Please Spare Us From Ignorant Politicians
Once again, we have evidence of another Minister of Education opening her mouth and revealing she hasn’t a clue what she’s talking about. Last week, during Parliament’s Scrutiny Week hearings, there was this interaction:
“When asked by Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris why there was no dedicated funding for kaupapa Māori education in the Budget, Minister Erica Stanford replied that investment into structured literacy would have “the greatest outcome for our Māori kids” and did not need to be based on kaupapa Māori because “every brain learns the same”.
As proof, here’s the YouTube video:
Porirua East Principal Lynda Knight—also a trainer and consultant in trauma-informed education and relational neuroscience (i.e., someone who knows what she’s talking about, unlike Erica Stanford)—has written an article that comprehensively unpacks Stanford’s ignorance.
“With all due respect Minister: all brains do not learn in the same way”
I’ll quote sections from the article that illustrate her points; however, there is so much of value that I recommend you read the article in full. Sadly, this ignorance is typical of Ministers of Education, including Associate Ministers like David Seymour, and is also typical of politicians in general when talking about education.
“If there are no neuroscientists on this planet who fully understand the brain and how humans learn, despite spending decades of research and study in this field, then neither a school principal nor a government minister, without an education background, should claim to understand the brain.”
Knight also draws the connection to politics:
“So why then has a reductionist, simplistic view of the brain, in the context of learning, become so popular along with the increasingly pervasive misconception that all children learn in the same way? In a word: politics.
The push for a mandated, single approach to instruction, often driven by policy rather than nuanced pedagogical understanding, can be detrimental. It can stifle teacher autonomy, limit the use of varied instructional strategies, and fail to address the individual learning profiles of students, including those from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, as well as neurodivergent learners.”
This political pressure, putting ideology ahead of evidence, has detrimental results on children’s learning:
“Too often our education system expects these children to engage and achieve in traditional, behaviourist, classrooms with standardised curricula and a paucity of nurturing, trauma-informed educators. These students need relational, calm adults with whom they can experience a felt sense of safety and co-regulation to help them access the upper, cortical areas of their brains, needed for self-control and learning. And what does the education system do when these children cannot self-regulate and engage at school? Too often we punish and disconnect them with time out, stand downs, suspensions and exclusions.”
Knight then sets out a child-centred approach to education, in contrast to the narrow, standardised ideology behind current policy:
“Recognising that each brain is unique and capable of evolving through experience means that education must move beyond rigid, standardised models to embrace a more flexible, inclusive, and responsive approach that caters to the inherent variability of human learning.
As I’ve written previously, this government’s education policy is based on the work of an academic employed by the New Zealand Initiative, which well known links to the Atlas Foundation.
The end result, unfortunately, as was the case during the last National led government’s ‘National Standards’ crusade, is that our children suffer.
“Attempts to impose a “one size fits all” educational model, such as those sometimes advocated under the banner of the “Science of Learning”, risk failing a significant portion of the student population by ignoring their unique cognitive profiles, cultural backgrounds, and developmental pathways.”
There’s much more in the article including a critique of the Stanford’s “Structured Reading” programme which also assumes all children learn to read in exactly the same way. As US commentator Ray McGovern puts it, that is complete ‘male bovine excrement.’
Well my 6 year old grandson is an example of all kids DO NOT all learn the same way .Luckily his great teacher realizes this and is attempting to teach him differently and arrange extra help for him .As he suffers from epilepsy ,a discussion with his health expert confirmed he would not be learning in the same way as his peers .He is far from backwards and holds his own or betters his peers with technology and verbal learning .It is the daily bashing of counting and spelling he does not cope with because his brain becomes over loaded very quickly and shuts down to protect its self from going hay wire .
There may well be other undiagnosed children who are in the same boat as he is .
Full marks to his teacher she deserves every cent of what she earns because she has never put him in the too hard basket even though she has 20 other kids to teach .
Also, in reply to Uncle Tom Cobbly.
Your boys might have Irlen Syndrome which their teachers and mentors have been smart enough to work around. Children affected are often extremely bright, inventive and creative. Streets ahead of the minister of education and her associates.
It suits her purpose, CHEAPER, to pretend all brains learn the same. If she was a serious Minister of Education, she’d want to know why all brains don’t learn the same and she’d want to do something about it. She’s not serious however, just an amateurish dunce.
She couldn’t be less effective if she was sitting in the corner, facing the wall.
I’d get the younger boy assessed by Kip McGrath or someone similar. He may be helped by having coloured glasses, if reading is a chore. The older boy seems to be over the worst hurdles and on the way to a very successful adult life. Good on him and everyone who has encouraged and supported him.
My children are like chalk and cheese too. One perfectly happy in the system, Engineering Degree with Honours. The other with Irlen, is also an engineer, no degree but earning more than the degreed one and unique in NZ in what he does. Both in their 40s.
The six year old is very smart .His mum was watching the rugby on her phone at the weekend .He took the phone off her and streamed the game from the phone through the TV mum still cant work out how he did it .
Yes, 30 years ago I gently chastised mine for hogging various electronic catalogues at the library when adults are hanging over their shoulders apparently awaiting their turns. I was told, ‘No, that’s fine, she’s/he’s showing me how to use it!’
I learned years ago that the quickest way to get new technology sorted was to hand it one of the kids. Problem solved. Schools do not cope with this.
And how much experience do you have pompous pope of teaching methodology. As my sister who has taught in a Kohanga Reo for twenty years said they already use the method Standford has implemented and have done for many years. Many of my best friends including my mother are teachers and they said there is no one way and good teachers will identify what method works best for each child and teach accordingly. Also, you need to stop being racist swine pope. Some learn by hearing, some by seeing others by doing, not one size fits all.
