Updated: 21/10/2004; 11:13:14 a.m..
Small Schools New Zealand
Here in Upper Hutt, New Zealand, the Labour government planned to 'consolidate' our schools. This at a time when most of the research would seem to indicate that small schools are far better for pupils! These were my writings about this issue.
        

Wednesday, 12 November 2003

They are not empty classrooms!

I was at the Ministers presentation to Upper Hutt City last night. There were many people, with many good questions. The Minister started with a little Power Point presentation and then he tried to answer questions from the audience. I say "tried", as I don't think anyone was particularly happy with his answers. I will try to write up some of the points raised over the next few days, as I think they deserve discussion.

A teacher made one of the sweetest points. She said that the Ministry had it all wrong when it talked about empty classrooms as being wasted space. They are creative spaces, a teaching opportunity. Not wasted spaces!

She pointed out that having a one or two empty classrooms meant that they could be set aside for special projects, and that they could be used to help resolve the scheduling conflicts that sometimes occur at a school. A school without one or two spare classrooms is a school that has no slack, a school that can't occasionally spill over into larger spaces. A school with no empty classrooms is a school without creative space!

If you stop and think about it for a while, you realise that every school should have the luxury of having creative space!


9:16:09 PM    comments? []

© Copyright 2004 Martin Paulo.
 
November 2003
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30            
Oct   Dec



Categories


Links:


NZ Blogs I sometimes read



Click here to visit the Radio UserLand website.

Subscribe to "Small Schools New Zealand" in Radio UserLand.

Click to see the XML version of this web page.

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.