Talking heads

(In response to “More pay to teach ‘gangsta’ students” – Dominion Post September 3, 2008)

Today I blog – 2 minutes – because amongst the talking heads last week was so little substance and so little intellectual depth.
It might be a soundbite world, but to what added value when leaders, including principals (Peter Gall), journalists (Lane Nichols),  Business New Zealand (Nicholas Green) comment on hearsay? Or in the case of Lane appear to (for the sake of a salacious story) deliberately mislead.
I was of course hoping that these people would all take the time to read the material they were commenting on? Yeah Right!
If a group of teachers seek to formulate policy for the organisation they belong to, and that organisation is democratic and in a transparent process publishes that
material to all members of the organisation for rigorous debate, you would hope commentators would read that material and seek clarification of anything they didn’t understand?
Phil O’Reilly reports a Business NZ survey that 71% of respondents say the education system was not meeting their needs.  I guess the role-modeling of leaders reported in the media who show complete disregard for reading and comprehension might be part of the problem.
 
Yours “Road to nowhere”