Violence At School - Business as Usual

Violence At School - Business as Usual

The violence at Waiuku College is only business as usual. Seasoned school social workers tell me that the physical, sexual and text bullying at schools is out of control. Drug dealing at primary schools is a regular fact today. Kapiti Primary School principal Graham Conner confessed he used to be naïve, but that the dealing on his campus was only the tip of the iceberg.(1) Kawerau College principal Steve Hocking said, "Any secondary school that reckons they don't have a drug problem is probably burying its head in the sand."(2) Post Primary Teachers Association president Jen McCutcheon said "There are commonly three, four or five kids who are severely disruptive in every class."(3)

Compulsory schooling has so alienated parents from their own children and from their parenting responsibilities, that we now regularly hear parents rejoicing to have their own children off their hands and back in school. Dr John Clark at Massey University says the primary reason we have schooling institutions is as a baby sitting service.(4) Massey's past Vice-Chancellor, Sir Neil Waters, said schools exist to socialise children, "otherwise it wouldn't take so long. You don't need 15 years to educate somebody but you need 15 years to socialise somebody."(5)

The late Professor Graham Nuthall of Canterbury University said, "[S]tudent learning is not the focus of what goes on in schools..... Put simply, the education system is a fraud."(6) Phillip Capper, past president of the PPTA, said, "What I would like to see in the political debate about education is a recognition that public education is an exercise in social engineering by definition."(7) So if school administrators and the MoE want to blame parents or society in general for the violence on campus, remember that it was the schools that engineered the parents and society to be the way they are!

The Ministry of Social Development says on its website () that the proportion of New Zealander's aged 16-65, almost all of whom passed through NZ state schools, who do not have the literacy skills in English at a suitable minimum for coping with the demands of everyday life and work in a complex, advanced society, is a whopping 46 per cent!

This is gross failure by any standard. But this is the New Zealand state school system. This is in spite of the teachers in the system, most of whom are thoroughly devoted to the children, some of whom are absolutely brilliant, all of whom are being asked to do the impossible. Even so, there's no reason to abandon our children to such institutions. We've kept all eight of ours at home over the last 26 year and educated them ourselves. With the one-to-one tutoring of homeschooling, you can hardly fail.

Notes: 1.Dominion, 24 June 2002, "Primary school drug use tip of iceberg", http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/print/0,1103,1243838a11,FF.html

2.Stuff, 14 May 2002, "All schools have drug problems - principal", http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/print/0,1103,1201748a1801,FF.html

3.Dominion, 21 May 2002, "Five disruptive kids a class, say teachers", http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/print/0,1103,1203494a1701,FF.html

4.Dr John Clark, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education, Department of Policy Studies in Education, Massey University, from his course notes for Understanding Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand, 1997.

5.LEARN Magazine, Issue 10, November 1996, p. 8, Sir Neil Waters, Past Vice-Chancellor of Massey University, NZ Qualifications Authority Board Chairman.

6. Full quote: One of our major findings, based on many years of research in many classrooms, is that student learning is not the focus of what goes on in schools. We found that most teachers, most of the time, do not know what their students are learning or not learning. We give awards to our best teachers without paying any attention to what their students learn. The Education Review Office evaluates the effectiveness of schools without obtaining any direct evidence about student learning.

The Qualifications Authority accredits courses and institutions without paying any attention to whether students in those courses or institutions are learning anything or not. The Ministry of Education carries out "network reviews" of schools (amalgamating smaller schools) without any evidence about whether the changes will affect student learning. Put simply, the education system is a fraud. - Professor Emeritus Graham Nuthall, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, March 2004.

7.Dominion Sunday Times, 14 October 1990.

ENDS

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