I remember how it was -- JR
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
New Zealand’s conservative education revolution
In New Zealand, one of the most exciting education reforms in the world is quietly getting underway. Erica Stanford, the country’s new Education Minister, is on a mission to overhaul the education system from top to bottom – and she is leaving no stone unturned.
Stanford, a rising star in Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s cabinet, has hit the ground running since taking office in late 2023. In just a few short months, she has announced a suite of reforms that promise to fundamentally reshape the way New Zealand children are taught.
At the heart of Stanford’s agenda is a return to knowledge-rich curricula and explicit instruction in foundational skills. It is a decisive break from the child-centred, competency-based approach that has dominated New Zealand classrooms for decades.
Under the reforms, primary schools will be required to dedicate an average of one hour each per day to reading, writing and maths. While it is doubtful that the requirement will be rigorously enforced, it sends a strong signal that the Minister is serious about improvement in these crucial skills. Not that an hour for each of these core subjects should be too hard a challenge for schools.
Mobile phones will be banned during school hours to minimise distractions. Schools will be required to assess student progress in core subjects twice per year and to report the results to parents. And the curriculum will be reviewed to specify in detail the knowledge students must master at each year level.
Now, one might say that these policy measures are hardly rocket science. In a way, one could rather describe them as common sense or a “back to basics” approach. But it is precisely that which makes Stanford’s policies so revolutionary. For decades, the education establishment has not focussed sufficiently on the basics, nor even displayed common sense.
Perhaps Stanford’s most consequential change is a requirement for all primary schools to use a “structured literacy” approach to teaching reading. Structured literacy systematically and explicitly teaches children the key components of reading, including phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
The structured literacy mandate marks a seismic shift for New Zealand education. For years, the prevailing approach has been based on “whole language” theory, which assumes children learn to read naturally through exposure to books. Phonics and other foundational skills have often taken a backseat.
The results have been disastrous. New Zealand’s literacy rates have declined steadily over recent decades. On international assessments like PIRLS, the country now ranks well below other advanced nations. A shocking two-thirds of students failed the writing component of a recent pilot assessment for NCEA, the national assessment system.
Stanford is determined to reverse this trend. Her structured literacy push is backed by a mountain of evidence from cognitive science and reading research. Study after study has shown that explicit, systematic instruction in phonics and other key skills is the most effective way to teach reading – especially for students who struggle.
Crucially, Stanford is putting serious resources behind the reforms. Schools will receive extensive training and support to implement structured literacy in the classroom. Teachers will learn the science of reading and how to use direct instruction techniques.
It is a comprehensive, evidence-based approach that has few parallels in the world. If implemented well, it could transform the literacy landscape in New Zealand and provide a model for other countries to follow.
But Stanford’s ambitions extend beyond reading. Across the board, she is working to re-orient New Zealand education towards a knowledge-rich curriculum that specifies the content students must learn in each subject, at each grade level.
The curriculum reforms mark a rejection of the “21st century skills” philosophy that has long dominated New Zealand education. For years, the emphasis has been on generic competencies like “critical thinking” and “problem solving” rather than mastery of subject knowledge. Traditional academic disciplines have often been sidelined in favour of “project-based learning” and “student-led inquiry”.
Stanford argues this approach has badly shortchanged New Zealand children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. On that, she can point to a wealth of research showing that knowledge is the key to reading comprehension, critical thinking, and academic success. Students need a broad base of background knowledge to engage with complex texts and ideas.
By contrast, the skills-focused approach has often left students with significant gaps in their knowledge. Many arrive at university lacking even basic facts about history, science, and literature. Even worse, many lack basic writing skills, having made it through school never having written more than a paragraph at a time. The consequences are particularly acute for disadvantaged students, who are less likely to acquire academic knowledge or literacy at home.
Stanford’s solution is to create a sequenced, content-rich curriculum that builds knowledge systematically over time. The goal is to ensure all students, regardless of background, have access to the key facts, ideas and concepts that underpin each subject.
Of course, there will be resistance from some quarters of the education establishment, particularly those wedded to child-centred, inquiry-based approaches.
But cognitive research backs Stanford’s approach. It has consistently shown that explicit instruction, regular practice, and a strong foundation of background knowledge are essential for learning. Students do not acquire skills like critical thinking in a vacuum; they need a rich base of content knowledge to draw upon.
