Letters: Education system, healthy eating and gender oppression

Teachers on Queen St, central Auckland, marching during the national strike. Photo / Brett Phibbs

I don't think any other area has been so badly manipulated as our education system in the past few decades. Governments have bullied, cajoled and pushed their particular doctrine on to unaware schools, constantly changing expectations for teachers almost immediately. The worst changes, without consultation or trial, were by the Lange Government. Lange placed Brian Picot, a supermarket entrepreneur, to chair a task force to help form these changes. It became known as the Picot report.

Then came National and further changes without consulting schools. This involved closing most facilities for children with special needs and the allowance of parents to send to a school of their choice. All good, we hoped.

As teachers we accepted these changes and were assured the closing of special schools was not a cost-saving move and that money would be there for schools to use to support the classroom teacher. It didn't happen.

Teachers in the past 30 years have had little support to help with mainstreamed children who need it. The money has never been available to do this. Instead it has been a time-consuming job of filling out forms for each individual-needs child. Often it came down to how well you wrote your case, as you were competing with other schools for the little money available. Often, half a year would go by before hearing if your case was accepted.

I don't think there is a teacher in New Zealand who has not had a very difficult, sometimes unmanageable, child with special needs in their class. It is extremely disruptive, not only to her/his teaching, but to the learning of others. When support is provided, change and management become so much easier.

So, what should teachers be given? A very good salary, a teacher aide in every class, a counsellor at every school (recognising distraught children quickly) and fewer administrative tasks.

If we are serious about people's wellbeing, put money into our youth, schools, and watch the blossoms grow.

Emma Mackintosh, Birkenhead.

Uninsured life is good

With a degree of sardonic satisfaction I advise insurance companies that aggressively advertise their wares, but nevertheless declined my application for travel insurance due to age and pre-existing medical conditions, that I have returned from my six-week cruise safe and reasonably sound. Just in time, in fact, to attend the funeral of a younger friend who did not travel. The money set aside for premiums was spent on riotous living.

Peter Clapshaw, Remuera.

Letting rot set in

It's incredibly sad seeing children's teeth rot from the effects of fizzy drinks, which could be easily prevented with education, not necessarily a "sugar tax".

Our late dad was in the fresh-produce industry and read of an experiment of Helix High School outside San Diego, California. For nine years this school had the finest diet; it had salad bars in the 60s, a rarity here at the time, and rotated its vegetable meals constantly. In a State of 25 million, Helix athletes excelled in all sports and even mathematics contests.

They had the highest scholastic aptitude tests in the state. They won more scholarships to colleges than other high schools, and all this from a middle-class community. No special grace-and-favour community this one; just kids raised on the best diet.

Then the school food-service director retired, along with the principal, and the new dietician and head teacher changed attitudes to convenient fast foods. A lethal mix, it eventuated. The parents and children protested to no avail and many students relocated to other schools.

The following year, having been the stars for nine years, they won nothing. There was no recovery. Like rotting teeth, the damage was done. Dad was excited by the story but wanted to confirm it, so he visited them, and it was all true.

We can do the same here. Eliminate all junk food from the household and replace it with the right foods. "Fresh is best", so why not let Mother Nature do the cooking? Your kids, in time, will not only glow, but will love you for it; we certainly know now our health was our parents' priority.

Glenn Forsyth, Taupō.

Honours for wealthy, famous

The reasons behind the call for John Key's resignation as ANZ chairman by former BNZ chairman Kerry McDonald raise questions about New Zealand's honours system.

I am greatly in favour of honours being awarded to the many among us who give extraordinary service to the community with no expectation of recognition or recompense, and it disappoints me that when these people appear on the honours list, they tend to be at its lower end.

Many of the highest honours go to those who have achieved political, professional, commercial or sporting success, from which they have already reaped the benefits of wealth and fame.

When retired politicians, such as Key (and Jenny Shipley before him) take up lucrative chairmanships, then fail to live up to the responsibilities of their new roles, their behaviour could appear to some to be far from honourable.

I suggest that knighthoods and damehoods should only be offered to those whose primary motivation has been a desire to serve, and not to those whose service has been secondary to their quest for power, prestige or money.

Andrea Dawe, Sandringham.

Gender oppression

Why is it that the NZEI and PPTA teachers unions, journalists and politicians talk only in the reduced, rationalised economic language of "pay and working conditions", so easy for the hard-nosed to yawn at with the contempt of familiarity and the arrogance of certainty? Unions never name the rejection of teachers' pay claims as a massive state-sponsored form of gender oppression. This is a gender-equity issue the world is interested in, and is ignored by successive governments that wish to keep in place the misogynistic relationship they have with teachers — part of patriarchal capitalism relying on the unpaid caring labour of mostly women.

Teachers' description of their pay, given increasing hours of invisible work, is that it is below the minimum wage. It is high time the Government gave principals the mandate to farm out playground duty and road patrols to paid others (not women). It is time to follow Finland's examples and ditch many of the expensive assessments that make workloads oppressive and untenable, and for principals to take agency and move away from a master/slave relationship with the Education Ministry.

Janet E. Mansfield, Mount Eden.

Ankle-biting politics

Fran O'Sullivan's column (June 1) provides a balanced assessment of Simon Bridges' tactics and of the issues at stake. Bridges may think he is another Perry Mason and, despite the obvious skill deficit, the comparison is very true; the mythical Mason used psychological fallacies to beat up the other side. In the teaching of the ethics of debating, Mason has been used as an example of what not to do. While the accused and his/her supporting witnesses must tell the truth and nothing but, a cross-examining barrister's line of questioning can deliberately prevent witnesses from telling the whole truth. Further, they can smear the witness or cloud the issues with false assertions. Such is the case when Bridges talks of expenditure on "tanks" when in fact it is expenditure on aircraft, to replace those that have served us since 1966. Had National done what John Key promised on taking up office, they would have reversed the damage done by Helen Clark in closing down the RNZAF Strike Wing (the Defence component most relevant to the defence of a maritime nation). National needs to stop ankle-biting, put forward new ideas and keep its promises.

Hugh Webb, Hamilton.

Taking care of business

Fran O'Sullivan writes about the need for political parties to act in the "small n" national interest. As someone involved in a small business, I wonder if, in purporting to represent the views of business (big B), O'Sullivan herself falls short of reflecting the views of business (small b).

Glennys Adams, Oneroa.

Medical wait times

Another day, another sensational article highlighting a perceived shortcoming of the public health-care system. The Herald seems hell-bent on undermining confidence in a highly functional, though not perfect, public system and driving people to the private insurance-based sector, which ironically is partly responsible for the much-maligned wait times.

The doctors one might see quickly in the private system are usually the same doctors that would require a long wait to see in the public system. So why the difference? One under-appreciated reason is that doctors can make far more money in the private sector than the public. In the former, they are largely paid fee-for-service; the more patients they see and more procedures they do, the more they get paid. That leaves precious little time for work in the public sector where doctors are paid a fixed salary regardless of how productive they are. Instead of continual fear-mongering and the demonisation of clinicians who work as public servants, the Herald should explore in a fair and balanced way the reasons wait times in the public health system are unacceptably long.

Dr Arthur Nahill, Auckland.