual.
Former Prime Minister, Sir Bill English was in attendance. He was there to discuss policy recommendations made by our two newest researchers, both of whom had taken a day out of school to be there.
This story started a year ago, when I received an email from Thomas (TJ) Reding, a teacher at Rototuna Junior High School in Hamilton. TJ and his colleague Dean Watson had run a 'think tank’ project at Rototuna. Each student undertook research on a public policy issue and wrote it up in a report, including recommendations.
TJ attached a couple of the 2023 reports. I was impressed with their quality. He also proposed a collaboration with The New Zealand Initiative. After giving it some thought, I suggested that, in 2024, they could run the project as a competition. The two students writing the best reports would visit the Initiative office for a day and write Insights columns based on their reports.
Rototuna’s Principal and Board approved the idea, and in March 2024 I visited the school with our Adjunct Fellow, Stephanie Martin, who is also a primary school teacher. We jointly taught a class on what think tanks are and the kind of work we undertake at the Initiative. We discussed the students’ ideas for their projects and helped them refine their thinking.
In June, TJ sent me a shortlist of 12 completed projects. I selected two as the clear winners. One, by Cooper Reed, analysed the school truancy problem, and the other, by Athuryann Santharuban, proposed solutions to Hamilton’s worsening traffic congestion.
On 23 October, accompanied by TJ and Dean, Cooper and Athuryann flew to Wellington and met the team. After settling in, we held our meeting. I was impressed by the confidence the students displayed in taking our feedback. Being in the presence of a former PM seemed not to intimidate them at all.
This week’s Insights 2 is a column by Cooper on his proposals to tackle New Zealand’s truancy crisis. Next week, we will hear from Athuryann on solutions for Hamilton’s traffic congestion.
With up-and-coming young thinkers like Cooper and Athuryann, the future of think tanks is bright. We look forward to hiring them in about ten years’ time.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
TJ attached a couple of the 2023 reports. I was impressed with their quality. He also proposed a collaboration with The New Zealand Initiative. After giving it some thought, I suggested that, in 2024, they could run the project as a competition. The two students writing the best reports would visit the Initiative office for a day and write Insights columns based on their reports.
Rototuna’s Principal and Board approved the idea, and in March 2024 I visited the school with our Adjunct Fellow, Stephanie Martin, who is also a primary school teacher. We jointly taught a class on what think tanks are and the kind of work we undertake at the Initiative. We discussed the students’ ideas for their projects and helped them refine their thinking.
In June, TJ sent me a shortlist of 12 completed projects. I selected two as the clear winners. One, by Cooper Reed, analysed the school truancy problem, and the other, by Athuryann Santharuban, proposed solutions to Hamilton’s worsening traffic congestion.
On 23 October, accompanied by TJ and Dean, Cooper and Athuryann flew to Wellington and met the team. After settling in, we held our meeting. I was impressed by the confidence the students displayed in taking our feedback. Being in the presence of a former PM seemed not to intimidate them at all.
This week’s Insights 2 is a column by Cooper on his proposals to tackle New Zealand’s truancy crisis. Next week, we will hear from Athuryann on solutions for Hamilton’s traffic congestion.
With up-and-coming young thinkers like Cooper and Athuryann, the future of think tanks is bright. We look forward to hiring them in about ten years’ time.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
1 comment:
There are certainly some good ideas there especially in involving schools not truancy officers.
Unfortunately , since it is lower students who are a lot more truant than higher decile ones, I believe , the major contributor to the problem is our rotten education system that selectively discriminates against lower decile children in having them under perform.
This occurs because of current teaching methods that are ineffective particularly in the basic subjects. Higher decile students can receive extra help in overcoming the deficiencies in school teaching with outside tuition or home assistance not available to lower decile children..
There are many examples of lower decile children , achieving well above expectation in eg the Clackmananshire and Dumbertonshire Scottish research where 'poor ' children were taught literacy with disciplined , structured , sequential reading methods.
You see the likes of English sociologists like Barry Bernstein have quite wrongly decreed social -economic status is the main determinant of achievement . This is actually true if the current crazy ineffective teaching methods dominate but not if structured methods are used which is what we used to have in NZ..
My observation is that some truant children don't see schools as a place where you can ' better yourself' in life with attendance, application and hard work. For 40 years now we have had the most destructive teaching methods possible particularly in reading. No amount of diligence will have most achieve well if the teaching methods are ineffective. Why bother going to school as they are now ?
Post a Comment