Those Who Cannot Remember The Past

James Dewey Watson is 90 years old. The plot to remove honours from Watson and to taint his reputation has been simmering for decades. The same can be said of the other scientists who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology. Their elucidation of the structure of DNA was the greatest science achievement of the 20th Century.

When I was at school, the names were Watson, Crick and Wilkins. That trio was synonymous with the way science had become integrated from traditional biology, chemistry and physics. Towards the end of the 20th Century, New Zealand born Maurice Wilkins' name was dropped from that prestigious group. The structure of DNA became attributed to the work of Watson and Crick. Wilkins had been targeted in the move to discredit all three scientists because he was the X-ray crystallographer. The moves had always been to discredit the prizewinners for their alleged use or misuse of data obtained by the X-ray chrystallographer, Rosalind Franklin, who was seen as a rival to Wilkins.

There was always controversy surrounding Franklin's ability to work with Watson, Crick and Wilkins and the contribution that she had undoubtedly made to the work of that team. There was also controversy over who should have been given the most credit for crystallographic studies that contributed to the elucidation of the structure of DNA in 1953, Franklin or Wilkins. However, Franklin died some years before the Nobel Prize was awarded for the work on DNA, so there was no way that she could have been given recognition through such an award. Nobel prizes are not awarded posthumously.

A considerable and accumulating lobby against the famous scientists was made by feminist groups over the years and they used a range of reasons for their campaigns. Latterly, their thrust was of the lack of science honours awarded to women. Rosalind Franklin was featured several times as an example of a female scientist who missed out, notably with reference to the Nobel Prize that was awarded to Watson, Crick and Wilkins after her death.

The momentum for castigation against Watson increased substantially after he was questioned for his controversial opinion of average IQ related to Africans who were native to Africa, which he made known in 2007 – and a new reason for castigation was found. By that time Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins had died, both in 2004.

James Watson was the last remaining part of the target that was DNA Nobel Prize winners. He has now been hit a bullseye with the ultimate condemnation. He has been stripped of all his academic honours including his Nobel Prize award.

The popular narrative holds that there is no difference between the average IQ of individual races. I don't believe that Watson was stating anything other than the truth when he voiced his opinion about race and IQ, an opinion based on hard core evidence obtained from many studies by different researchers. His attitude was certainly not racist, no more than that of Albert Einstein who has been castigated recently for notes he scribbled in his own private holiday diary, over 100 years ago, on aspects of Chinese culture that he disliked.

Watson's recent castigation is uncannily similar to that of Galileo's in the 17th Century. Galileo was undoubtedly a brilliant scientist who was maligned by those who defended popular narratives at the time and sought to castigate him for his beliefs that differed from those narratives.

In the words of George Santayana,
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

And The Answer's a Lemon

Isn't it amazing the junk you can find on the Internet? YouTube is a haven for pranksters who make money out of deceit. They broadcast their fraudulent junk on a huge scale. The most recent I came across is this one. It has made over 16,000,000 hits in a few months. It is not scientific and it wouldn't work. It is charlatan snake oil. As well, it's ethically fraudulent and morally misleading. Anyone who is unfortunate enough to have all the resources available at the time they desperately need assistance is in for a shock if they try this for the contraption will not make fire.

The broadcaster demonstrated how this contraption produced enough electrical current to set fire to a bundle of steel wool and dry paper.

I'm appalled at the vast amount of so-called quick and easy fixes to be found on the Internet and that are neither quick nor are they fixes.

Einstein was Right

We've seen light waves from space; now we can see gravity waves.

A hundred years ago, Einstein said that gravity waves existed but they'd never been detected. We now know he was correct. 

Antennas of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Washington State and Louisiana have just detected the gravity 'sound' of two black holes coalescing a billion light years away. Previous to the observation, the black holes were responsible for the phenomenon well known as a pulsar, like the famous PSR B1913+16 in the constellation of Aquila. 

The black holes collapsed a billion years ago, sending out gravity waves and now remain as a single black hole depleted of some of its mass due to the release of this energy.

Check out the blurb.

Food for Thought

The latest OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) result is that computers don't help student learning.

In a recent paper by Peter Evans-Greenwood, Kitty O’Leary, Peter Williams, Deloitte, 18 Sept 2015, the authors write, "(E)ducators need to turn their attention to creating environments and platforms where students can learn what they need to learn when they need to, and instilling in them the habits of mind, attitudes and behaviours that will enable them to thrive in today’s (and tomorrow’s) knowledge-rich environment."

Food for thought?

The Myths about the New ‘P’

The US Federal Government, through FDA, has just recently approved the manufacture and use of Palcohol following the false start over its approval last year.

