Welcome to the blog of the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association / Te Wehengarua (PPTA), .... A blog that's not afraid to ruffle some feathers
Nothing much to do with education - but everything to do with stereotypes and, of course, what is published under the heading 'research'.
The trigger was the ongoing conversation in this office about stereotypes: gender, age, ability, ethnicity, technological prowess, looks i.e. physical characteristics (eye of the beholder of course) ... good schools, bad schools, good teachers, bad teachers, unions .... got the picture?
Well this whole blog thing has been a bit slow. Nearly everyone was keen, some even promised to blog weekly and possibly more often. But with the exception of Observer's sharp blogs the intentions of 'nearly everyone' didn't quite make the reality. Then came the day that the boss instructed- "there WILL be a blog every week - it's a roster- if you are responsible for facilitating the advisory team meeting on Monday - you are responsible for the blog that week". The result would suggest we either don't have meetings on Mondays ... or don't follow instructions too well?
So here I am, thinking we either take the blog off the website or someone takes responsibility. I don't have anyone to delegate to ... and suspect disabling the blog would have been a "no-can-do" from the boss, which means I have to think of some regular PPTA or education fodder that has a little bit of interest/use.
I've started following, on Twitter(!), Dave Armstrong @malosilima, a co-writer of Mr Gormsby - and that got me thinking about Mr Gormsby - Gormsby occasionally referred to PPTA National Office so that's my fodder.
At a time when the world focuses on the dangers of climate change, the government appears to be going green - by recycling its spending this Christmas. We could see the $200 million 'budget' allocated to fighting truancy and crime among teens as a form of "up-cycling” – a term coined to describe "the creation of a product with higher intrinsic value from a material at the end of its service life." In other words, it is taking an empty ice-cream container, covering it with glitter and calling it a present.
