It’s time to make school fun again
Last week, I went inside New Zealand’s education system. Recent reports had given me some idea of what I might find: Teachers holding their fingers to the wind, hoping lesson plans would fly out of the Beehive and stick to them, pupils dancing around bonfires on to which they were throwing the books they’re unable to read, parents wailing at the realisation their children will never be smart enough to lead the Act party. Based on recent rhetoric, I half-expected to emerge from my experience semi-literate, unemployable and unable to do basic maths.
It’s common knowledge that the education system is much, much worse for kids now than it was back in the good old days when we learned important things like Latin and the Bible and were regularly caned for failing to memorise the first 400 lines of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I wasn’t disputing any of that, necessarily, but I did want to know why — I wanted to see first-hand the garbage fire of modern education and the damage it’s doing to our children.
I entered the large suburban Auckland primary school at 5.45pm, and left at 7.15pm. In that 90 minutes, I attended three separate student-led conferences, conducted by children aged 6, 7 and 9. At each conference, the children showed me the work they have done so far this year and answered my many questions about their learning processes, mostly with the phrase, “Daddy! I said stop talking!” The children’s teachers circulated and offered insights into the learning processes of the class in general and those of my children specifically.
Link to article: Greg Bruce: It’s time to make school fun again - NZ Herald