Palcohol is sometimes referred to as 'powdered alcohol' which is a misnomer since Palcohol is not powdered alcohol at all. It is a substance created and manufactured by Mark Phillips, an Arizona businessman. In its rawest form, a preparation like Palcohol consist of pure alcohol held in a matrix of cyclodextrin, an edible white powder, like starch and that is soluble in water. Cyclodextrin, if eaten, is non-toxic, is not sweet, is not digested and is a contribution to dietary fibre. Raw Palcohol looks like icing sugar.

Palcohol has yet to reach the market place in a commercial form, but several states in the US are already preparing to the ban the sale of this substance if they haven’t done so already.

There’s been a recent revival of activity on the Internet about this now not-so-new consumable, most of which is wrong and has been spread around through ignorance. I applaud Phil Mason's (Thunderf00t's) initiative in swiftly identifying invalid data circulated via the Internet last year. 

Here’s just some of the myths associated with Palcohol:

It can be used to spike drinks.

While this might be true, it would be very difficult to spike a drink successfully using Palcohol. First, the substance has to be stirred for at least a minute for the powder to disperse. Then there is the matter of the volume of powder required to spike the drink effectively – Palcohol contains only about 10% by volume of alcohol. To have the equivalent effect of a single shot of vodka would require almost half a cupful of the powder – not something easy to conceal, never mind dissolve in a standard drink.

Snorting Palcohol gets you drunk superfast.

This myth is hilariously funny for it would mean snorting about half a cupful of Palcohol to get the same effect as drinking one shot of vodka. What is funnier is that even one snort of the powder would cause the consumer unbearable discomfort and pain.

Palcohol is easier to conceal than liquid alcohol.

Pure alcohol forms only 10% of the volume of the Palcohol that holds it. A far easier and more discrete way to conceal alcohol would be to hide the liquid in a suitable container – a practice that has been used for centuries. Palcohol is just too bulky for any useful amount of it to be carried discretely.

Alcohol is heavier than Palcohol so airlines could save millions on fuel costs by providing Palcohol instead of traditional alcoholic drinks. Similar savings can be obtained through lower shipping costs for resorts that rely on imported alcohol.

This is almost as funny as the idea that snorting Palcohol is a quick way to get drunk. Palcohol contains about 50% alcohol by weight, so clearly it would be far cheaper to transport liquid alcohol than the twice as heavy equivalent amount of Palcohol.

Palcohol presents a higher risk than alcohol on its own.

Palcohol certainly does not present any risk to the consumer greater than that already presented by liquid alcohol. In many ways the risks are lessened due to the form that the alcohol is in when received initially by the consumer. An example of this is Palcohol’s inability to flow like liquid alcohol, so it presents a lesser fire risk. 

However, there is one risk that Palcohol now has the potential to present due to the recent publicity of it as a possible banned substance. It is well known that if any substance is banned, consumption of it inevitably increases. When it's eventually released to the market, I predict that the sale of Palcohol will skyrocket initially due to this publicity and level off to an extent that we may never hear much of its existence again.

How I Can Understand Science

Science is often difficult to understand because it requires thinking. 

If a person is not a thinker he or she won't understand a lot of what they read in Science. 

This misunderstanding is often interpreted by the non-thinking reader as confusion in what Science is trying to put across.

It then becomes a cycle that feeds itself and the reader begins to feel that Science is rubbish and contradicts itself. 

The reader then forms the belief that people just look around for the scientific facts that back up their position and in part, the reader is right. That's because some of the people who do this are non-thinkers. 

So the answer is: "read, digest (that means think) repeat. 
No one learns everything on the first pass." - Dr. K

Homeopathy – A Cure for Ebola?

New Zealand Green Party Member of Parliament, Steffan Browning, has recently caused a stir by supporting a petition appealing to the World Health Organisation to use homeopathy in the treatment of the deadly disease ebola. Browning later posted his support to Facebook. The petition was launched by the controversial Australian homeopath, Fran Sheffield, on the change.org site.

New Zealand Green Party co-leader Russell Norman said that the action of his colleague in signing the petition was “unwise”. Browning’s support for the use of homeopathy to treat ebola was dismissed as “barking mad” by New Zealand’s Prime Minister, John Key.

Homeopathy is a well-respected system of alternative medicine that has enjoyed a long history. It dates back to before 1796, the year when the principles of homeopathy were laid down by Samuel Hahnemann. There are many prominent people around today who have used homeopathic medicine for various ailments and found it to be effective.

In the practice of homeopathy, “remedies are prepared by repeatedly diluting a chosen substance in alcohol or distilled water . . .  
. . . dilution usually continues well past the point where no molecules of the original substance remain” – Wikipedia. This means that if pure water is used as the dilutant, the final liquid is actually purer than tap water.

