Section
Commentary, critique, and advocacy from voices across the New Zealand education sector.
This section publishes opinion pieces on curriculum reform, education policy, equity, standardisation, political change, and the lived realities of school leadership. Contributors include principals, academics, sector commentators, and federation leadership writing in their own voice — not necessarily reflecting NZPF policy. Topics range from the Education and Training (System Reform) Amendment Bill to school culture, staff wellbeing, and the place of equity in curriculum design. Use this section to engage with the debates shaping education in Aotearoa, sharpen your own thinking on contested issues, and hear how colleagues are responding to the political and curricular pressures on schools.
feedback, feedforward, Feedup, feeddown lester.flockton@otago.ac.nz A professorial friend of mine (that is, a warmly and most respected academic) once remarked to me that the whole focus of teacher education should be on child development. Now when you think about it, that could mean leading teachers into much deeper, profound and resolute understandings about how children […]
An alternative to the growing privatisation of education Bruce Hammond I was recently sent a rather long article written by Henry Giroux. I struggled to read it, but I believe it is important to share the ideas he writes about in order for educators to restore the true aims of education. Giroux sees education as […]
The Hidden Politics of Tomorrow’s Schools from a Parent’s Perspective Brigit Manning Havelock North – brigit.manning@gmail.com It is tempting to feel sorry for the teaching profession which often seems caught between a rock and a hard place. But this is a mistake! If any profession has the talent, energy and organisational ability to advance change for […]
Some reflections on the Christchurch school renewal project Gregory Lee and Howard Lee Readers of The Press who reside in Christchurch City, the commentators as possible, especially if it is to be employed in Selwyn district, and the Waimakariri district will have received other communities throughout New Zealand subsequently– in their mailboxes (if they can […]
WHAT’S ON TOP? The wonders of modern technology . . . Helen Kinsey-Wightman Like many parents of teens I sometimes feel that the use of technology has become a battleground for my son and I. I should clarify that we are talking about his use of technology here, not mine! Despite the fact that my […]
School Lines Sceptical, Cynical, Critically Analytical, or Naïve? Lester Flockton feedback, feedforward, Feedup, feeddown lester.flockton@otago.ac.nz In the education environment, to be Sceptical is to to be spent refreshing the Avon in Christchurch this year), to have doubts or reservations about claims of likely benefits or the naïve it nonetheless seems like a silver-wrapped, chocolate outcomes […]
School of Educational Studies, Massey University, Palmerston North – j.a.clark@massey.ac.nz For fifty years, from 1939 until 1989, education policy in New Zealand was governed by a fundamental principle against which all proposals could be judged. In 1990 it was abandoned and for the next twenty five years until now, our education policy has been held […]
Treasury’s education advice is based on a very simple a dry, warm environment. Each of these contributing factors or business process theory of the public service world. The ‘bean conditions (oils, chemicals, storage, heat) on its own does not counter’s dilemma’, as it were, is that we have a long tail of cause the tea […]
WHAT’S ON TOP? Then there were none . . . Helen Kinsey-Wightman Three weeks ago 50 community members assembled in my classroom to hear the news that we had one child remaining on our roll and that following that consultation our Board would be meeting to make the decision to apply for voluntary closure. I […]
School Lines PAI in the SKAI Public Achievement Information seen through Simplistic Kaleidoscopes of Amazing Inexactitude Lester Flockton feedback, feedforward, Feedup, feeddown lester.flockton@otago.ac.nz Kaleidoscope noun. A toy consisting of a tube containing mirrors and pieces of coloured glass or paper, whose reflections produce changing patterns that are visible through an eyehole when the tube is […]
As parents we endeavour to give our children a better start in life than we remember having. The danger is, that when we feel we have achieved this, we constantly berate our children with tales of our own hard upbringing. In my house this goes along the lines of . . . Whilst there is […]
feedback, feedforward, Feedup, feeddown lester.flockton@otago.ac.nz Systemness – Collaboration – Communities of Schools – Teaching as Inquiry – Raising Achievement Has it ever struck you, dear reader, that education and those who work in education are victims of relentlessly robotic rounds of new jargon, new panaceas, new fix-its, new initiatives, new spinoramas, new “love words”? And […]
