Roger Partridge: Heretics in the Temple of Educational Orthodoxy

A Moral Reckoning, Not a Culture War

When my colleague Dr Michael Johnston took the stage at a national education conference late last month, he didn’t expect applause. Johnston, a cognitive psychologist and Senior Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, chaired Education Minister Erica Stanford’s Ministerial Advisory Group reviewing the primary-school English, maths and statistics curricula. He continues to serve on the Ministry’s Curriculum Coherence Group. He was speaking at UpliftEd, a conference organised by the Aotearoa Educators Collective.

Clive Bibby: Good teachers are born, not made

Arguably the most honourable profession on the planet is and always has been the teaching of future generations about the basics of peaceful co-existence with their neighbours.

And it is the limited success of those who daily try to instil in their charge a sense of responsibility for what happens to their neighbour that keeps us all from being in a constant state of war with each other.

Guy Steward: Reflections on Education

I recently retired from school teaching.

It started thirty-five years ago, when, in my late twenties, I got a job in South Auckland taking after-hours music classes. You didn’t need to be trained, just able to play the guitar. I remember the first lesson – a row of kids in front of me wielding guitars of every shape and size, and a row of watching parents behind them. From there, over the years, the contexts and subjects have been many and varied and I eventually ended up in secondary teaching and then pre-tertiary foundation. For the last thirteen years I was blessed to teach in supportive academic environments.

Kate Hawkesby: The Teaching Council wrote to me, but why are they wasting their time doing that?

 

A couple of weeks ago I told you guys the story of the relief teacher censured and embroiled in court action, over removing an ear bud from a Year 10 student’s ear because he refused to remove it himself, and the teacher had asked him to stop listening to music and pay attention.

The student had been verbally abusive and refused to oblige and this relief teacher had had a gutsful.

Mike Hosking: Let's make teaching an attractive profession again

Performance pay in education is one of those things governments have given up on, those that thought the idea had merit anyway. They tended to be National governments.

And it is a good idea. The same way it’s a good idea in virtually every other workplace anywhere. The idea that a pay rise or reward only comes as a result of time spent in the classroom suggests that simply turning up makes you better, which of course it does not.

The argument always put forward by unions is that somehow, unlike all other professions, teaching is unique.

Guy Steward: Reflections on Education

I recently retired from school teaching.

It started thirty-five years ago, when, in my late twenties, I got a job in South Auckland taking after-hours music classes. You didn’t need to be trained, just able to play the guitar. I remember the first lesson – a row of kids in front of me wielding guitars of every shape and size, and a row of watching parents behind them. From there, over the years, the contexts and subjects have been many and varied and I eventually ended up in secondary teaching and then pre-tertiary foundation. For the last thirteen years I was blessed to teach in supportive academic environments.

The rewards have included bustling campuses, successful students, engagement with great colleagues and outstanding educationalists, long-standing friendships, and personal character growth. I’ve taught all kinds of students, from excellent to good to average to atrocious. Challenges are there as with anything. But I still recommend it as a career to anyone sensing the call. The rewards come with the challenges and vice versa.