It is academia I have a dispute with not teachers. During the 'reading wars' in which my family were heavily involved it was academics and the Ministry we blamed for the reading failure and the indoctrination into progressive ideology.. Being a third generation teacher in my family , I am familiar with the changes for the entire 20th Century in NZ education.
While attending Teachers Training College , I was tutored by experienced teachers who were from the pre -progressove era. The methods they taught were highly structured and we had hours of classroom management . There was very little theory. ' Old school' teachers held onto their methods for decades despite losing promotion , because they saw they worked.
We had a number of highly competent teachers secretly bring their own children to our school room for remediation . These included Reading Recovery teachers and a Scottish professor of education who had failed to teach her own family member to read.
If i achieve nothing else in this blog , but establish that simply reading to children will not ensure
literacy . I will feel I have achieved something . All the children we had for remediation had been extensively read to as pre-schoolers. What is needed is knowledge of letters and sounds .
The performance of NZ students at both primary and secondary level has declined sharply since 2009 and also the students at the highest level s have declined sharply as well. There is a persistant huge gap between students of different socio-economic status .-one of the worst in the developed world. Maori and Pasifica have been impacted by this hence contributing to their poor stats in welfare , prison and menial work. I grieve about this having remediated many Maori students in the basics using structured methods.
My anger is directed at the academic who was infatuated with Marie Clay 's progressive and constructivist Whole Language reading method . We could have had then the changes occurring now in structured learning but he dominated the 2000 Parliamentary enquiry into NZ literacy . Pro -phonics academics were not even given speaking rights at this enquiry . Hundreds if not thousands of submissions called for change . This change to structured learning has occurred earlier in other countries . We had to see even more failure , more children's careers ruined before change occurred. here.
Change is always difficult and we have had an enormous pedagogical shift that requires a lot more work and probably cognitive dissonance . I understand that .
Teachers are however not the only educators of children . Children do not belong to the state. The rights of parents must also be considered. A large proportion of parents are very unhappy with the poor academic results in international and national tests.. Working with hundreds parents , I have witnessed great distress that their children were failing in the basics -unable to read at their Chronological age like their peers , nor do written work , nor maths at the level of the rest of the class. Failing children develop damaging psychological problems.
Teachers have been flattered by progressivist educators that they will instinctively know what is best for their students . Unfortunately this has not played out well because teachers have been indoctrinated into a certain ideological mindset as well . Science and quality research like that done by Henry May on Reading Recovery have revealed students who had RR were worse off than those who weren't given this programme . Note carefully May was a strong supporter of RR before and during his $7 million research involving hundreds of thousands of students. Now he is a firm supporter of Structured Learning . Good science produces results you may not agree with but it doesn't lie.
The revolution going on in education is not just trying to bring into this country new fangled overseas ideas but methods that have been time tested . They were what we used to have last century before Whole Language and 'fuzzy; maths dominated in our schools. Neuro and cognitive science has confirmed them. is since the introduction of these constructivist methods were introduced that our high levels of attainment have plummeted. .
I would ask Sarah whether she is facing the reality of poor academic standards or upholding her ideological beliefs. Are you on Galileo's side or Aristotle’s ? Time will prove you wrong.
Oh my goodness. So much to reply to in your comment...
One thing that I find interesting is that in 2001 we were third in the OECD for reading and that would be under the 'terrible' old system. Almost as though perhaps there might be other issues at play.
I can only speak to primary but I think you should realize that good teachers are constantly reflecting on their practise and adjusting it to try and do the best for their students. And we are used to dealing with constant change- every time the govt changes eg!
How can you seriously think that the large number of educators who have issues with the new curriculum are all just comfortably deluded in their own ideologies?
And seriously, after 40+ years in the job I can promise you that most parents base their own understanding of education on their own attendance at school. Only about a quarter of any class I ask reports that they get read to at night.
I don't think that primary school teachers have much of a problem with SL and see that more thorough teaching of phonics was needed.
If you read the criticisms listed, the concern is about the speed of introduction, the mismatch between the content and assessments, the unworkability of it in the classroom, the white washing of our history and Eurocentric focus of the 'knowledge'.
