At the same time the immigration-led population increase means we’ll have our highest ever school roll next year - close to 850,000 students.
That’s serious. This year the teaching workforce could be 1250 short, according to the Ministry of Education.
There are solutions staring the politicians in the face if they have the courage to put them in place.
Teaching is a job I like to think I know a bit about. I’ve never been one myself but both my parents were, as was my sister and my late first wife. I spent my first 42 years living with teachers.
All four, across two generations, were trained at what we used to call Teachers Training Colleges or TTCs. There was no doubt about the role of those institutions. The students trained to be teachers by, well, teaching. They went out on what was quaintly called a section, whereby they would spend anything from a week to a term actually inside a classroom, teaching students under supervision from the usual classroom teacher.
In one of the most ill-advised moves in this country’s tertiary education history the TTCs were overtaken by universities from 1990 onwards with the passing of the Education Amendment Act.
The last TTCs to succumb, in Dunedin and Christchurch, became part of their respective universities on January 1, 2007.
A report from the time quotes the then Minister of Tertiary Education Michael Cullen boasting of what he perceived as the benefits of the mergers. None of them involved the actual training of teachers but rather wooly concepts such as “stronger teacher education research to underpin and support educational policy and development.”
As well as the universities, other institutions could offer teacher training too. Currently there are 26 places where you can gain a qualification allowing you to be registered as a teacher.
Not coincidentally education standards began to fall around the same time as the change in the training system. In the year 2000 the first Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA) results were published. We were good. Third in the world for maths, 4th in reading and in the top ten for science.
Twenty three years later, after various disastrous experiments in teaching techniques and teacher training, we’d dropped to 10th in reading, 11th in science and an embarrassing 23rd in maths.
The other important aspect of teacher training up till 1990 was that TTC students were paid to train, and in return guaranteed that they would work as a teacher for as long as they were paid to train. So you had to work for at least three years after leaving college to pay off your bond. Those who went to university on what was called a studentship, and then did a year at a TTC to prepare themselves for the classroom, were paid a salary every year they were at university as well.
In the last thirty five years teaching standards have lowered because there is little actual instruction about how to be a teacher. So many young teachers are just not prepared for what hits them on day one of their new job, namely about thirty boisterous kids who can read the room quickly and sus out the ability of the newbie to control them. Many are the stories I’ve heard of first year teachers completely overwhelmed by the behaviour of their charges they just quit. Some long term classroom contact during their teacher training would have had them far better prepared.
The not surprising reaction from the teacher unions about the drop off in teaching trainees is that the pay and conditions are not good enough. As always with the PPTA and NZEI you take these grizzles with a very big salt tablet.
What other job, no matter how hopeless you are at it, guarantees you a hundred thousand dollar annual salary after at most 11 years? That’s because of the automatic progression up the salary scale, no matter how well or badly you performed in the classroom.
And then there’s the twelve weeks holiday each year, which despite protestations to the contrary, most teachers in my experience spend having actual holidays. The number of teachers at school this week to prepare for the new term next week will be very small.
Numerous comments also abound about how poorly respected teaching is as a profession, and that in itself is a roadblock to many bright young school leavers or university graduates training to become teachers.
Here’s a few suggestions to gain respect once again. Dress like a professional. I remember taking my then seven year old granddaughter to her school in Wellington one morning about 18 months ago. Her teachers were sloppily dressed in trackpants and sweatshirts. A week later I took my grandsons to school in London. The male teachers there wore a suit and tie, the women were neat and tidy in either a skirt and jacket or dress pants. Clothes maketh the man, or woman. If you dress appropriately, it’s amazing the way people regard you.
Don’t take “teacher only” days on the first scheduled day of a new term. That’s called taking the piss. Parents are very keen to get their children back to school after weeks at home. Teachers should show their enthusiasm for educating the nation’s youth by being ready to teach on the first day.
Don’t go on strike. My father, someone whose attitudes would be regarded as pre-historic in this age, always used to maintain that it was “unprofessional” for teachers to down tools. That tactic, he maintained, was for wharfies and freezing workers.
Be prepared to let the cream of teaching talent rise to the top and reward them appropriately. There is absolutely no excuse for those who are good at their job not to be paid accordingly. It happens in virtually every other job. Teaching is a highly protected career from which it is almost impossible to be fired for anything other than (very) bad behaviour. Even in my young days at the old NZBC you only progressed up the salary scale if you reached a certain standard of proficiency in your job. There has always been little to stop annual automatic salary progression in teaching, but to then make an executive level salary you have to become a principal. Why can’t the great classroom performers, those who truly inspire their young charges be rewarded for that skill?
(And don’t tell me it’s impossible to recognise the good performers without management bias. We could always do it in the broadcasting industry.)
So Minister Stanford, here’s my summary for you.
Train them at training colleges and in classrooms, not in university lecture theatres. Reduce the number of institutions offering teacher training.
Pay them to train but bond them to stay in the job for as long as their training.
Make the profession merit based whereby the best get paid the most, like in most other industries.
Gain respect by not going on strike, not taking “teacher only” days before or after holidays and dressing appropriately.
