News

27 October 2024 – UK MP of science has dyslexia

Sorry, I've been meaning to post something about this Guardian story for several weeks. Peter Kyle, the UK secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, is "profoundly dyslexic". He left school with no qualifications and got a job with Body Shop – after five applications. His boss, Anita Roddick (the founder of Body Shop), encouraged him to go to university, and after three failed applications (and going back to school at 25) he was mysteriously accepted.

He found out later that Anita had threatened the university she would return her honourary doctorate if they didn't accept him. Peter Kyle is a firm believer that we need more education and better education, and good on him. Also good on him for not giving up!

One of the guys I did physics with at Auckland University was dyslexic. Famous lecturer in a hallway after looking at student's work: Are you dyslexic or something? Student: Um... actually yeah. Lecturer: Oh.

13 June 2024 – Quaden Bayles, actor

Quaden Bayles has come a long way since he appeared distraught in a video posted by his mother in February 2020. This year he appeared in his second movie, Furiosa, part of the Mad Max saga. Now 13, he played the part of War Pup. He's doing well. Really well. Read more at RNZ, where director George Miller praises Quaden for his quiet confidence and calmness in the midst of movie-making chaos.

8 May 2024 – Reading recovery to be dumped

The government announced recently (for example, in this Newshub report) that the Reading Recovery programme is to be dumped. I consider this very good news, for reasons I briefly looked at in July last year. And yet, this week I saw a letter to the editor in the NZ Herald bemoaning the loss of using pictures to try to figure out what nearby words are! If children are relying on pictures to figure out what words are it's because they cannot read.

For decades New Zealand has been crippling the educational success of our children by not teaching them how to read. I looked at some of the consequences of that in May of last year, such as one secondary school principal who has 5% of his students not even able to decode letters.

28 April 2024 – Maths fail, NZ Listener

In the 30 March 2024 edition of the New Zealand Listener the cover article was about reducing New Zealand's road toll by Greg Dixon. It was variously named Toll Tale (on the cover), Horror on the Highways, and Taking a Toll. At the end of page 19 was this doozy:

It takes less than 10 minutes longer to cover 100km at 80km/h than driving at 100km/h for cars, and even less for trucks (heavy vehicles have a speed limit of 90km/h).

Really? Let's do a calculation or two. First, a formula. Speed = distance / time. Rearranging, we get time = distance / speed = 100 km / 80 km/h = 1.25 hours = one and a quarter hours = one hour 15 minutes. 15 minutes longer ≠ less than 10 minutes longer. Maths fail. I don't even know how the author got less than 10 minutes.

What about for trucks? Trucks up to 3500 kg have the same speed limit as cars, so if we use the sentence as written we get the same 15 minutes longer calculated above. Let's change the sentence so it's not disingenuous: "... even less for heavy trucks driving at their speed limit of 90 km/h." A heavy truck's original time = 100 km / 90 km/h = 1.1 hours = one hour, six minutes and 40 seconds. 0:15:00 – 0:06:40 = 0:08:20 = eight minutes twenty seconds longer for a heavy truck. At last! This is less than 10 minutes longer. Of course, this calculation ignores the many heavy trucks which have magical speedometers which read 90 km/h when the truck is doing 100 km/h. I'm going to call this one misleading and an English fail (which are sadly very common in NCEA exams).

16 March 2024 – Three things which need to change in education

This week Auckland Grammar School principal Tim O'Connor appeared on Bruce Cotterill's podcast Leaders Getting Coffee. They got into the serious stuff at about 8 minutes (after an intro by Bruce several minutes long, and a bit of other discussion) with a discussion of the three things Tim O'Connor believes need to change in New Zealand education.

We can't carry on with a curriculum refresh like is being promoted right now. Many heads of department cannot recognise the subject content that is being proposed in the new curriculum. Take stock of the curriculum that is required and put in place a proscriptive curriculum that is internationally benchmarked from year 0 to year 13, so parents can have faith in what is being taught at any level.
Stop the NCEA change programme for levels 2 and 3. Many parents still don't understand NCEA and its standards-based system with its not achieved/achieved/merit/excellence bands instead of a percentage in an examination. It's teaching in chunks rather than teaching as a whole. Is NCEA fit for purpose now? NZ results in international benchmarking are only going one way (down).
We need to do something with our teacher training status. Initial teacher training is no longer fit for purpose and has not been for many years. Tim does not know any teacher (except those who went through one particular Christchurch trainer) who think their training was worthwhile.

He later made the point that the Ministry of Education is an ineffective body which is not providing support to schools. It creates more work for schools and principals rather than supporting them to lead effective organisations. At about 22:40 he explained that it'll take at least 10 years, and possibly a whole generation, to fix what's presently wrong. Catch up with the podcast on the NZ Herald website.

17 February 2024 – The importance of asking questions

Some exciting exam results have been announced, including a student who achieved the best result in the world for one of his exams, and a couple of young ladies achieving 18 scholarship awards between them. The second article includes a fantastic quote by one of the high achievers.

“One thing I do I think is very important is always ask a lot of questions,” added Ena. “So even the smallest things, very pedantic questions I would ask them just to be sure.”

This is a Really Good Thing to do. Asking questions is important. Ask questions when you are unclear about something. Ask questions if you think something might easily be misunderstood – maybe you have yourself. Ask questions if you can see other people are confused.

Asking questions helps to get your brain involved with what you are learning and therefore gets your brain paying more attention. Quite simply, it helps you to remember things. (This is why I sometimes ask which spelling a person's name uses when first being introduced.)

I have heard from some of my students of teachers discouraging students from asking questions and even disparaging students who do. If you get that yourself, ask why. Don't accept being told you're wasting the class's time by asking questions. If people do not understand what they are being taught everyone's time is being wasted, including the teacher's.

17 February 2024 – The importance of using the right units

Meola Rd, the main route between Point Chevalier and Westmere in Auckland, has been closed over the whole summer school holiday for significant roadworks. Sadly, the road closure has been extended by several more weeks. An NZ Herald report explained some of the work being done. The article originally stated (emphasis added):

The works include rebuilding 840m of Meola Rd, half of which is being raised by about 400m over an old rubbish tip.

Just to give an idea of what that would mean, much of Meola Rd is presently not much above sea level, and Mt Eden's summit is at a mere 196m (although anything at sea level is kilometres away from it). That length of Meola Rd being raised by 400m would mean an incredibly steep climb up one side (steeper than 45°) with a precipitous drop down the other.

The article has been corrected to "400mm". Getting the wrong unit prefix can make a huge difference.

2 February 2024 – Present situation

Sorry, my schedule is now full and I'm unable to accept new students.

Ian.