I find it hard to believe that anyone could have suggested using this method to prepare a remedy for any human ailment other than thirst. 

Fran Sheffield claims that homeopathy is effective in curing a range of diseases including viral, bacterial and protozoan infections and that “appropriate homeopathic medicine is likely to be just as effective against the ebola virus”, an opinion shared by other homeopathic practitioners.

In 1988 there was an attempt to provide some explanation of how homeopathy might work. The findings of Jacque Benveniste and the work of others in the field suggested that water seems to have a ‘memory’ for minute amounts of substances that it comes into contact with. The suggestion was that this ‘memory’ possessed by water may offer some explanation of how homeopathic preparations could have a biological effect. 

The existence of this special property of water, suggested by Benveniste, has never been proved unequivocally despite scientifically rigorous work done to achieve this by teams of scientists in the Horizon studies. I believe that it is significant that these studies were fiercely rejected by the community of homeopaths.

How much does the power of belief play in the apparent successes and subsequent support that homeopathy has garnered over the centuries? How much does the weight of authority play in how this belief persists?

The professional body of homeopaths seems to support the action of Fran Sheffield and condones the distribution of a petition (that also solicits donation of money by way of sponsorship) through a posting on the Internet. Why else would such a petition remain online? Apparently it has gathered over 5000 signatures and counting. Thank goodness scientists are condemning this type of action as irresponsible.

By the way, I use a PC to publish my posts. I might just as well claim that
if I connect the mouse, keyboard and screen to the box that the PC was
first packed in and then connect it all to the Internet, it works fine and
saves power.

Equality – BLOG ACTION DAY 2014

Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a
precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance. – Kofi Annan

There is a principle behind and beyond the words of Kofi Annan:
that effort towards eliminating any form of inequality must start and work in tandem with effort to overcome gender inequality.

We live in interesting times and there never was a time needier of united humanity than today. I was much moved by Emma Watson’s United Nations speech on gender equality.

She made me think again about this fundamental and hugely important humanitarian principle – “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities”. Emma approached this principle from the standpoint of feminism: “the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes . . .  it is not the word (feminism) that is important, it's the idea and the ambition behind it.”

Inequality is any difference that may lead to disadvantage, however slight, experienced by an individual or group of people. In many instances, the complete elimination of inequality is not possible, through factors that are simply beyond human control. Complete elimination of inequality is often a fictional, utopian state. However, the word inequality used here refers to the practical circumstances where inequality can be diminished or eliminated by human thought and action.

There are two general types of inequality, one occurring when individuals or groups in the same or similar circumstances are treated differently and the other occurring when individuals or groups in different circumstances are treated the same way. Either of these inequalities results in a disadvantaged position for an individual or group.

Many barriers will be met in any attempt to achieve equality, to whatever aspect of humanity that equality applies. A lot can be controlled by human thought and action. However, for most people, there are many barriers that are extremely difficult to moderate or remove. Prejudice is one such a barrier.

Prejudice is a preconceived notion that is often the root cause of discrimination, committed either deliberately or unconsciously, in ways that can result in inequality. This happens specially when exercised by and within social groups. Such destructive partiality exists in individuals and is fostered in social groups throughout the world. It can exist in seemingly subtle ways that are nevertheless still expressions of prejudice or partiality. Gender partiality leads to gender inequality.
 
Emma Watson mentioned in her UN speech that gender inequality is a matter for men too. I post links here to two videos as examples of one aspect of gender partiality in relation to violence. They show recent social experiments on how bias can influence the actions of individuals among groups in certain situations.

video 1 – Bryant Park,  New York

video 2 – Fitzroy Square, London

Unmistakably, preconceived opinion about gender difference is a factor in how both men and women react differently according to the situations shown in the videos. They depict a measure of benevolent sexism that exists within societies everywhere. That aspect is among the many thousand manifestations of gender inequality that occur in societies throughout the world. 

The horrific statistics presented by Plan International USA for the International Day of the Girl, 11 October 2014, puts into perspective the magnitude of inequality experienced by girls and women worldwide as a result of gender prejudice.

Over a period of half a century, affirmative actions taken to redress the recognised effects of gender prejudice in society have yielded limited success. Often, affirmative action made matters worse and tended to polarise opinion rather than consolidate desired principles. Emma Watson has told us “it is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals”.

The HeForShe movement is one that permits men and women to unite unashamedly and work towards the elimination of gender inequality. Please take this opportunity to visit the HeForShe site and register your support for this honourable cause.

HeForShe is a solidarity campaign founded by UN Women for gender equality.