There you go Erica. The advice was free.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
There are solutions staring the politicians in the face if they have the courage to put them in place.
Teaching is a job I like to think I know a bit about. I’ve never been one myself but both my parents were, as was my sister and my late first wife. I spent my first 42 years living with teachers.
All four, across two generations, were trained at what we used to call Teachers Training Colleges or TTCs. There was no doubt about the role of those institutions. The students trained to be teachers by, well, teaching. They went out on what was quaintly called a section, whereby they would spend anything from a week to a term actually inside a classroom, teaching students under supervision from the usual classroom teacher.
In one of the most ill-advised moves in this country’s tertiary education history the TTCs were overtaken by universities from 1990 onwards with the passing of the Education Amendment Act.
The last TTCs to succumb, in Dunedin and Christchurch, became part of their respective universities on January 1, 2007.
A report from the time quotes the then Minister of Tertiary Education Michael Cullen boasting of what he perceived as the benefits of the mergers. None of them involved the actual training of teachers but rather wooly concepts such as “stronger teacher education research to underpin and support educational policy and development.”
As well as the universities, other institutions could offer teacher training too. Currently there are 26 places where you can gain a qualification allowing you to be registered as a teacher.
Not coincidentally education standards began to fall around the same time as the change in the training system. In the year 2000 the first Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA) results were published. We were good. Third in the world for maths, 4th in reading and in the top ten for science.
Twenty three years later, after various disastrous experiments in teaching techniques and teacher training, we’d dropped to 10th in reading, 11th in science and an embarrassing 23rd in maths.
The other important aspect of teacher training up till 1990 was that TTC students were paid to train, and in return guaranteed that they would work as a teacher for as long as they were paid to train. So you had to work for at least three years after leaving college to pay off your bond. Those who went to university on what was called a studentship, and then did a year at a TTC to prepare themselves for the classroom, were paid a salary every year they were at university as well.
In the last thirty five years teaching standards have lowered because there is little actual instruction about how to be a teacher. So many young teachers are just not prepared for what hits them on day one of their new job, namely about thirty boisterous kids who can read the room quickly and sus out the ability of the newbie to control them. Many are the stories I’ve heard of first year teachers completely overwhelmed by the behaviour of their charges they just quit. Some long term classroom contact during their teacher training would have had them far better prepared.
The not surprising reaction from the teacher unions about the drop off in teaching trainees is that the pay and conditions are not good enough. As always with the PPTA and NZEI you take these grizzles with a very big salt tablet.
What other job, no matter how hopeless you are at it, guarantees you a hundred thousand dollar annual salary after at most 11 years? That’s because of the automatic progression up the salary scale, no matter how well or badly you performed in the classroom.
And then there’s the twelve weeks holiday each year, which despite protestations to the contrary, most teachers in my experience spend having actual holidays. The number of teachers at school this week to prepare for the new term next week will be very small.
Numerous comments also abound about how poorly respected teaching is as a profession, and that in itself is a roadblock to many bright young school leavers or university graduates training to become teachers.
Here’s a few suggestions to gain respect once again. Dress like a professional. I remember taking my then seven year old granddaughter to her school in Wellington one morning about 18 months ago. Her teachers were sloppily dressed in trackpants and sweatshirts. A week later I took my grandsons to school in London. The male teachers there wore a suit and tie, the women were neat and tidy in either a skirt and jacket or dress pants. Clothes maketh the man, or woman. If you dress appropriately, it’s amazing the way people regard you.
Don’t take “teacher only” days on the first scheduled day of a new term. That’s called taking the piss. Parents are very keen to get their children back to school after weeks at home. Teachers should show their enthusiasm for educating the nation’s youth by being ready to teach on the first day.
Don’t go on strike. My father, someone whose attitudes would be regarded as pre-historic in this age, always used to maintain that it was “unprofessional” for teachers to down tools. That tactic, he maintained, was for wharfies and freezing workers.
Be prepared to let the cream of teaching talent rise to the top and reward them appropriately. There is absolutely no excuse for those who are good at their job not to be paid accordingly. It happens in virtually every other job. Teaching is a highly protected career from which it is almost impossible to be fired for anything other than (very) bad behaviour. Even in my young days at the old NZBC you only progressed up the salary scale if you reached a certain standard of proficiency in your job. There has always been little to stop annual automatic salary progression in teaching, but to then make an executive level salary you have to become a principal. Why can’t the great classroom performers, those who truly inspire their young charges be rewarded for that skill?
(And don’t tell me it’s impossible to recognise the good performers without management bias. We could always do it in the broadcasting industry.)
So Minister Stanford, here’s my summary for you.
Train them at training colleges and in classrooms, not in university lecture theatres. Reduce the number of institutions offering teacher training.
Pay them to train but bond them to stay in the job for as long as their training.
Make the profession merit based whereby the best get paid the most, like in most other industries.
Gain respect by not going on strike, not taking “teacher only” days before or after holidays and dressing appropriately.
