I may be wrong but . . . .

First, thanks for all the encouraging comments by readers of this blog, especially in relation to the National Standards debate. This will probably be my final post on this issue (unless the debate moves to newer ground or a higher level – not expected any time soon). I’m not a teacher and have no great axe to grind, apart from a strengthening opinion. But I am seeing some interesting facets regarding human nature, people and politics which the debate is bringing to the surface.

Increasingly in recent years I’ve found myself mulling over the characteristics that make people tick. What makes people react in such different ways to events and opinions? In the case of National’s current contentious education policy, why are the two sides so adamant they are right? What’s driving the thought processes?

I think it’s best viewed in terms of some good old dichotomies. The traditional ones are left-wing and right-wing, economically wet or dry, socialist versus capitalist.

I interpret so much of human behaviour and reaction to events in terms of the type of spirit imbuing the people concerned. Often I see them as being fundamentally either generous-spirited or mean-spirited. In the same way, I assess people I interact with as negative or positive people, punitive or forgiving.

In relation to national standards, I think a similar polarity is in action. There are those who believe the best way to get improved performance, behaviour or whatever desired achievement out of anyone (employees, families, pupils) is to encourage, foster and work co-operatively with them. And on the other hand there are those who believe the best method to get results out of people is to point fingers, make them feel bad or inadequate, and trust that this will make them ‘pull up their socks’.

Those who naturally find themselves in the former group are characterised and labelled as “wishy washy liberals, touchy-feely, hand-wringing, angst-ridden (and, yes, tree-hugging often) soft touches” by those who subscribe to the latter view.

Anne Tolley and her (often) middle and upper class following are clearly in the “pull your socks up” brigade. Normally I would have thought that John Key was not, but sadly he has aligned himself with her on this issue, so in my opinion he has slipped a couple of respect pegs.

In this national standards debate, there is clearly a drive by the government and its followers to use name-and-shame as a threat to teachers, principals and schools to work harder (with the same resources) and toe the line. The threat indirectly carries through to the pupils as well. “We know lots of you are not achieving well enough; soon we’ll know exactly who you are so we can apply pressure for improvements through your teachers and schools.”

We can tell this by the fact that, as I’ve argued in my previous post, the government has no logical course of action planned for post-standards times. There’s very little extra money to actually do anything to help teachers lift their abilities, and no significant programmes in place to help kids identified as “failures” (or “non-achievers”).

It’s like the US’s preparation to invade Iraq – the plan and equipment was there to go in and throw their weight around, but then no idea how to manage the invaded country apart from defending themselves from the people they had violated.

Tolley and her supporters believe pointing the finger and exposing poor performance will do the trick and cause standards to lift as a result of compliant pupils wanting to avoid the shame. The other half of us are wired to believe that you best achieve the desired results by working co-operatively and with generosity of spirit and, above all, encouragement rather than shaming, to help our young people learn.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Education, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.