All very well but also spare a thought for the teachers.
Now expected to be experts in subject matter and presumably required to identify and implement multiple teaching strategies each individually tuned to hundreds of individual pupils. And then deal with mountains of planning and system paperwork and donate their own time to supervising extra curricula activities.
All while being paid salaries that the Minister wouldn’t get out of bed for.
And how much experience do you have pope of teaching methodology. As my sister who has taught in a Kohanga Reo for twenty years said they already use the method Standford has implemented and have done for many years. Many of my best friends including my mother are teachers and they said there is no one way and good teachers will identify what method works best for each child and teach accordingly. Also, you need to stop being racist swine pope. Some learn by hearing, some by seeing others by doing, not one size fits all.
Stanford is there to provide an education system that favours the offspring of her supporters – who may not be totally ‘sorted’ but are somewhere in the middle class or above and are looking for a system that gets their kids on a similar track towards the upper 20-30% of the wealth-power pyramid. She also has to provide off-ramps from the public system for the true elites, via subsidised private schools, or ‘superior’ state schools where gate-keeping for entry is via house prices in their school zones. Within this cohort, most of the kids will actually learn in much the same way. She and her Party are not too interested in the divergent or traumatised or different. They believe the existing social hierarchy is natural and inevitable and ultimately good – so they intend to maintain it.
And how much experience do you have pompous pope of teaching methodology. As my sister who has taught in a Kohanga Reo for twenty years said they already use the method Standford has implemented and have done for many years. Many of my best friends including my mother are teachers and they said there is no one way and good teachers will identify what method works best for each child and teach accordingly. Also, you need to stop being racist swine pope. Some learn by hearing, some by seeing others by doing, not one size fits all.
Ignorant and politican go together like fish and chips.
Uncle Tom Cobbly has the perfect example of how there is no ‘one size fits all’ in education and Erica Stanford is, as usual, speaking through her anus.
I was wagging school continuously by the time I was fourteen(spending my days catching flounder, snapper and mullet, selling them at the back door of the local pub). I was a truant because of constant belittlement by teachers.
I left school and started work at fifteen. However, like all young people, I had a love of learning and this led to Night School, Correspondence school, Polytechnic, University.
In the course of getting there I found the real world is not like school and I can still learn a lot from ordinary working people. My father who left school at twelve and regularly read Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine and could help his workmates with legal problems they could not afford to get from lawyers.
My mother who only completed primary school and read philosophy and theology for pleasure. The Mormons , Jehovah’s Witnesses and other god botherers stopped coming to our place when they found mum enjoyed debate and showing superstitious rubbish is no match for reasoned morality.
In fishing the old Maori man with little schooling. Always perfectly read the weather and came home with loads of fish. Enjoyed reading Tolstoy and other good writers. Explained the concepts of tapu and noa to me and how they regulated his view of the world.
The agricultural, horticultural and forestry workers who showed me how to perform physical labour all day using minimal effort.
The cleaners who showed me the swiftest way to leave bathrooms spotless, gleaming and sweet smelling. Experts can complete their work properly in half the time of amateurs(anyone notice how ‘I’m right’, in particular, sneers at cleaners? People who do honest work).
E kati! Kia kaha Te Mahi!
Now I have two degrees and postgraduate qualifications and have worked in education myself. When I study history something that strikes me is the number of successful people, in all fields, whose success is, in spit, not because, of education.
Even though I spent my life in education, I agree with you.
When I was at Primary School I was considered a Slow Learner and so had to spend an entire following year after turning 5 in what was then called Primmer One.
As humans we are all so different and learn at Our Own Pace. There is NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL in the way of how OUR brains collect and hold knowledge or learning.
This year I turn 65 and still consider myself a slow learner. I have noticed over the decades that when a person yells at another and calls them stupid or whatever even in the classroom that the receiver Switches Off mentally and therefore any chance of learning something Just Cannot Happen.
For many the Need/Demand to Keep up with your colleagues/classmates in say Academia puts additional pressure on those considered Slow Learners.
Stanford is Arrogant to Assume that She KNOWS EVERYTHING and HAS AN ANSWER FOR EVERYTHING. She is a Reflection of All that is Wrong with Herself, Her Belief System of ONE SIZE FITS ALL in Brain Function and also what is Wrong With Her Political Leanings.
What I notice about politicians the likes of Stanford is She is Completely OUT OF TOUCH with REALITY. She is one of those MANY ENTITLED FOLK in National, ACT and NZ First who think/believe they Don’t Need to LISTEN to the ACTUAL EXPERTS. In fact her comment in that video shows how HEARTLESS she is by her Arrogant Assumptions.
I have no time for ARROGANT PRICKS like Stanford etc.etc.etc.
While everyone is giving a huge pile on about “one size fits all” I would like to chime in to mention that “one size” is the EXACT method that was being used under the previous structure. With years of my kids in school I can tell you that this method will fail exactly as the old one failed on my kids. My wife and I spent a lot of time working with our kids to keep them engaged and ensure we were able to teach them in ways that worked for them because their teachers refused to do this as there was “the best method you can use” being utilized.
It included notices from the school telling us NOT to help kids with their maths homework unless we had been to classes at the school to learn how the teachers were instructing them. Neither of my kids understood this method and if we stuck with it they would STILL be behind.
If only politicians learned from this. But they don’t and won’t. Next change of government will result in yet another crappy shift to someone else’s ideologically driven “one size fits all” method and everything will keep failing miserably.