#BAD2014 #Inequality #BlogAction #HeForShe 

Appeal for the People of Christchurch City

At 12.51 pm on Tuesday, 22 February, the beautiful city of Christchurch, New Zealand, was devastated by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake.

This was only one of the hundreds of aftershocks, following the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that shook the city on the morning of Saturday 4 September 2010.

Miraculously, few people were injured in this huge shake for the city was asleep when it struck and despite its magnitude, its centre was 30 to 40 km west of the city centre. Christchurch was well on the way to recovering from this earlier devastation when the second major shake struck on Tuesday at a depth of only 5km.

Tuesday’s shake caused devastation that reduced many of the homes and buildings in the inner city to rubble. Over 120 people so far are known to have died, crushed by falling debris or within collapsing buildings. Over 200 people are listed as missing. Hundreds are injured, many of them severely.

The people of Christchurch have a strong spirit and they have a fine mayor in Bob Parker, whose civil defence leadership skills are second to none. But the people of Christchurch need you.

Please help by donating to the Red Cross 2011 Earthquake Appeal

http://www.redcross.org.nz/donate

or to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal

http://www.christchurchearthquakeappeal.govt.nz/

The Value of Instruction

“A long time ago, in Newsday for November 15, 1994, Billy Tashman said with reference to a large, government-sponsored field test of different instructional approaches: ‘The good news is that after 26 years, nearly a billion dollars, and mountains of data, we now know which are the most effective instructional tools. The bad news is that the education world couldn’t care less.’
The same holds true today." James Kauffman

When I first began teaching, I bristled with the desire to instruct, inspire, coach, and enlighten. I’d just been through Moray House College of Education, Edinburgh, where my tutors and mentors truly recognised the worth of excellent instruction.

Yet for the past 30 years and more, I have felt like a disillusioned school teacher who is old fashioned, out of date and not really understanding what’s happening in education.

The other day, a good friend and colleague passed on to me a recent article from Teachers College Record, by James Kauffman. It was written as an introduction to his recently published book,

The Tragicomedy of Public Education:
Laughing and Crying Thinking and Fixing.

As I read through Kauffman's article, I recalled how I felt when I read Shelley Gare’s book,

The Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat from Common Sense.

I experienced déjà vu at every page.

James Kauffman is Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

In his review article, entitled Reforming Public Education: A Tragicomedy, he explains how some people, working within education, fail to recognise the most important factor in improving learning:

“Truly ridiculous statements about reforming schools have been made by generally intelligent people who happen to botch thinking about education. Too often, their silly statements are taken seriously, making matters worse. Some would-be reformers ignore what produces most learning — instruction.”

Kauffman draws attention to all the areas of stupidity in education that I’ve complained about, for decades . . .

. . . about improving teaching:

“They might say we need better teachers without defining “better.” People aren’t necessarily better teachers because they’re smarter, know their subject better, or have taken more courses. We need standardized tests, but good teaching isn’t easily measured as “value added.” “Better teacher” doesn’t necessarily mean “higher average pupil gain score.” Good instruction is defined by what a teacher does.”

. . . about pursuing change without recognising what needs to change:

“On January 2, 2010, Kevin Huffman published in The Washington Post his heartfelt opinions about how to reform education, including suggestions that we recruit talented teachers and fire bad ones, base policies on student achievement, and get parents to demand what’s best for their children. He quotes a U.S. Senator from Colorado, who says that the education system must change, but he doesn’t say how. Any change will do? Sorry, Kevin and Senator, with all due respect, we don’t need just any kind of change. Unless it’s the right change, we’ll get nowhere.”

. . . about the misunderstanding and misuse of statistics:

“One reason the “thinking” of so many earnest reformers is tragicomic when it’s taken seriously is that you can’t have all of the children (or teachers or any other group we measure) reaching any percentile higher than the first group any more than you can have all of the children (or teachers) above average.”

. . . about setting education goals that are absurdly unachievable:

“No Child Left Behind (. . .) set the goal of universal proficiency of students by 2014. That goal is a will-o’-the-wisp that anyone else who understands the most basic mathematical-statistical realities knows is impossible.”

. . . about teaching methods inappropriately applied to all learners:

“Direct, systematic instruction is more effective than other approaches like “discovery learning” (essentially, letting kids find out for themselves) and a lot of the other popular but failed ideas about teaching. Go to www.adihome.org/ to find out more.”

. . . about using test scores to judge success.

Kauffman lists his criteria for judging success:

1. effective instruction,
2. students’ engagement in productive activity,
3. homogeneous grouping for instruction,
4. positive emotional climate,
5. clear school-wide expectations,
6. positive support for desired behaviour,
7. involvement of parents and communities.

