The Weekly Rot

Woo hoo. Summer holidays are just a few more ironed shirts away. Then it’s T shirts and jandals and golf and barbecues and games of 500 and swimming in the surf and brunches and...
Summer holidays are excellent, but they’re not the excellent-est part of my job. I skip to school most days. Not literally of course because I have age and coordination issues.

About a hundred years ago I worked for a bank. I decided not to pursue a life of debits and credits because that’s about all there was to bank work. Money in, money out, interest debited, interest credited.
Bang everything in sight. No wait, I mean bang every piece of paper in sight with the bank’s round, green stamp.
How wrong I was. Had I stuck with that green stamp and those debits and credits I could’ve been the Big Fat Boss, with a Big Fat Salary to match.

What can we learn from the last few weeks? The ABs, the RWC and that ship?
Kiwis can fly, especially if they have dreads and red boots. The government has loads of money for things like yacht racing and footy and plastic waka but not enough for teacher salaries and teacher aides and books and fast-internet-for-all.
It’s called hypocrisy, or double-standards, or dishonesty. It doesn’t matter what it’s called. The golden rule applies: those with the gold make the rules.

More silliness from pseudo-research in education, from America, and from shoddy New Zealand newspapers.

Did I read correctly? “The Education Act protects the right of academics within the law, to question and test received [sic, I think] wisdom...” This was the rationale for Professor Margaret Mutu’s comments that some called racist but which others said was an academic questioning accepted wisdom. Teachers are, by definition, academics and so I’m keen to do a bit of that questioning too...

I’ve not been this frightened, nervous, stressed, anxious... I’ve never felt this lost for words since Mr Edmonds had me standing at the front of the class because I’d worn the wrong shoes at the wrong time in the wrong place or something. I didn’t pee myself like in the movies. But I did sense every breath, I heard every heart beat and I felt every pair of eyes in the room burning into me.

iPads and laptops and kids and learning, again. Call me a Luddite if you must.

I’ve heard some people say that lapops and iPads are better for the environment because they’ll use less paper. Dopes. Books need trees to be planted - and replanted. Trees are good.

Without the need for paper, there’ll be no need for pine forests. One more time, trees are good.

Kids are failing in school because they’re bored - apparently. To quote Boris Johnson, ‘that’s codswallop’. Kids fail in school for all sorts of reasons. Poor attendance is the main one. Marijuana is another one. An inappropriate attitude towards schooling and education by the student’s family is another. Boredom, however, is not.

I can smell a big fat Miss Trunchbull-esque statutory manager stomping down the front path. And she’s not coming to our school. She’s stomping her way to Wellywood; and it’s showtime.

The Ministry of Education failed its inspection. Er, inspectionssssss. The State Services Commission, Treasury, and The PM’s Office all inspected and failed it. Someone called it a policy dinosaur. How rude!

Over the years I’ve read and heard and I’ve even had it communicated to me via the magical medium of dance that schools and teachers ought to be more business-like in the way they do things.

I’ve dealt with business-like people on and off over the years and here’s a summary of my experiences: deception, dishonesty, unreliability, lateness, rudeness, and downright incompetence. Let’s be fair though; there’s been some good experiences too. A calendar, a pen, and a few air points, albeit worthless and un-usable.