The Three Rs”: Reduce, Regiment, and Ruin our public education system
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2009/10/22/the-three-rs%E2%80%9D-reduce-r...
It wasn’t much fun waking up this morning to the news that the Ministry of Education will no longer be providing advice to primary schools on arts, science, technology, or physical education – nothing in fact, except the “three Rs”: reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. This latest assault on the public education system by the National Government is just plain stupid.
It also heralds the undoing of a robust curriculum. There is no educational justification for such a narrow focus, when all the evidence points to the importance of a holistic educational experience at primary school level.
The limitation of Ministry of Education support to literacy and numeracy is clearly to assist with the implementation of the new National Standards (which are due to be announced tomorrow, according to Education Minister Anne Tolley.
Presumably, the Minister thinks literacy and numeracy are not developed in parallel with the core subjects by subjects like art, science, and technology. Perhaps she hasn’t been visiting schools and seeing the interconnections between subjects in action like I have. She certainly hasn’t been listening to her counterpart in the British Tories, Conservative Education Spokesperson Michael Gove, who says
“a broad and demanding curriculum – far from undermining reading, writing and arithmetic – reinforces attainment in these core skills.”
You can drive a truck through her logic but I get the feeling that the Minister’s ideological advisers don’t care. They have a plan which involves selling the idea that the “three Rs” are somehow learned in little boxes taught separately from other topics, and that all children learn in exactly the same way.
As for the National Standards implementation, it is an imposed initiative with undertones of the failed USA programme “No Child Left behind” and the British experiment with “teaching to test”, which Cambridge University research has found to be a dismal failure.
Through this same cut, we have now lost all the Sustainability Advisors who survived, just, the cuts to the Enviroschools Budget earlier this year.
Under this Government, it seems that “three Rs” are now Reducing the curriculum, Regimenting the assessment processes, and Ruining opportunities for our children.
Hat-tip to Gordon Campbell who wrote a good post on this issue this morning, for the Gove quote.
It wasn’t much fun waking up this morning to the news that the Ministry of Education will no longer be providing advice to primary schools on arts, science, technology, or physical education – nothing in fact, except the “three Rs”: reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. This latest assault on the public education system by the National Government is just plain stupid.
It also heralds the undoing of a robust curriculum. There is no educational justification for such a narrow focus, when all the evidence points to the importance of a holistic educational experience at primary school level.
The limitation of Ministry of Education support to literacy and numeracy is clearly to assist with the implementation of the new National Standards (which are due to be announced tomorrow, according to Education Minister Anne Tolley.
Presumably, the Minister thinks literacy and numeracy are not developed in parallel with the core subjects by subjects like art, science, and technology. Perhaps she hasn’t been visiting schools and seeing the interconnections between subjects in action like I have. She certainly hasn’t been listening to her counterpart in the British Tories, Conservative Education Spokesperson Michael Gove, who says
“a broad and demanding curriculum – far from undermining reading, writing and arithmetic – reinforces attainment in these core skills.”
You can drive a truck through her logic but I get the feeling that the Minister’s ideological advisers don’t care. They have a plan which involves selling the idea that the “three Rs” are somehow learned in little boxes taught separately from other topics, and that all children learn in exactly the same way.
As for the National Standards implementation, it is an imposed initiative with undertones of the failed USA programme “No Child Left behind” and the British experiment with “teaching to test”, which Cambridge University research has found to be a dismal failure.
Through this same cut, we have now lost all the Sustainability Advisors who survived, just, the cuts to the Enviroschools Budget earlier this year.
Under this Government, it seems that “three Rs” are now Reducing the curriculum, Regimenting the assessment processes, and Ruining opportunities for our children.
Hat-tip to Gordon Campbell who wrote a good post on this issue this morning, for the Gove quote.
Tags: curriculum, national_standards, reducing, regimenting, three_R's
Add a Comment
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Comment by Dellis Hunt on December 4, 2009 at 11:14pm -
Hey Di
Have you seen my facebook page? Check it out as there is a whole heap of articles and information about National Standards. Have you seen the latest 'Factsheet about National Standards' by L Flockton? Is concise and easy to attach when sending to others. If you feel it appropriate direct anyone you think my be interested to my site.
http://apps.facebook.com/groupsplus/group.php?id=7877
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Comment by Di Palfrey on November 30, 2009 at 7:21pm - Have you also heard that all 'security' for schools have been canned! What the heck is going on? Only Ann Tolley says she is qualified for all the 'dumb' things she is doing - wonder what 'national standard' she would have reached on the 'co-operative learning' scale... and the inclusivity / openness scale... Is she feeling lonely do you think? - so many people against her 'standards'.
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