Check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpAFlbncygM

The Tragicomedy of Public Education: Laughing and Crying Thinking and Fixing,
James M Kauffman, FULL Court Press, 2010 – ISBN 1-57861-682-4

The Tragicomedy of Public Education – DESK COPY

Nor Any Drop To Drink - BLOG ACTION DAY 2010

A rare commodity

Water is amazing. It is truly the universal solvent. While there are solvents that can dissolve some things far better, there is none that dissolves as many different substances as can water.

It’s all to do with the structure of water’s molecule – that particle scientists refer to when they talk of the tiny bits that some things are made of. Water molecules can cluster together and share parts of each other to form other discrete particles that have unique affinities for different things.

Sugar is made of molecules. Common salt consists of two very different bits, called ions that are positively and negatively charged.

Though sugar and salt look very similar, their fundamental differences, at the sub-microscopic level, make these substances behave so very differently. Very few solvents can dissolve both sugar AND salt for this reason. But water can.

This strange property of water – the ability to dissolve molecular substances as well as those that are made up of ions – is one reason why it is extremely difficult to obtain pure water.

When it rains, droplets of almost 100% pure water form high in the atmosphere. Yet it’s not long before this water has dissolved all sorts of substances, often before it reaches the ground. Pure water is actually an extremely rare substance.

Repositories for everything

Near-pure droplets of rainwater that drench the land eventually find their way into the oceans. There is a little bit of everything to be found in the world’s oceans. This is because water dissolves just about everything.

Gold is one of the world’s rarest and most precious metals. Yet we are told that the world’s oceans contain enough dissolved gold to provide every person with a tiny piece weighing over 8 tonnes!

Gold is just one of the billions of substances that water washes into the world’s oceans, every day. The seas and oceans throughout the world are repositories for all that is washed off the land.

End to fresh water

All over the world, beautiful freshwater lakes represent a half-way house for water that makes its way to the sea. These wonderful reservoirs are topped up by rivers and streams fed by water that takes many paths, from slow percolations of ground water to direct runoffs.

Fresh water reservoirs contain water that has had only a relatively short time in contact with the earth. Most contain water that is near pure. They have enjoyed a place in the eye of the beholder for thousands, perhaps millions of years. Lakes, and the streams and rivers that contribute to them, have served living creatures with necessary fresh water during that time. But this service is literally drying up.

Something in the water

Supplies of drinkable water are dependent on readily available fresh water sources. The demand for water of this purity is increasing every day. I’m told that about 24 litres of fresh water can be used during the entire production of just one hamburger. Yet the world’s fresh water supplies provide water only at a worldly rate.

That rate is huge, and hitherto has been unvarying. While that rate is now not sufficient to provide the world’s demand for fresh water, there is much now happening on the surface of the earth to actually decrease the rate of this provision.

Wastes from farming, industry and the effluent from the people who rely on these present day processes are fast diminishing the usefulness of water sources. Many fresh water reservoirs are now becoming polluted and the level of pollution and the occurrence of this are always increasing.

Now running to ground

About 20% of the world’s fresh water is drawn directly from the ground. It is seen as a way of safeguarding against periods of drought while providing an almost unvarying year-long supply of fresh water – water that slowly percolated its way through the ground. Such water sources are still vulnerable to pollution, however, as surface pollutants can percolate through the ground and contaminate the ground water.

Moreover, the removal of ground water at a rate higher than the natural recharge rate means that these sources diminish in time and can affect water replenishment of nearby reservoirs.

A global contribution

Further to this, some people who support theories of global warming believe that the usage of ground water may actually contribute to global warming, a proposed climatic effect that may also contribute to diminishing the supply of available ground water.

The world’s use of fresh water is now outstripping the rate of its supply. And there are factors brought about through industrialisation and land use that are serving to reduce the suitability of otherwise useable fresh water.

Clearly the world’s populations cannot continue to consume water the way they have been up till now – and it will take more than just a token act of water conservation.

AADES LEADERS' FORUM 2010

AUSTRALASIAN ASSOCIATION OF DISTANCE EDUCATION SCHOOLS
29 September - 1 October

Venues: Te Kura (Day 1) and Te Papa Museum of New Zealand (Days 2 and 3)
Wellington, New Zealand

SUMMARY:

I was privileged to attend the AADES Leaders' Forum 2010.

This was a well attended three day event, with speakers from New Zealand and afar. While I attended all three days of the Forum,
I did not attend every session and there were some that were held concurrently. However, I report on all the keynote speeches here.

This was essentially a listeners’ event, though there was a little opportunity for participation from the floor.

Day One consisted of a late afternoon powhiri held at Te Kura.

Marcus Akuhata-Brown was the facilitator for Days Two and Three of the Forum, at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. His humility, balanced approach and sense of humour were evident in the elegant way he conducted the programme.

