Sunday, March 11, 2007
Maori Achievement at Schools
This topic is worthy of thousands of words but as usual I have time for few. Pita Sharples has criticised schools for the lack of improvement in Maori achievement despite knowledge that it isn't up to scratch and decades of effort to improve it which has ranged from token to serious efforts.
Call me biased though but I have to say that rather than criticise schools why not wind things right back to where they begin. At home.
Because believe it or not I have atrociously behaving kids at school, who do no work, don't give a shit and will end up sitting in prison, on the dole or maybe in some dead end job. And they are as white as the snows of Antarctica. And guess what? They don't come from nice homes with middle class parents, happily married with a picket fence just waiting for a drunk to drive through. They come from broken homes, with a whole heap of mental baggage. My kids who come from stable homes and who have absorbed the basics over the years do very well at school. Damn near every last one of them.
A lot of our Maori students have no expectations that they will do well coming from home and no expectations of themselves. I bend over backwards encouraging ALL students to have a go at the work but when you have students who will make no effort whatsoever to even attempt an assignment, or will skip the test or assessment then what the fuck can you do? there is this talk that many Maori students don't feel a connection with what they are studying but then how come I can get kids coming from Afganistan, Fiji, Korea, Zimbabwe, Iraq, and you name it we've got them and they do make a solid effort at doing the work and getting the results?
Answer: Expectations.
Sure teachers have to have high expectations but on their own they don't amount to jack shit. When I was a student I had decent expectations of myself, my parents did as well and I also wanted to please my teachers. It's a puzzle where studies have shown you need more than one freakin piece of it to get an achieved.
And one other thing which is really giving me the shits.
Why the fuck do teachers have to baby sit other peoples kids at school sports?
Basically I can deduce from over a years experience that I care WAY THE FUCK MORE about your kid than you do Mr. or Mrs. Parent.
In 18 games of cricket from the school team I am coaching I have seen 2 parents. One came twice, one came once. I give up roughly 80 hours of my FREE time a year for other peoples kids who give up 0 seconds.
My mate has been coaching school volleyball for 4 years and he has NEVER SEEN A SINGLE PARENT COME TO WATCH THEIR KID PLAY.
These games are outside school time either in the evenings or the weekends.
Not enough parents give a stuff, and kids know it, and then the schools get the blame.
Go have sex with yourself.
Call me biased though but I have to say that rather than criticise schools why not wind things right back to where they begin. At home.
Because believe it or not I have atrociously behaving kids at school, who do no work, don't give a shit and will end up sitting in prison, on the dole or maybe in some dead end job. And they are as white as the snows of Antarctica. And guess what? They don't come from nice homes with middle class parents, happily married with a picket fence just waiting for a drunk to drive through. They come from broken homes, with a whole heap of mental baggage. My kids who come from stable homes and who have absorbed the basics over the years do very well at school. Damn near every last one of them.
A lot of our Maori students have no expectations that they will do well coming from home and no expectations of themselves. I bend over backwards encouraging ALL students to have a go at the work but when you have students who will make no effort whatsoever to even attempt an assignment, or will skip the test or assessment then what the fuck can you do? there is this talk that many Maori students don't feel a connection with what they are studying but then how come I can get kids coming from Afganistan, Fiji, Korea, Zimbabwe, Iraq, and you name it we've got them and they do make a solid effort at doing the work and getting the results?
Answer: Expectations.
Sure teachers have to have high expectations but on their own they don't amount to jack shit. When I was a student I had decent expectations of myself, my parents did as well and I also wanted to please my teachers. It's a puzzle where studies have shown you need more than one freakin piece of it to get an achieved.
And one other thing which is really giving me the shits.
Why the fuck do teachers have to baby sit other peoples kids at school sports?
Basically I can deduce from over a years experience that I care WAY THE FUCK MORE about your kid than you do Mr. or Mrs. Parent.
In 18 games of cricket from the school team I am coaching I have seen 2 parents. One came twice, one came once. I give up roughly 80 hours of my FREE time a year for other peoples kids who give up 0 seconds.
My mate has been coaching school volleyball for 4 years and he has NEVER SEEN A SINGLE PARENT COME TO WATCH THEIR KID PLAY.
These games are outside school time either in the evenings or the weekends.
Not enough parents give a stuff, and kids know it, and then the schools get the blame.
Go have sex with yourself.