An excellent reply - for the teaching at all levels of teaching of. the arts and of the arts & humanities the Minisgters point ion view represents a politically monocultural repression of learn ing. In History of art it is closely modelled on fascist education. of the 1920's and 1930's in Europe.The purpose of which is to eliminate liberal democratic thought and to suppress processes of emancipation. of workers of all classes-- for the establishment of atotslitarian one-party system. The secrecy about who wrote the Art Curriculum protects the initiative that led to the destruction of of the Art /history dept in Auckland in. 1989 - the subsequent destruction of the teaching g of modern arts at Elam. I have named publivcly the leader of that movement in the Fine Arts and in Art History & I have been naming t=he adminixsgtrtors who supported it -- historically back to the 1960's -- & the incorporation. of the process in there privatisation. of the University Arts in 1989 by the ACT Party. However In 1971 - in my second year in Aotearoa NZ I was attacked by a mob raised by the leader this movement and called 'Hitler' -- but the "Hitler" or his associates is undoubtedly the writer of the Art Cucciculum. As I have been saying for a long time the 'play-book' in Art History is a pair of books written by M.R.Dunn on. what aired supposed to be c critical histories of NZ modern paint g and sculpture. In fact they are denunciati0ns of the modernists in both painting g and sculpture of the leading modernists of the 1930's to the 1990's from a monocultural white purist intellectual position. Rather than. reply to my criticism of these books I have been attacked personally by similar denunciation from. the same viewpoint with the political support of the individuals who have a commercial and lucrative interest in the control of the art market. My critical academic resistance to this movement has been censured and censored and in the end restricted o line to the photo-site flickr.com/photos/fflap -- & even that has been censored when I post the photos on Facebook - Meta. At present my internet connection as been invaded -- I don't know how & can't find a way to stop it -- so that everything I write is subject to a process that makes my text sound ridiculous. I hav been subjected to harassment in my private life that has had serious effects on. my adult children -- as relation for my criticism and naming of the the leader. Stephen Chan was the editor 'Cranium" in 1971 who refused to publish an attack on me personally as 'Hitler' & who rescued me from the sit-in in my department lecture-room in 4 Grafton Road telling them that it was a gross libel and that that the arts Faculty students did not want Art history to be destroyed.
It is academia I have a dispute with not teachers. During the 'reading wars' in which my family were heavily involved it was academics and the Ministry we blamed for the reading failure and the indoctrination into progressive ideology.. Being a third generation teacher in my family , I am familiar with the changes for the entire 20th Century in NZ education.
While attending Teachers Training College , I was tutored by experienced teachers who were from the pre -progressove era. The methods they taught were highly structured and we had hours of classroom management . There was very little theory. ' Old school' teachers held onto their methods for decades despite losing promotion , because they saw they worked.
We had a number of highly competent teachers secretly bring their own children to our school room for remediation . These included Reading Recovery teachers and a Scottish professor of education who had failed to teach her own family member to read.
If i achieve nothing else in this blog , but establish that simply reading to children will not ensure
literacy . I will feel I have achieved something . All the children we had for remediation had been extensively read to as pre-schoolers. What is needed is knowledge of letters and sounds .
The performance of NZ students at both primary and secondary level has declined sharply since 2009 and also the students at the highest level s have declined sharply as well. There is a persistant huge gap between students of different socio-economic status .-one of the worst in the developed world. Maori and Pasifica have been impacted by this hence contributing to their poor stats in welfare , prison and menial work. I grieve about this having remediated many Maori students in the basics using structured methods.
My anger is directed at the academic who was infatuated with Marie Clay 's progressive and constructivist Whole Language reading method . We could have had then the changes occurring now in structured learning but he dominated the 2000 Parliamentary enquiry into NZ literacy . Pro -phonics academics were not even given speaking rights at this enquiry . Hundreds if not thousands of submissions called for change . This change to structured learning has occurred earlier in other countries . We had to see even more failure , more children's careers ruined before change occurred. here.
Very well analysed - support vs non support .
Thanks.
Change is always difficult and we have had an enormous pedagogical shift that requires a lot more work and probably cognitive dissonance . I understand that .
Teachers are however not the only educators of children . Children do not belong to the state. The rights of parents must also be considered. A large proportion of parents are very unhappy with the poor academic results in international and national tests.. Working with hundreds parents , I have witnessed great distress that their children were failing in the basics -unable to read at their Chronological age like their peers , nor do written work , nor maths at the level of the rest of the class. Failing children develop damaging psychological problems.
