Why was that remarkable legacy deliberately dismantled? What can be done to restore quality education?
I’m making thirty-nine narrated podcast episodes using historical documents and photos to try and answer this question.
I will show education's central role in building the nation and providing universal knowledge to all children, Māori, European, and Asian heritage alike.
New Zealand didn't just come into existence. It had to be built.
The first three episodes will be released on September 18th, followed by an episode each week. Please subscribe to my Youtube channel @dameelizabethrata, and join me on this wonderful historical journey.
https://www.youtube.com/@dameelizabethrata
Professor Elizabeth Rata is a sociologist of education in the School of Critical Studies, Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland where she is Director of the Knowledge in Education Research Unit (KERU).
New Zealand didn't just come into existence. It had to be built.
The first three episodes will be released on September 18th, followed by an episode each week. Please subscribe to my Youtube channel @dameelizabethrata, and join me on this wonderful historical journey.
https://www.youtube.com/@dameelizabethrata
Professor Elizabeth Rata is a sociologist of education in the School of Critical Studies, Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland where she is Director of the Knowledge in Education Research Unit (KERU).
5 comments:
Looking forward to them.
The photo explains much of the problem. The one or two maori were expected to acheive as the others or, as them, be failed But then supposedely to not discourage them, failing was abandoed and teaching successively dumbed down in an attempt to make all feel that they belonged. Until we face reality and adopt streaming or failing again , all will remain handicapped, and especially the top and bottom. Woe betide NZ
I hope Elizabeth's history doesn't conflict with my self -proclaimed expertise on NZ literacy history, which Universities have cancelled out probably because it relates to John Knox and the Scottish Reformation and Enlightenment .Too Christian ?
My Scottish ancestors arrived on the same boat as Learamouth Dalyrymple who founded Otago Girl's High . My family didn't read history they lived it . It was Scottish Social Justice that dominated in early NZ education through Universal Literacy and Education . Scotland being 150 years ahead of England in establishing elementary education for everyone and the most literate country in Europe . NZ Traditional Education, influenced by John Knox's ideas, was how you produced an Egalitarian society . Pre 1950 NZ was declared the most egalitarian country in the world .
Most of university literacy history now begins in 1950 with atheist and socialist John Dewey father of Progressive Education . My mother Doris Ferry ,taught in the 1930s-40s when in Otago you lost grading ( pay) as a teacher if you didn't have all pupils reading at the correct level for their age- Universal Literacy. This was achieved with intensive phonics, of which modern Structured Literacy is a deficient rehash of. Reading is the quintessential element of schooling .
An American study has shown the deleterious effects of progressive policies on education outcomes of minorities . 'Progressive cities , on average have achievement gaps in maths and reading that are 15 points higher than in conservative cities . Educational levels are not dependent on .just socio-economics.
We , now in NZ have the longest tail of underachievement in the developed world . Maori are over-represented in that. I leave it to the reader to draw conclusions .Mine is that Progressivism in education and society produces the fiasco we now have. Gaynor
We're looking forward to this series which surely will be most enlightening. My two cents worth meantime is the conundrum posed by the whole concept of 'free education' which is of course as far from 'free' as it is from 'education'. The tragedy that is NZ-Inc today can be traced back to ~1975 and laid at the feet of those that turned welfare taps on, and began to sow seeds of division at that time. Surely no coincidence that education standards would simultaneously become a target for 'change'. In the aftermath we see 5 million losers so who, exactly, won?
Anonymous at 1:03:
I love “Scottish Social Justice”. That’s brilliant!
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