Comments:
A lot of our Maori students have no expectations that they will do well coming from home and no expectations of themselves. I bend over backwards encouraging ALL students to have a go at the work but when you have students who will make no effort whatsoever to even attempt an assignment, or will skip the test or assessment then what the fuck can you do?
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, as they say.
there is this talk that many Maori students don't feel a connection with what they are studying but then how come I can get kids coming from Afganistan, Fiji, Korea, Zimbabwe, Iraq, and you name it we've got them and they do make a solid effort at doing the work and getting the results?
Yes, that "talk" is called an excuse, an excuse for not doing any work.
Yet in spite of all that, I received a press release some time back that the proportion of Maori students at the University of Auckland is slightly higher than the overall proportion of Maori in the NZ population. Buggered if I can find it now, but it was something like: 16% of population; 17% of university students.
Not sure if it was just undergraduates, or all students. Would help if I could find the bloody thing now of course, but no such luck.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, as they say.
there is this talk that many Maori students don't feel a connection with what they are studying but then how come I can get kids coming from Afganistan, Fiji, Korea, Zimbabwe, Iraq, and you name it we've got them and they do make a solid effort at doing the work and getting the results?
Yes, that "talk" is called an excuse, an excuse for not doing any work.
Yet in spite of all that, I received a press release some time back that the proportion of Maori students at the University of Auckland is slightly higher than the overall proportion of Maori in the NZ population. Buggered if I can find it now, but it was something like: 16% of population; 17% of university students.
Not sure if it was just undergraduates, or all students. Would help if I could find the bloody thing now of course, but no such luck.
Great post and 100% correct. I've been away but this used to be a left wing blog.
The success of kids from Afganistan etc can be easily explained. Child poverty does not cause underachievement, they are correlated because both are usually caused by parents who are useless sacks of shit.
If a family is unfortunate enough to be poor for other reasons, their kids will do just fine.
The success of kids from Afganistan etc can be easily explained. Child poverty does not cause underachievement, they are correlated because both are usually caused by parents who are useless sacks of shit.
If a family is unfortunate enough to be poor for other reasons, their kids will do just fine.
"In 18 games of cricket from the school team I am coaching I have seen 2 parents"
So it's not an exclusively Maori parents issue then.
Bloody good piece there Yamis; kind of like the thing I hear Deaker go on about, yet more balanced.
LB
So it's not an exclusively Maori parents issue then.
Bloody good piece there Yamis; kind of like the thing I hear Deaker go on about, yet more balanced.
LB
# posted by 
: 12 March 2007 at 21:47
: 12 March 2007 at 21:47
LB - I think the point about parents not turning up to watch sports was separate from the point about Maori achievement.
They are separated by the words:
And one other thing which is really giving me the shits.
Incidentally, I have watched Yamis' cricket team on two occasions, which puts me up there with the leading parent.
They are separated by the words:
And one other thing which is really giving me the shits.
Incidentally, I have watched Yamis' cricket team on two occasions, which puts me up there with the leading parent.
I think I've found a factual error in my argument.
I seem to recall hearing that it never snows in Antarctica. It is frozen of course but it is too cold for it to actually snow.
The two parts to my post are linked in that they are both about parents, expectations and taking an interest in their kids education.
One thing I would like more information on is family size and child achievement. ie. the more kids you have, the lower the achievement? In general of course, not every family.
Perhaps somebody could research that and tell us if larger families leads to more poverty leading to lower achievement at school, leading to uneducated people having several kids and not being able to help them nor expect anything of them etc etc.
See it everyday.
I seem to recall hearing that it never snows in Antarctica. It is frozen of course but it is too cold for it to actually snow.
The two parts to my post are linked in that they are both about parents, expectations and taking an interest in their kids education.
One thing I would like more information on is family size and child achievement. ie. the more kids you have, the lower the achievement? In general of course, not every family.
Perhaps somebody could research that and tell us if larger families leads to more poverty leading to lower achievement at school, leading to uneducated people having several kids and not being able to help them nor expect anything of them etc etc.
See it everyday.
DC: Are you able to confirm that the person posting under the alias "Yamis" is Yamis, the left-winger. Like Nigel, I swear I smell the sniff of a right-wing argument here.
I go away for a few weeks I come back and it seems like Yamis has been indoctrinated by the new right.
In all seriousness, great post.
I go away for a few weeks I come back and it seems like Yamis has been indoctrinated by the new right.
In all seriousness, great post.
# posted by : 17 March 2007 at 19:09
: 17 March 2007 at 19:09
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