Stanford also has the strong backing of Prime Minister Luxon. Education reform was a central plank of the National Party’s successful 2023 election campaign. Luxon has staked his government’s credibility on lifting academic achievement and closing equity gaps.
As Stanford presses ahead with her reforms, there will undoubtedly be bumps along the way. But if she succeeds, the impact will be profound, and not just for New Zealand’s students.
New Zealand could provide powerful proof that a knowledge-rich curriculum and explicit instruction work. In a global education landscape still largely dominated by skills-based, constructivist thinking, Stanford’s agenda would offer a compelling counter-narrative.
Other countries will be watching New Zealand closely in the years ahead. If Stanford can demonstrate that a knowledge-rich curriculum, coupled with explicit, research-based instructional methods, can lift achievement at scale, it could have far-reaching implications for education policy around the world.
******************************************************
Yale Student Stabbed at Pro-Hamas Demonstration Describes How the Campus Is a Terror Snake Pit
There’s that saying: history repeats itself. And then, some liberals have zero grasp of this topic, which is why we’re seeing a nationwide Charlottesville-like protest but without the tiki torches. It’s not white supremacist agitators either—it’s young people. The alt-right yelled, “Jews will not replace us.” These leftist clowns chant “Long live the Intifada,” and other war cries that directly call for the destruction of Israel. It all means the same: kill all the Jews. The keffiyeh has replaced the swastika.
The Ivy League is reverting to its antisemitic roots. At Yale, these pro-terrorist thugs established an encampment this month, went on a hunger strike, and have now assaulted Jewish students. They’ve been captured trying to stop Jewish students from entering certain buildings. Sahar Tartak was stabbed in the eye, and there is significant doubt that she will get justice for being victimized simply for existing (via The Free Press):
I was stabbed in the eye last night on Yale University’s campus because I am a Jew.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but since October 7, Yale has refused to take action against students glorifying violence, chanting “resistance is justified,” “celebrat[ing] the resistance’s success,” and fundraising for “Palestinian anarchist fighters” on the frontlines of the “resistance.” In more recent days, the school has allowed students to run roughshod over their most basic policies against postering, time and place restrictions, disorderly conduct, respect for university property, and the rights of others, not to mention stalking and harassment.
Yesterday, I paid the price for their inaction.
[…]
By April 20, the students’ encampment had grown to roughly forty tents, sleeping bags, umbrellas, and a stereo. On Saturday night, a student in a Class of 2026 group chat encouraged Yalies to come and show their support for Yalies4Palestine. As a student journalist for the Yale Free Press, I went to check it out. Other reporters from the Yale Daily News were already on the scene.
I should say here that I am a visibly observant Jew who wears a large Star of David around my neck and dresses modestly. I went over with my friend Netanel Crispe, who is also identifiably Jewish because of his beard, black hat, and tzitzit.
When we approached the anti-Israel protest accompanying the tent encampment to document the demonstration, we were quickly walled off by demonstration organizers and attendees who stood in a line in front of us. No one else documenting the event was blockaded this way.
[…]
They pointed their middle fingers at me and yelled “Free Palestine,” and the taunting continued until a six-foot-something male protester holding a Palestinian flag waved the flag in my face and then stabbed me with it in my left eye.
My assailant was masked and wearing a keffiyeh, concealing his identity. He also wore glasses and a black jacket. I started to yell and chase after him, but the wall of students continued to block me as I screamed. Next, I went to the Yale police, but they offered little in the way of assistance. They told me that their orders came from administrators who weren’t present at the demonstration, and that there were only seven officers to handle a crowd of about 500. So I was checked out by an ambulance EMT, who recommended I go to the hospital.
The midnight demonstration, the encampment, the violence, all of it violates Yale policy. Some of it, like my assault, also violates state and federal law. Yet nothing meaningful seems to happen in response. Given Yale’s permissiveness, I had the sinking feeling that someone would get hurt. I just didn’t expect it to be me.
It’s a damning and unnerving account of how it’s open season on Jewish students at Yale. And if that wasn’t eerie enough, Tartak said this assault reminded her of how her mother was persecuted for being Jewish in Iran, being subjected to rocks that left her with a scar on one eyelid that remains visible to this day.
Why are college presidents and administrators endorsing these attacks? Why are they allowing the inmates to run the asylum? Is it fear, or do they agree with the vicious antisemitism and anti-Israel advocacy that’s veered into calls for genocide against Jewish people?
