Educating the Dragon

Real Life Twitter Makes me laugh.

The folk at Sitech are interested to know what all the Vados and easispeak mics are upto since leaving the stand at ULearn09.

If you feel like sharing just pop along to their blog and leave a comment.

John Key shared this. Which ties in nicely with the Sitech Science trolley coming online See below for details or leave a comment if your interested in finding out more or email me direct .

PROMOTING SCIENCE

New Zealand’s success rests on our ability to make the best use of our scientific expertise. Yet the achievements of our scientists often go unrecognised.

That’s why, today, I was pleased to launch the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science. The prizes were another election promise. The Government will provide $1 million a year across five prizes to help lift the prestige of science and attract more young people into science careers.

There will be five categories of prizes:

• The Prime Minister’s Science Prize – $500,000
• The Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year Prize – $150,000
• The Prime Minister’s Future Scientist Prize – $50,000
• The Prime Minister’s Science Teacher Prize – $50,000 to the teacher and $100,000 to their school
• The Prime Minister’s Science Media Communications Prize – $150,000

Science Trolley Compressed With Contents

I recieved the John Keynote today and education was mentioned quite a bit:

Firstly he says:

I had fun this morning meeting the children at Glen Taylor School in Auckland with Education Minister Anne Tolley. We were there to launch National Education Standards in reading, writing, and maths.

Introducing National Standards was one of our major election policies. They will lift achievement levels for children in primary and intermediate schools, and report children’s progress on literacy and numeracy to parents in plain English twice a year.

As many as one-in-five children are not getting the reading, writing, and maths skills they need to succeed. National Standards will help identify those children early so they get more help. The Government is providing $36 million over four years to support schools to introduce the new standards.

I’m really not sure where I stand on National Standards. The theory sounds great but it has huge potential for collateral damage. By which I mean misrepresentation of schools; there is no indication in results of the effort and skill or classroom practitioners. How much is genes and how much is solid education. There is potential for breeding eliteism (showever you spell it) If a school gets a reputation of high achieving then the motivated parents with the gifted and talented off spring will gravitate toward those institution, thus feeding the reputation by providing highly motivated, scholastically blessed, students.

What other fallout may there be? Please share.

One of the best things I like about my job is the fact that my boss listens to me. If there is ever something I don’t agree with or if I come up with an idea for doing something she listens. She may not agree with me and she may not change structures and systems to suit but she does listen. Take it on board and offer me construction feedback as to whether me ideas and opinions are of merit, or not.

That level of communication is essential in business but it appears sadly lacking in the public service sector.

Whether someone works for the hospital or a school sharing of opinions and ideas seems to be frowned upon, or in some cases feared.

Whilst at ULearn09 I asked for people’s reaction to something that was spoken about. Some people didn’t want their opinions shared. Others feared ‘fallout’ for people close to them or the institution they were representing.

I am concerned for this culture of fear exists in our society. What a lost opportunity to add to the debate.  Perhaps even affect change for the better.

Why is that people feel like they are not allowed an opinion. Or is it they feel that their option is of little value.