A feature of the Forum was the Māori music and harmony. Each guest speaker was thanked in a traditional way by music and song, a true mark of respect. It is a credit to Mike Hollings that he joined in with every one of those musical occasions (I’m sure he engineered them all) most times accompanying on his guitar. This part was altogether a most memorable, entertaining and cultural contribution to the atmosphere of the Forum.

DAY ONE

The Forum began mid-afternoon with the gathering of staff, contributors and visitors and a powhiri in Kauri room, Te Kura, followed by congenial time for refreshment.

Then followed brief welcoming addresses from Mike Hollings, Trish McKelvey and the Chair of ADDES, Bronwyn Stubbs, as well as short speeches from Karen Sewell and Janelle Cameron.

Karen Sewell

Karen spoke of the future that lay in the education of children. She spoke of the trauma that children suffered during and after the recent Christchurch earthquake, and how Te Kura had stepped in extremely quickly to provide support with this.

She talked of the complex and uncertain future that children will follow. Education must transform, not reform ‘the system’ in order to permit children to navigate intricate pathways. Teachers have a part to play in changing our children’s future.

Janelle Cameron

Janelle spoke of the digital divide – how she was still grappling with the technologies – how the digital age seems to overwhelm many people of her age.

Her metaphor for the happenings in learning today was like “a train going through (a station) and not stopping”.

She referred to the Internet and its use as a teaching tool and to what she called “Bloom’s Pedagogy”, the new “Digital Taxonomy” and their part in teaching today.


Day One closed with drinks and nibbles and a chance to network.

Return to top

DAY TWO

Hekia Parata

Hekia gave us a National Party view of where teachers are at in 2010. She spoke of them focussing “on teaching rather than learning”
(I think she was referring to their learning rather than the learning of their students). Hekia explained that teachers do not seem to learn from learning, and referenced this to education research.

She referred to the mind/brain as the most important part of the being. Yet kids, all over the world, are still sitting in classrooms being taught by a single teacher using traditional teaching methods.

Hekia specially referred to the 1 in 5 students that were clearly being failed by the system – that schools focussed on crowd control rather than on learning.

Hekia’s description of Ruatoria formed a large part of the manifesto-like speech she delivered. She spoke of her family/ brothers, sisters/ community and what they did when she was a child.

Hekia spoke of the demography of New Zealand and of how many children were uninspired at school.

She spoke of the money New Zealand borrows every year to spend on education and the community. Hekia referred to the 1 in 5 ratio and that for many, the model is not working. Her concern was mainly about what she called “brown students”, and referred to their place in the diverse population that is evolving in New Zealand.

She spoke of professionalism that customises skills to give a service, and that such a service was needed by the 1 in 5 children in New Zealand: those that needed to find a job, for instance – a sector that “deserved all the attention teachers can give”.

Hekia summarised her speech by referring to the triangle of Identity, Community and Education: three important areas that provide the basis for learning in an individual.


Liz McKinley

Liz examined some of the statistics on Māori success in education from the Starpath project, University of Auckland. Her quote from Niels Bohr, “Nothing exists until it is measured”, summarised her approach.

She also examined some recent government statistics of Level 2 NCEA results, from 2003 to 2008, comparing Māori with non-Māori. Only 40% of Māori learners get to year 13. Less than half of these go on to study at tertiary level. She showed graphs indicating that in percentage achievement and in success rate, Māori learners were substantially behind learners from other ethnic groups.

Liz analysed these results in a number of ways: that 32% of Māori learners in a year 13 group will eventually go on to further study – that 18% of those will have achieved university entrance qualification – that 6% will actually enter university – that 2% will finish the courses with a degree – that 0.4% will go on to doctorate study.

She explained that Starpath, led by The University of Auckland in partnership with the New Zealand Government, is a research project (now in its 6th year) that focuses on the educational outcomes of New Zealand learners who under-achieve at secondary school. Starpath utilises:

• research teams,
  
  
• 5 high schools,
  
  
• 1 university and 1 technical institute.

Liz spoke of the need for evidential material that schools require in order to make informed decisions – that schools were not getting help with bringing all available useful data/ideas/strategies together and with aligning these so that they could be used to improve learner outcomes.

She explained that schools do collect data on student learning and achievement, but the data is not centrally stored. She asserted that schools do not feel that ownership of this data is important. She stressed that there was a real need for concerted strategies so schools could usefully collate data related to student achievement and use this to accomplish an improvement in learner achievement.

Liz spoke of the Academic Counselling and the Target Setting (ACTS) programme and how they improved final year NCEA completions. The biggest gains were made by Māori and Pasifika students, with 16% more Māori students and 20% more Pasifika students achieving important learning in NCEA Level 1 Numeracy and Literacy.

