Teacher unions attack charter schools

7/08/2012 10:56:47 a.m.

smithy wrote:

@Mike, You a teacher, good luck being in a classroom. get in teh real world, would you let a builder build your house with no qualification, No had that problem, leaky buildings, would you let a plumber install an overn no. you need skills and qualifications to do certain jobs. And as for bringing in CHCH in your argument, it is just a way for the Govet to save money and not provide for those who have lost.

5/08/2012 8:53:43 p.m.

NC wrote:

"A retired professor of mathematics could go in and teach maths and physics at the school across the road from where he lives," he said. What a ridiculous statement. Because teaching high school maths is exactly the same as lecturing at a university?! The content knowledge might be there, but the skills to teach that content to teenagers might not, and that is a huge risk. Behaviour management and all the associated research, techniques, ethics, and other considerations is arguably one of the most important skills a teacher learns when they are training. You can't teach squat if the kids aren't listening/engaged. It is insulting to realize that the powers that be think that an untrained teacher will have the same if not better skill set, content knowledge, teaching theory, rapport with kids etc etc than me or any other trained teacher. I fully accept that there are very capable untrained adults out there, but is that a risk the govt is willing to make? People will say that all the teachers are just being too defensive, but try doing this to any other profession and see how ridiculous and insulting it is. Nurses, engineers, police, pilots, etc - should we start introducing untrained people in these professions?

5/08/2012 3:41:58 a.m.

marcus wrote:

This is an attempt by the government to deunionise the education system in NZ and will only force good quality teachers into offshore teaching positions.Sadly our children will suffer as a result and as a whole NZ will suffer as the inadquacies of these unqualified teachers will become exposed.Furthermore what is to prevent paedophiles applying for positions especially considering this will be based solely around the wages paid,not that National and ACT would care,after all these teachers will only be going into poorer schools.A footnote to this is even private schools in Epsom get government funding now so they too should have these teachers,if not cut their funding and base it on a user pays system.Bet you if they put these teachers into Epsom all hell would break loose for both parties and they'd back off smartly.