Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Tomorrow sometime during the day or night New Zealand will reach 4,444,444 people

Fantastic figures eh!  All the 4's. Is this an auspicious number? I wonder who the lucky person will be. We are still an underpopulated nation, although some say that we are lucky. The new  New Zealander will come into a nation that is still hopeful for the futrue; a nation that cares and a nation where by hard work you can have a great life.
We have much to be thankful for but much to strive for.
Welcome NZer number 4,444,444!

Our Government is hell-bound on testing our kids more!

More and yet more ‘testing’ seems to be the catch cry from our Government when it comes to educational policy. Where do they get these ‘failed ideas’ from? If they took the time to look at results from OEDC countries they would see that such a policy is not a fruitful one, but a damaging one.
Just take a few countries for example. Maths results in the UK, USA and Finland between 2003 and 2007 show that there has been increased ‘testing’ in the first two countries and less in Finland. The results----they got worse in the UK and the USA and much improved in Finland. What can we take from this?
Simple----‘Less is more.’  Ms Parata, do some reading of such research--- not the rubbish that your lackeys serve up to you. Make a stand. Our kids will benefit and we will stop the slide in our standards.  Failed policies need to be consigned to where they belong--- the rubbish heap.
Oh------where does NZ stand on this? Why, with more testing and even more on the horizon, our standards have gone down. You could of course be cynical and say that it’s so damned cold in Finland that the kids love to be inside and working hard with their teachers! Yeah right.