Liz concluded by warning that gains for Māori learners were lessening - that many schools had a plethora of programmes, 84 in some, based on teacher interest rather than what could benefit the learner. She appealed that this was actually a moral issue that needed attention, by all parties including teachers in order that it be addressed effectively.

Bentham Ohia

Bentham, CEO of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, gave an overview of the Open Wānanga – a “Māori Higher Learning Tertiary Institution” of 37,000 learners – 40% of those do not have a secondary education.

He put a number of questions:

1. What counts as knowledge? What knowledge counts? Who decides?
2. What counts as success? What success counts? Who decides?
   
3. What counts as assessment? What assessment counts? Who decides?”

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa is unique:

• kaupapa wānanga
  
• unique programme-offering delivery
  
• home based kaitiaki (guardian) supported
  
• monthly cohort enrolments
  
• centralised support
  
• minimised restrictions.

Viv White

Viv spoke briefly of Big Picture Education Australia (BPEA). She then looked at some learner statistics and other related learner information:

• 14% learners not learning or earning – 50% in some places
  
• 20% fail to complete year 12 – 50% in some places
  
• complex social background
  
• distance education is not immune to the same problems that exist in F2F systems.

She stressed how serious these facts were and that a new model was called for. Viv then put the question that I had asked her at TCS Forum in May this year(!) – basically:

“Can we create a Big Picture Distance Education model?”

Viv then returned to the Big Picture model:

• 1 learner at a time (which is how Te Kura works)
  
• small by design
  
• advisory 1 – 15 | 1- 17 |
  
• Learning Training Internship.

Learners could achieve improved outcomes: engagement – graduation – tertiary learning. She spoke of beginning with network connections – developing a community of practice and commitment to collaborate – building a system of influence: not with critical mass but with critical connections (BPEA and Te Kura).

Jen McCutcheon

Jen defined authentic learning in the context of Te Kura, explained the process and outlined some of the approach used – one that focussed on the learner in context. She spoke of how it relies on rich conversation between the Learning Advisor, the learner and whanau.

Jen explained how finding the centre of what interests and impassions a learner was an all important part of that process. It’s then that a start can be made on building relevant programmes around the learner and nurture these with frequent ongoing discussions.

Jen went on to define what constituted a ‘rich conversation’: goal setting – identifying ‘aspirational’ goals – career exploration – interviews and talking with people – job-shadowing – resetting goals. She mentioned the part that Gateway, Star and other programmes can play in the development of this process.

She described the ‘tail of underachievement’ and mentioned the consequential 25% of people aged 15 to 19 years who are unemployed.

Westley Field

Westley is Director of Online Learning, Skoolaborate. He began his delivery by demonstrating an online delivery/facilitation by an avatar in Second Life (SL). Westley then Skyped his friend, Chris, who was the person behind the SL avatar.

Westley spoke briefly of the developments in online learning at MLC School. He spoke of how technology makes the routes to achievement more facile, and not just in learning but also in creating commercially useful objects, such as the Doritos commercial he showed us and that was made for $150 by a teenager using readily available equipment.

He encouraged that we should “try things new” – to “move forward with real action”. He spoke about personalised (online) learning. He spoke of how to get the attention of learners if they have computers in their hands. He spoke of how “knowledge”, and how to use it, takes on a new meaning with the developments in technology, Google and the Internet.

Westley talked about giving people experience in the use of technology – in particular giving young learners safe, ‘unblocked’ experience in technology use. He spoke of the technologies that can change learning, including the development of the e-book such as the Amazon Kindle.

He referred to the improved success by learners using online learning productively with other learning methods compared to those learners who are in the classroom without such technology.

Sandy Dougherty & Nathaniel Louwrens

Sandy and Nathaniel gave a presentation on their experiences in trialling Active Worlds. The study was to evaluate Active Worlds as a learning technology and also its suitability in a distance education setting.

They demonstrated a treasure hunt that had been built in the 3D environment of Active Worlds. Some of what they reported was about their own initial experiences in the 3D environment – some of the seeming ‘chaos’ perceived by people who are new to this technology – which later developed to a successful resolution.

Their intended focus was to be on working with learners collaboratively and how to get learners to work together. The reality was slightly different.

Sandy and Nathaniel found that young learners (years 7 to 10) learnt the technology skills for themselves very quickly, skills that the teachers had taken 2 terms to learn. They also reported that the learners preferred online (txt) chat rather than using the voice chat, though they were comfortable with the teacher using voice chat in instruction.