There you go Erica. The advice was free.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
11 comments:
All the educational 'theory' (often sociological mumbo-jumbo) can never replace basic factual knowledge--knowledge that Education PhDs do not learn and actually disparage.
A few years ago I had something to say in Kiwiblog about the appallingly low academic standards in high school biology. It should make uncomfortable reading for any kiwis, and perhaps that's why I received no response from Erica Stanford when I sent it to her.
I can understand why; politicians need clubs to beat the opposition with, but the problem goes deeper than that, and cannot be solved by party politics, as my op-ed shows clearly.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2021/02/guest_post_something_is_rotten_in_the_state_of_education_high_school_biology_in_new_zealand.html
In 13 years of schooling (1973-1985 prior to attending and graduating from university) there were very few teachers who actually impressed me.
But in 40 years of hindsight, I acknowledge there were those who were excellent at ...
"Taking on thirty boisterous kids, read the room quickly and sus out the ability to control them".
That is half the job of what any teaching professional should accomplish.
Without the confidence from their "training" the room always degenerated into a "mob of hecklers with a bombing standup in a bar".
What the hell was the minister thinking back then by taking away the "section"?!
The trouble with paying teachers for performance (presumably measured using standardised tests and/or external exam results) is that how 'good' a teacher is depends largely on factors outside his/her control - the home background of pupils and the way the school is run.
Put a mediocre teacher in a well-run school with kids who are from educated households and are eager to get ahead and you have a 'good' teacher. Put the same teacher in a shambolic school populated by kids who couldn't care a toss (nor do their parents) and you have a 'poor' teacher.
Unlike other professions, you just can't base evaluation of teachers' professional skill on outcomes.
I don't underestimate the contribution of a student's home background in school achievement but also believe this should absolutely not dominate as a factor in a child's achievement .
This is one of the main issues I try to address on blogs since SES (socio-economic status ) ie household income and educational attainment of parents is used as an an excuse by the current educational ideology in our institutions for our appalling standards particularly in the basics.
Our standards in achievement have bottomed out because of , in my opinion , wrong values, content and teaching methods. It is also a fact we used to have a world class education system as long as Traditional Liberal Education dominated , last century but which was gradually eroded away by the current failing ideology.
There are numerous examples , now , where students from the poorest and deprived homes excelled academically given a traditional education. One outstanding example is the Michaela School in London with traditional teaching methods. Historically there was Marva Collin's School , also using structured and disciplined traditional methods with astonishing results. Research in Clackmannshire , Scotland this century produced very high reading scores in a severely underpriviledged shire , using traditional structured phonics.
My mother taught traditional phonic remedial reading privately in high decile Kapiti . The children who came to her, by the thousands , were from professional and business class homes which were very motivated toward education. These children were failing because the methods and discipline were wrong in the local schools. Don't blame the teachers or the homes, please.
.NZ has spent more on education than all other OECD countries this century but our academic standards have plummeted.
Just how much evidence is needed to have people focus on attributing blame to the correct place ?
Multiple regression analyses fairly consistently for education systems such as NZ's indicate that only about one third of variation in achievement is attributable to in-school factors while two thirds of the variation are attributable to outside-school factors, principally the home environment.
Of that one third attributable to in-school factors, perhaps half is attributable to teacher variables. These meta-analyses have to be interpreted with caution as they show considerable variation themselves. However, teachers account for, on average, around 16/17% of variation (roughly half of one third) in pupil learning outcomes as measured by tests and exams. That's enough to raise pupil outcomes in a good school but not enough to make a real difference in a crappy school.
My friends daughter lasted 2 months doing teacher training. It was all about the treaty and social justice. Any questions about those came with a horrid response from her trainer. Most of her cohort quit.
All she wanted to do was use her Japanese and history degrees to teach.
Of course if you take statistical evidence based on NZ's current education system you will see results that homes contribute more than the school . That is an indictment of our failing education system.
When research in literacy is done , those who benefit most, given structured learning , are the children from the most deprived homes
. An excellent education system , which we no longer have compensates for the home environment with effective pedagogies.
There are many variables in educational research and it's easy to produce the results that fits your ideology. This is what Progressives have done to find excuses for their failings.
In our school room we were visited by excellent classroom teachers who had failed despite unlimited time and resources to teach their own offspring because they had no knowledge of effective teaching methods
In other words am excellent education system , which we in NZ , no longer have , compensates for bad home environments. That's why we used to be one of the most egalitarian societies in the world with traditional methods. Now we have we have a rotten Progressive education and have quite the opposite.
I was a teacher for more than thirty years, but you would not find me anywhere near a classroom today. Not so much because of the students - though they can be difficult enough - but because of the present curriculum, full of social engineering and woke-speak. A pox on it!
I agree whole heatedly with Peter on his comments about TT Colleges and dress standards. Teaching is professional vocation and teachers should treat it like one. Dressing down like a student in front of a bunch of school kids does not gain you any respect. If you show a lack of professional etiquette, you can't expect to be treated like a professional teacher
Show me a modern male teacher in a suit & tie, or woman teacher in a two piece costume.... Far too casual and lazy... Ergo - no respect.
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