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Education Readings By Allan Alach Every week Bruce Hammonds and I collect articles to share with teachers to encourage a creative approach to teaching and learning. I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allanalach@inspire.net.nz   This edition will be the last one for 2018 . We appreciate it a busy time with political action, end of term activities, and school reports but suggest you save readings to cherry pick mid Janua ry Sir Ken Robinson: What makes a teacher great? ‘Education innovator Sir Ken Robinson, School News deliberated over misconceptions about great teaching. “ It’s assumed, I think, that to be a good teacher essentially all you need is to have a good degree in whatever it is you’re being paid to teach,” Sir Ken noted. “It’s simply not true, it was never true.’ http://bit.ly/2RgDvGl Rewards Are Still Bad News (25 Years Later) By A lfie Koh n ‘It’s not just that these two are different but that the first tends to undermine the se...

New minds for a New Millenium Time for a rethink about the role of education  in a democratic society. A crisis in education I write this in a week primary teachers are to go on strike for better pay .   Concerns about the  excessive  workload expected of teachers is just as big a concern . Time for new thinking Both issues need to be sorted if teaching is to become an attractive career – a career that values teachers as the professionals they once were. I f conditions are not resolved then improving salaries will not solve the issues of workload and associated stres s. As one wise old rural adviser once said, ‘teachers need to protect their time and energy, if this is wasted on b/s then they will have no time left to teach.’ With this in mind the following is a look into a possible future. It all began with Tomorrows Schools The workload and associated stress has increased dramatically since the introduction of the competitive Tomorrow’s Schools reforms of the lat...

In the latest Principals’ magazine the National President of the NZ Principal Federation Whetu Whetu Cormack Cormack writes that we are at the ‘ start of a new educational era’ . ‘Standardisation has gone along with the competition it engendered, the narrowed curriculum, the obsession with data, and the endless comparison.’ Business ‘guru’ Steven Covey’s advice, writing about habits of effective leadership, was to ‘begin with end in mind’ . What do we want our schools to achieve for their students? What do we need to change to ensure the unique range of gifts and talents of our students?   Lester Flockton , in the same principals’ magazin e, makes the point that New Zealand’s rankings in international tests have been falling commenting ironically that this is at a time of considerable literacy Lester Flockton and   numeracy intensification.   In the 70s New Zealand was a world leader in literacy – now, it seems, we are 32 nd !  Tomorrow’sSchools (1986), Flockto...