Well done Mike Corkery (ODT 28.4.23) for drawing readers’ attention to the arrant nonsense in much of the Ministry of Education’s new maths and stats "refreshed" curriculum.
This "refresh" (spin for rewrite) is supposed to turn around the steady decline in maths achievement that started around 20 years ago with the introduction of the ministry’s Numeracy Project — a curricular deficient scheme of that was the brainless child of a small group of math academics and theoreticians.
When called to account their constant cry has been to blame the teachers for its failure rather than admitting to their own curricular limitations.
Now it’s happening all over again.
A few of the ministry’s 4500 staff have come up with a curriculum, at considerable cost, that is bound to further frustrate and confuse teachers and continue to fail significant numbers of the children they teach.
Over the past 20 or so years, the ministry has poured millions of taxpayers’ dollars into maths initiatives intended to restore respectable results — all of little avail.
Most worrying is that some of the key players who helped in devising the latest curriculum also played significant parts in previous ministry initiatives that have failed.
A possible solution to this festering problem: let the teaching profession (not the ministry) bring together a group of suitably experienced, grounded and child-focused principals and teachers with support from a couple of trusted math specialists to decide and write the curriculum.
The ministry’s role?
Provide the resources for them get on with the job.
Lester Flockton
Dunedin
Dr Flockton is a former school principal and helped establish the University of Otago’s Educational Assessment Research Unit. Ed.
Soft plastics
I am bemused by the apparent ongoing (five months and counting) "temporary" suspension of soft plastic recycling in Dunedin.
At first we were told it was because of a lack of a baler. When I approached Cargill Enterprises (who contributed to running the programme) and offered to buy a baler, I was told that balers had already been offered but the problem was more complicated. It was suggested I talk with the DCC, whose waste minimisation officer said it had nothing to do with the council (although one might have thought that helping to solve the problem would help to "minimise waste").
An official with some responsibility for soft plastic recycling nationally wrote to me: "If you have any recommendations for an organisation with the capacity to house a baler and to bale the plastic, please do let us know." But when I asked for details about what exactly was needed, I got no reply. Oamaru is able to recycle soft plastic, so why not Dunedin?
Peter Schwartz
Maori Hill
Busted recycling
I am upset and angry at the news of the impending closure of the Alexandra Wastebusters. There are countless reasons it should be retained. It is an important place to some folk as a means of getting by. It creates a livelihood for others, buying rundown furniture and repurposing it to ultimately earn a few extra dollars.
What about those who work there? People who have put in the hard yards under a lot of pressure but have stayed loyal and live for the employment it provides. It would be great to see our council step up to the mark and come up with a suitable solution that would enable this very special facility to remain a big part of the community.
Heather Payne
Alexandra
History and truth, the good things and the bad
J. Eunson's response to Ian Smith (ODT 2.5.23) displays a typical Wellington central government attitude. His comment that "it smacks of arrogance that the public knows better than our educators" ignores the fact that many of our educators are influenced by government policy on Treaty matters.
If they do not follow government policy they could lose their jobs. Mr Eunson says that history teachers campaigned for the new curriculum but what history teacher worth his or her salt would want anything but the truth?
Ian Smith is to be congratulated for bringing up historical revisionism and how it has been used in the past to mislead/shape public opinion.
I have just read The Story of Russia by historian Orlando Figes, which gives real insight into the Russian psyche and Putin’s way of thinking.
Surely in New Zealand we and our children need to know what really happened in the past despite the fact that we humans, of whatever race, did some good and bad things.
Jerry Walton
Dunedin
Taieri times
Gerry Eckhoff, (ODT, 3.5.23) in his defence of the sacked Taieri National candidate Stephen Jack, complains of the "unbridled sanctimony exhibited by the few" as the reason for his demise. He seems to have overlooked the obvious. Mr Jack was removed from candidacy by his own National Party colleagues.
They recognised the damage, and understand how public opinion through our democracy delivers the political prizes.
Nick Loughnan
Galloway
BIBLE READING: I shall walk at liberty, for I have sought your precepts. — Psalms 119.45.
