Great school entrance.Waitara Central.Pathway to the baskets of knowledge.
I am not supposed to be home!
I was to have flown to work in a distant part of New Zealand today but the plane had developed a fault and the flight was canceled! Better I guess for them to have found the fault before we took off! Anyway it was raining!
I now go tomorrow. Back on Friday.
I will miss my blogging – it has become slightly compulsive. I guess it must be about the need to communicate or something? Writing not even knowing if anybody is reading them is a bit compulsive! I don’t really know how many read the entries – unlike our website which I can tell how many hits, visits, what people look at, and how many hits come from what country! We get about 2500 hits a day average!
Adding a comment is such an easy process – would love to hear from you.
So, while I am away, it would be great if some of you out there could write a few thoughts about what you would do if you had the power to change education? Any thing at all!
You don’t have to write much.
Hope to hear from you.
Bruce
7 comments:
Now we are in the 21stC I think it is time our school system caught up.
Our secondary schools are great if it were 1965!
Why is it that so many principals seem to focus on the superficial when they publicize the activities of their schools. How many times do we see reference to dress ups for book week or fancy dress evenings, or crazy hair weeks and the like. It would be so refreshing to hear about actual learning programmes of some real substance or about student learning perpectives for a change.
If I had the power to change education I would start from scratch. Our schools are so locked into the present they are unable to see beyond the walls of their classrooms. As well, the schools themselves were designed for an industrial age long since past.To make things worse most of the teachers are only equiped to take students back to their own past.
There needs to be a non partisan organisation set up to think of ways to re-imagine schools for the 21stC.
Such a group could invite world class thinkers to visit New Zealand to address interested people ( not just educators) throughout the country.
Following such a review a range of alternative schools could be established, some of which would offer some real alterntives.
This happened in 1938
Be a good idea to re-invent schools totally - they only work for those with the power now - or social capital as the 'experts' say.
I reckon we care more about maintaining the schools as they are than the learning of all the students.
We know enough that no student need fail if 'we' teachers changed our minds first and tailored schools to help each individual learner rather than fitting them into a 'one size fits all factory'!
Kids were born to learn - but funny things happen to them once they enter the classrooms. They start to lose their 'voice' and their identity; they learn to play the game!
If the government really wanted to help all students they would lead the way and develop some new alternatives, but they might lose some votes!
Bob Dylan summed up school, singing in one of his songs, 'Some people are the prisoners and the others are the guards'. Or, as someone else wrote,'School is a place where you learn not to do your own thing'. Pink Floyd were on to it singing, 'We dont' want your dark sarcasm, we don't want your mind control'.
Robbie Williams, in 'The Ego has Landed',has pertinent things to say to teachers and M&M say it in very plain language!
'Times are a changing' - I hope?
Post a Comment