Sandy was careful to get useful (and fascinating) feedback from her learning group, to which she put a number of questions. Asked how they learnt, Sandy’s students gave a number of interesting answers, among which were ‘playing’ and ‘practicing’.

Asked if they needed a teacher there was met with a resounding, “YES”. The children preferred the teacher speaking to them rather than using the chat box. The common feeling expressed by learners was that the whole learning experience was “awesome!”

About the technology . . . learners felt that though it was a bit clunky, it was like playing a game that was really school. Navigation in commercial games technologies tend to be far more facile in comparison and the 3D renditions are often superior to what they experienced in Active Worlds.

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DAY THREE

Mike Hollings – Walking in Two Worlds

Mike spoke of the money poured into education and the efforts that are not actually achieving learning. He cited Cisco’s The Learning Society and stressed that the cost of education should be tax-efficient.

A successful education system has to be based on the principle that it is for everyone and must embrace ones personal culture while at the same time supporting innovation. He stressed that there was a need for a huge change in present systems. He cited Phillippe de Woot’s need for societal educational metamorphosis and referred, once again, to Allen Curnow’s Landfall into Unknown Seas:

“Simply by sailing in a new direction
You could enlarge the world.”

Mike spoke of leadership today and the huge diversity of theories that are based largely on western ideas. He asked of leadership, “what could we learn from other wisdom?”

He drew attention to how Māori people spend a lot of time ‘going back’ to their cultural places, communities and the related pursuits. The educational system in New Zealand does not acknowledge this cultural aspect as much as it does that of western cultures in activities such as music, opera, and dance.

Mike gave an overview of some of the wisdom from Māori leadership, and how it focussed on the needs of people and the resources they needed – the understanding of communities and their tribal/cultural boundaries. Māori leadership qualities are not necessarily accepted or respected in the wider community in New Zealand. Mike listed some of the elements of that leadership:

Manākitanga – hospitality
Rangitiratanga – weaving people together
Whanaungatanga – interdependence
Wairuatanga – spirituality
Kaitiakitanga – guardianship
Whakapapa – genealogical connections
Te Reo Rangatira – Māori language

Mike observed that community intellect is at risk when languages are lost. He also spoke of the worth of trust and the value of openness – that for trust to exist, intentions must be clearly understood and patently visible.

Mike summarised the thrust of his speech by saying “we cannot (always) rely on western systems”. He referred to the importance of locality in determining who we are and where we are at in New Zealand. He used lines from the poem Lost, by David Wagoner, to illustrate this:

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Jen McCutcheon and Viv White

This was a panel session introduced by Marcus Brown where Jen and Viv spoke freely of their vision of the Big Picture.

Jen gave a brief summary of the Big Picture process including some of the best practice used. There then followed a brief session of questions from Marcus and from the floor. Jen and Viv both spoke to the questions that were asked.

Brenda Frisk

Brenda summarised her vision of what she called “visual knowledge” and its place in 2010. She spoke of the need to reduce the barriers that may exist between people and their use of available technology, and also of the need that industry has to learn to manage technology. She posited that teenagers lose trust and respect for people in industry when they see that they do not have skills to use the technology effectively.

Brenda spoke of tacit knowledge, implicit knowledge and cultural knowledge and their use to the people employed in a company. She emphasised the need to have online portals for children to access at any time of the day.

She spoke of the frustrations that an organisation has in finding and in accessing data with technology and that there was a need to have technology built for people, not just for the technologists to use. Its property and function need to be relevant, evidential, contextual, credible and collaborative.

Brenda spoke of two important reports, the Horizon Report and Learning Powered by Technology, and summarised some of the key elements brought out in these. She then spoke further on visual knowledge and explained and demonstrated how 3D (stereoscopic) visualisation could give a better perspective in viewing machines and other structures in context.

Hine Waitere

Hine introduced herself from her tribal background, then spoke of ako, a pedagogical concept that encompasses both teaching and learning as parts of the same process. She illustrated how ako had been brought out in the Forum with reference to those presenters who had told of their experiences in learning (and teaching) during their presentations, and the stories they told.

She spoke of Māori carvings and tukutuku and how these also have stories to tell. They are different forms of literacies. Hine spoke of her appreciation of landscape but also recognised that there was much there she did not understand.

Hine read the story, Butterflies, by Patricia Grace, depicting ‘difference’ without a need for that difference to be fixed. She went to the heart of this idea by referring to how the grandfather did not correct the teacher, but simply explained where she was at.

She also illustrated how teachers have power and authority to direct ‘values’. She asked,

“What are the values that lie at the core of our (teaching) practice?”

She then talked about the tail of young learners who struggle with their ‘education’, listing the 5 Ds:

Deficit
Deprivation
Disadvantage
Difference
Diversity.

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