Tonight at Waikowhai Intermediate in my electorate Gifted Kids are holding a Sharing Night. It’s about showcasing the projects they have been working on and I’m looking forward to attending.
The goal of Gifted Kids is to let our talented and creative children, particularly those from low socio-economic communities, develop their talents, strengths and abilities to the full.
Way back in 1938, at the time of the First Labour Government, then Education Minister Peter Fraser gave a landmark speech. He said the Government’s role in education was to ensure all people, whatever their ability, wealth or place of residence, enjoy a free education to enable them to achieve to their highest potential.
That is or should be the on-going core principle governing our education system.
We want no-one to fall short of their potential because they come from a disadvantaged background. We want those who have gifts to be fully extended and to achieve excellence.
It’s about individuals being the best they can and the community collectively benefitting from what they can achieve.
Gifted Kids at present give 600 young people attending 150 mainly low income schools the opportunity to be challenged and to develop their skills to the maximum.
What I can’t understand is why in the last two years the National Government has halved the budget for Gifted and Talented Education as a whole and given no funding at all to the Gifted Kids Project since 2010.
When they are putting more money into private education for the most advantaged, where are their priorities?
“That is or should be the on-going core principle governing our education system.
We want no-one to fall short of their potential because they come from a disadvantaged background”
But we have a 20% long tail of failure and what is Labour’s approach. That’s right, keep doing what we have always been doing and lambast anybody else who has the temerity to actually suggest trying something different.
Sounds fantastic and is typical of events held up and down the country. Thanks for sharing this.
“One Track” – you obviously have no knowledge of the kiwi educ system – 20% is a myth created by National party spin. Can you prove otherwise?
Ok Rex, so tell us, what is the correct percentage of educational failure then?
Heather Roy introduced Aspire Scholarships in 2009 which has enabled dozens, if not hundreds, of lower socio econoic kids the chance to attend private schools. Surely that’s a good thing.
@Nick
What has scholarships got to do with gifted children and offering them opportunities? Do you know that if left gifted children often just drop out? Socially a lot do not fit in. For example, if a child is running around talking to children their own age about population growth, or how there is not tomorrows as when you get to tomorrow there is another tomorrow and tomorrow is now today, at the age of 5 1/2.
Or running around talking about the reason why leaves are green is because of Chlorophyll in them and that mixes water, sunlight and carbon dioxide to make oxygen for us and food for the plant/tree, they are not going to fit in regardless of if they are a public or private school. What about the wonderful imagination and ideas they have.
Until you have been woken up at 2am with the random thoughts of a 5 year old on why there is still sunlight at night (bounces off the moon) therefore he can get up and watch a dvd, or the questions that have no answer like, why is our sun called a sun and not a star or why aren’t all stars called suns, if they are the same, why do they have different names, then I don’t think that you will realise that private schools are not the answer.
Socially these children can be isolated due to their thinking and reasoning. It isn’t just about academics (nor do I think that academics is any better at a private school) Being around others that think deeply like they do and who want to delve into topics in greater detail than what classes offer, is what they need more. Every child needs somewhere where their ideas and thoughts are accepted, and they are not laughed at or made fun of. Socially accepted is extremely important. Also the so called ‘tail’ has gifted kids that have dropped out as they didn’t fit in so never reached their full potential or completed NCEA.
The bad news for Gifted and Talented Kids is that an ordinary classroom dedicated to passing National Standards, has fewer opportunities to cater for the bright or the very slow.
And One Track the whole population has 20% who are well below average. There will always be 20% who are the equivalent well above average and the will always be 50% around average. That is what %ages mean. The 20% that National use is meaningless unless you include the numbers in your 20% who are Gifted and Talented but opt out of the Test Crazy Narrow focused system, or the kids who are abused, or hungry, or the “wrong” colour.
Agree with the point totally phil….These children should form the sharp end of the innovation and creativity that used to characterise New Zealanders around the world….
I long for the day when this sort of issue becomes “mainstream” as a topic of debate….Maybe then we won’t have people who left school at 14 having wider vocabularies than most university qualified people, have mathematical, and visualisation skills greater than the people who employ them as labourers, painters, welders, fitters, and carpenters…
Although a lot of those career paths are insecure for these people simply because of the difficulty in communication continuously at a level that doesn’t unsettle people around them…
If one was to look through the statistics regarding people who have developed patterns of not sticking to any one trade, or job for long periods, then It wouldn’t surprise to be unearthing large numbers of those who “fell through the cracks” as children and teenagers….
Sad to see that those who would prefer the traditional scapegoating methods of “dealing” with this can only resort to transference, and irrelevancy as their model for discussion… It’s a bit one tracked, but all we’ve learnt to expect…..
I think the latest bout of nostalgic stupidity(code for electing national governments) has made the identifying, and nurturing of the bright kids we still have a vital step in the recovery…
Peter Fraser did not see the Government’s role in education as promoting grade inflation, credential creep, crippling loans, and savage taxation. He did not see the education system as a giant employment scheme for feather bedded teachers.
“he did not see the education system as a giant employment scheme for feather bedded teachers”…. No he didn’t… Nor did he have any obvious obsessions with maintaining ingnorant prejudice at the price of rational thought, planning, and reasonable debate…..
Those of us out here in the real world prefer to focus on the REAL issues, not labeling any group that represents an impediment to the stripping away of support for the poor, and vulnerable, as “self interested, pampered, special interest groups….
Sadly, that seems about all our tory clique is capable of doing…. Which only works at all as a political tool as long as the logic behind this tactic is protected from scrutiny by our “esteemed, and ethical” fourth estate ….
The minute this idiocy is examined using realistic measures, it will be consigned to the rubbish tip… Where it should have been heaved decades ago….
It seems we have a way to go yet before nz society grows out of it’s adolescent phase… Assuming we survive repeated doses of backward looking reactionary stupidity inflicted on any progress made in the “growing up” process…
To do that, we need to stop running back to “nanny national” govts who promise to protect us from reality, while busily stripping as much money out as they can before enough people realise that “oh no, we’re back in the doo doo again”….and give the labour party the unenviable job of having to, once more, try to deal with the fallout from the last national govts utter incompetence, and duplicity…
Hi Phil
!!!! What the government is doing sucks! 
!!!!!!!