Just watched the Attitude programme on Dean Buckley.  What a remarkable young man!  He ought to know however that lacking confidence, low self esteem, and inability to speak on the spot are challenges that are faced by many others in the world as well.  I couldn't speak publicly with confidence or say"boo"to a goose until I was in my early thirties.  I still struggle to think on my feet. If you haven't watched this episode go to TVONE Attitude 

How incredibly difficult to have to tackle the hearing world at school, set such tough challenges for himself and be afraid of coming out as gay!

Al;l credit to him and his family and to the attitude team for such an honest portayal.

"Normalising" and "standardising" the most dangerous and misleading strategies we use in education.

When each of my three sons were born, we enrolled them with Plunket. This is an organisation that has been in existence since the 1940s and was designed to help young parents (mothers) with the development and health of their young families.  One of the key aspects was measurement; weight, and length.  This was then plotted against "normal" growth graphs.  Now, none of our three sons grew at normal rates. This was the cause of much (unnecessary) angst by my wife who wondered what she was doing wrong!  The simple reality of course was that these boys were healthy and growing at their own rates and have grown to be healthy young men.  Had there been any need for help, or concern this would have been obvious in just by knowing the individual, not by benchmarking against an arbitrary "normal"graph!

To really help children learn and develop, we have to lose the obsession with data and attempts to measure value add!  These are not designed to enhance learning of students, but rather an ill informed attempt by the purveyors of the market economy to have teachers stump up.

Reality is, the value a teacher adds is largely immeasurable.

Why don't we use evidence to inform education policy?

Simple, all current reform is based on false beliefs centred not around what works for students but around economics and the flawed belief that the data from test results can indicate the "value" a teacher has added to a students life!!

My song about National Standards is still relevant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USRrYiRtzms

Deaf Education and other things

Well, here I am in Vancouver!! Thanks to sponsors. Just completed first day which was the leaders' forum. This is the first time that I have been at a conference which had a dialogue opportunity. I didn't open my mouth which is unusual for me but I thought that the opportunity was great! It did occur to me that what I am going to propose in my presentation around Ka Hikitia has close ties to Deaf Ed in general. Of course when you think about it although it is a stategy aimed specifically at improving outcomes for Maori the thinking applies directly across to the Deaf community and further to all students!!!!

NZEI Te Riu Roa National Executive

It is twelve months since my first executive meeting, and most of all I have learnt much and grown lots (in my thinking that is although my waist-line is certainly no slimmer!) Our union is engaged in a process of change and review which has been both challenging and exciting. I am looking forward to the next twelve months as we develop the roles of governance and how it will look. What will it mean when we come together around the table? I firmly believe that we will need to maintain participation in various levels of the institute and that this involvement does not mean stifling the leadership of the union but enhancing and enabling that to happen.

The debates around inclusive education

There continues to be ongoing debates around inclusiveness in education. The link http://www.parrotpublishing.com will take you to a great on-line text book that covers the philosophies and ideologies around the differing points of views within the debates.

We do, I believe, have to be wary in our own musings that we do not disenfranchise, or belittle the professional status of, any particular group working within the area of special education. This can be done quite innocently and unintentionally. Here is a hypothetical but entirely possible situation:

A Specialist Educational Centre employs both unit class teachers and itinerating teachers. The school holds the belief and is seen to overtly state that:

"Students who are in the unit classes make better progress in the curriculum than those who are in the mainstream." As employers of teachers in both situations this could be seen by implication to suggest that the role of the itinerating staff therefore are of less importance. If indeed this was the view then one would need to question the validity of that centre employing the itinerating staff. By virtue of the stated pedagogical view point it could be extrapolated that the centre would view resources as better directed towards unit classes. What I am getting at is that there exists in this scenario an implied conflict of interests. To be truly effective and inclusive the Centre should hold more of a philosophy that students will do well in which ever placement and the centre is critical to making that happen within a continuum of service and placement options and that decisions around these placements will be made with the collaboration of the parents and specialists.