The signs that things could go off the rails at Yale were seen last year, too.
*********************************************
Columbia University protests: students face ‘gut-wrenching’ abuse
It’s 8850km from Jerusalem to the grounds of Columbia University in New York, so Shoshana Aufzien hoped that when she left her home in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks, she would find some measure of peace.
Yet Aufzien, 17, who is set to attend Barnard, a liberal arts college for women attached to the Ivy League university, is starting to think twice.
For more than a week Columbia, which is one of the finest schools in the country, with alumni including Barack Obama, has become the leading battleground for a clash of cultures that has consumed campuses across America.
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters have been occupying the centre of the campus and refusing to budge. This has led to increasingly ill-tempered clashes with pro-Israel demonstrators and the police.
Aufzien said she decided to join the protests this week in support of Israel. She recalled waking up on the morning of the October 7 Hamas attacks to the “sound of sirens” before rushing to the bomb shelter where she spent the rest of the day, terrified.
“I’m a proud Jew,” she said. “I saw the pain and suffering of Israelis and to see self-proclaimed activists on campus [spreading] anti-Semitic rhetoric is gut-wrenching.”
Others, like Shai Davidai, assistant professor at the Columbia Business School, say the university has done little to protect Jewish students and teachers. At a protest this week he said he had been denied access to his workplace and that his staff pass had been deactivated.
The university has been approached for comment.
“They’re not letting me, a Jewish professor at Columbia, inside the main campus,” Davidai told a crowd of supporters and journalists at the university’s gates. “They’re willing to use Jewish brains but they don’t want to let Jewish people in.”
NYU Heightens Security Amid Slew of Protests
With armed police stationed at every corner and drones buzzing overhead, the increasingly tense environment has pitted friends against each other and divided colleagues.
One student at Barnard College said she had been called “disgusting” and “a terrorist” for wearing a keffiyeh, the distinctive traditional scarf that has become a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinians. She declined to share her name for fear of reprisal.
“[A woman] took photos of me and told me that she would send them to the university to get me expelled,” she said.
Pro-Palestinian activists argue they are peacefully protesting against the war in Gaza, where Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 34,000 people, according to the Hamas-run authorities. They say that the arrest of students violates their right to protest and insist that any anti-Semitic attack against fellow students are by an extremist minority and not representative.
Over the past week the unrest has spread quickly to other renowned universities and now threatens to derail plans for graduation ceremonies.
On Monday riot police swooped in to arrest more than 150 pro-Palestine protesters at New York University, and 60 people were arrested at Yale University.
Columbia University has announced that it would switch to hybrid learning for the rest of the term, so that students do not need to attend classes on campus.
Sadie, a political science major at Barnard, described the past week as the most chaotic of her four years at the university. The senior student, who did not share her last name, said she felt especially threatened by non-students with extremist beliefs who had hijacked what had been mostly peaceful protests.
“I have [felt unsafe]. Obviously the heavy police presence is a factor. Since entry to campus is so controlled, it’s really hard to feel comfortable,” she said, moments before an altercation broke out between a man blaming Israel for the September 11 attacks and a Pro-Israel individual threatening physical violence.
Student activists began occupying large parts of Columbia’s campus when Minouche Shafik, its president, was called to Congress to testify about how the university was addressing concerns about anti-Semitism and the perceived failure to protect students.
The former president of the London School of Economics and former vice-president of the World Bank failed to assuage the fears of Jewish students and faculty and faces growing calls to resign, as her counterparts at Harvard and Pennsylvania University have done.
She also provoked the anger of students and faculty after she called in the police to forcibly remove the tents last week, prompting clashes and leading to arrests.
Over the weekend 54 Columbia Law School professors sent a letter to the university’s leadership condemning the decision.
The chaos on campus has caught the attention of President Biden and Donald Trump, his probable rival in November’s election.
“I condemn the anti-Semitic protests,” Biden told reporters on Monday. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday as he entered a court in Manhattan for the second day of his hush-money trial, Trump labelled the protests “a disgrace” and “Biden’s fault”.
Despite fees of about $US90,000 ($140,000), Emily, a 19-year-old student, would rather stay at home.
“It just becomes unimaginably worse every single day,” she said. “I go to bed every night thinking, ‘How could this possibly get any worse?’ and then I wake up to that unimaginable reality.”
******************************************************
My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
******************************************************
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment