Positive discrimination in education

Teachers throughout New Zealand are required to complete a ‘class profile’, identifying the learning needs and foci of their charges. The object of the exercise is to make distinctions along gender and ethnic lines in a bid to focus professional knowledge and experise upon the correct groups within your school. The research suggests that Maori and Pacific Islanders are, educationally, at a disadvantage and need positive and purposeful interventions to allow them to succeed.

Even as I write I sense the tone in this last paragraph which smells of racism. Positive discrimination, to be sure. But is that not PC racism.

A teacher should KNOW their learner; as individuals not as collective, discrete groups. The needs of learners are individual. Streaming, differentiation and grouping are all tools which are employed by teachers to support classroom management. These approaches are not to replace of personalized learning but are a means toward that end.

Teaching and Learning are not mutually exclusive. If they are then teachers have failed.
Learning without the teaching is unstructured, disorganized, chaotic, unmanageable and un-measureable. Teaching without Learning fails to meet the needs of students and does little for motivating learners toward independence.

Balance is required and the professional judgment call as to what that balance should be comes from knowing your learners.

Related articles:
Raising achievement rates of Maori and Pacific Islanders
Our kids should be choosing life
Tweet

Child Protection Training Programme adds new dates

• South Auckland – 18-22 July
• Central Auckland 25-27 July
• North Shore 7-11 November

Further details...

New Zealand is one of the only OECD countries that does not have mandatory child protection training for people working with children. Many of the key people in NZ working with children have not had sufficient training in knowing how to identify suspected child abuse and act confidently. Professional training in child protection WILL make you more effective in keeping children safe

Read more...

Tweet

Our kids should be choosing life

FEELING disconnected from Pakeha culture heightened the risk of suicide among young Maori, an international study found.  Reported the SundayNews

click to enlarge

The article is written in such an emotive way as to enflame the debate over Maori youth.
Perhaps the figures indicating that Maori youth suicide is effectively double what it should be, representing 20% casualties. However, there was no reference to the remaining 80% and how they breakdown in terms of ethnicity.

Disappointingly, there is only quoted reference to the study carried out by Terryann Clark. I for one would have liked to have gone and read some of the source material.

I’m not saying Maori youth suicide is not a tragedy. Far from it. Youth suicide is tragic period. I mourn the loss of a single life from such a totally preventable manner.

There is clearly a disconnect between many youth and their parents. Without the feeling of unconditional love that we can only receive from our parents then life can be brutal. Friends are friends, but they still can let us down. Teachers play their role as do social workers and pastoral care workers, yet still it is the closeness of family that really counts.

Kids need to feel wanted and needed. Even during times when they themselves refuse to acknowledge that need. Through the good and the bad family needs to be there.

Today’s families look very different to those a few years back. But regardless of what a kids family is made up of they need that safe place to be alone. To be with those who will love them regardless. Provided that ‘home’ is a supportive place then we all can bear the trials of the wild-world outside.

Let us all love, support and care for those kids in our care.

Useful link:
Teenage suicides- OECD report (87.6k, pdf) Last updated 20/12/2010


Tweet

The Reading list you'll want to read

There are a myriad of books and plans and work to be read by the average teacher. The New Zeland Curriculum, Effective Pedagogy, What Literacy/ Numeracy looks like.
These are not the materials I am talking about today. The list of books below is a mere smattering of material that will not only assist you in the way you teach but broaden your understanding of the material presented. What’s more they are an interesting read.
Background and history, insight, personal perspective and personal motivation are the things that enrich the students lives and make teaching and learning much more engaging and fun. The books below are those that have packed out my teaching with fun facts, clever insight and enabled me to inject humour and perspective into my teaching.

• Mother Tongue – Bill Bryson. It compiles the history and origins of the English language and the language's various quirks.
• History of New Zealand – Michael King. It catalogues the history of New Zealand from the various theories of initial settlement right through to the previous government.
• How to talk so kids can learn – AdeleFaber & Elaine Mazlish. With practical ways to help kids to cooperate, self-discipline, commit, and show creativity, this deserves to be on every teacher's bookshelf.
• One Minute Manager - Kenneth Blanchard & Spencer Johnson. It is an easily read story which quickly shows you three very practical management techniques. As the story unfolds, you will discover several studies in medicine and the behavioral sciences which help you to understand why these apparently simple methods work so well with so many people; kids and adults alike.
• Freakonomics  / Superfreakonomics  – Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? 

What would you add? 

Tweet

Raising achievement rates of Maori and Pacific Islanders

Credit to Kieran Meredith, 16 as he takes matters into his own hands to deal with the achievement rates of Maori and Pacific Islanders, whom he said the current school system was failing. Some pass rates are as low as a quarter of the national average.
It is good to hear that the scheme has been identified and seems to be gaining traction through enthusiasm from different colleges and schools. Perhaps this ‘grassroots’ initiatives is the way to address this issue rather than Government dealing with it from the top down.
But how do you turn a single school success story into a national drive toward success?

Tweet