Teachers have been flattered by progressivist educators that they will instinctively know what is best for their students . Unfortunately this has not played out well because teachers have been indoctrinated into a certain ideological mindset as well . Science and quality research like that done by Henry May on Reading Recovery have revealed students who had RR were worse off than those who weren't given this programme . Note carefully May was a strong supporter of RR before and during his $7 million research involving hundreds of thousands of students. Now he is a firm supporter of Structured Learning . Good science produces results you may not agree with but it doesn't lie.
The revolution going on in education is not just trying to bring into this country new fangled overseas ideas but methods that have been time tested . They were what we used to have last century before Whole Language and 'fuzzy; maths dominated in our schools. Neuro and cognitive science has confirmed them. is since the introduction of these constructivist methods were introduced that our high levels of attainment have plummeted. .
I would ask Sarah whether she is facing the reality of poor academic standards or upholding her ideological beliefs. Are you on Galileo's side or Aristotle’s ? Time will prove you wrong.
Oh my goodness. So much to reply to in your comment...
One thing that I find interesting is that in 2001 we were third in the OECD for reading and that would be under the 'terrible' old system. Almost as though perhaps there might be other issues at play.
I can only speak to primary but I think you should realize that good teachers are constantly reflecting on their practise and adjusting it to try and do the best for their students. And we are used to dealing with constant change- every time the govt changes eg!
How can you seriously think that the large number of educators who have issues with the new curriculum are all just comfortably deluded in their own ideologies?
And seriously, after 40+ years in the job I can promise you that most parents base their own understanding of education on their own attendance at school. Only about a quarter of any class I ask reports that they get read to at night.
I don't think that primary school teachers have much of a problem with SL and see that more thorough teaching of phonics was needed.
If you read the criticisms listed, the concern is about the speed of introduction, the mismatch between the content and assessments, the unworkability of it in the classroom, the white washing of our history and Eurocentric focus of the 'knowledge'.
You and your kōrero are dangerous and abusive.
An excellent reply - for the teaching at all levels of teaching of. the arts and of the arts & humanities the Minisgters point ion view represents a politically monocultural repression of learn ing. In History of art it is closely modelled on fascist education. of the 1920's and 1930's in Europe.The purpose of which is to eliminate liberal democratic thought and to suppress processes of emancipation. of workers of all classes-- for the establishment of atotslitarian one-party system. The secrecy about who wrote the Art Curriculum protects the initiative that led to the destruction of of the Art /history dept in Auckland in. 1989 - the subsequent destruction of the teaching g of modern arts at Elam. I have named publivcly the leader of that movement in the Fine Arts and in Art History & I have been naming t=he adminixsgtrtors who supported it -- historically back to the 1960's -- & the incorporation. of the process in there privatisation. of the University Arts in 1989 by the ACT Party. However In 1971 - in my second year in Aotearoa NZ I was attacked by a mob raised by the leader this movement and called 'Hitler' -- but the "Hitler" or his associates is undoubtedly the writer of the Art Cucciculum. As I have been saying for a long time the 'play-book' in Art History is a pair of books written by M.R.Dunn on. what aired supposed to be c critical histories of NZ modern paint g and sculpture. In fact they are denunciati0ns of the modernists in both painting g and sculpture of the leading modernists of the 1930's to the 1990's from a monocultural white purist intellectual position. Rather than. reply to my criticism of these books I have been attacked personally by similar denunciation from. the same viewpoint with the political support of the individuals who have a commercial and lucrative interest in the control of the art market. My critical academic resistance to this movement has been censured and censored and in the end restricted o line to the photo-site flickr.com/photos/fflap -- & even that has been censored when I post the photos on Facebook - Meta. At present my internet connection as been invaded -- I don't know how & can't find a way to stop it -- so that everything I write is subject to a process that makes my text sound ridiculous. I hav been subjected to harassment in my private life that has had serious effects on. my adult children -- as relation for my criticism and naming of the the leader. Stephen Chan was the editor 'Cranium" in 1971 who refused to publish an attack on me personally as 'Hitler' & who rescued me from the sit-in in my department lecture-room in 4 Grafton Road telling them that it was a gross libel and that that the arts Faculty students did not want Art history to be destroyed.