Posts by Melissa Schwalger
New hope for kids with change in leadership
The new government has a lot to do in the first 100 days, and education was an area in which it strongly campaigned. Chris Hipkins is up for the challenge writes Melissa Schwalger.
Read MorePay equity stories: Mel’s story
“I think people see us as just performing our natural womanly instinct to care and nurture. There is a common perception that ECE is not ‘proper teaching’; that it’s just glorified child minding. I get that reaction all the time to my job and it drives me crazy. I worked my butt off to educate myself on all that theory and pedagogy. But after four years and two degrees in a BA/BTeach I graduated into a marketplace that deemed me worth the same as a data entry operator or a mail room clerk.”
Read MorePay equity stories: Maryann’s story
“I love my job. I love seeing the children I work with achieve their goals and develop and grow. My goal is to see Support Staff and particularly TAs paid a fair wage for the work they do.”
Read MoreIn the footsteps of Beeby
In 1938, Dr Clarence Beeby brought his radical ideas about the value of the arts into the heart of our public education system. Art and Crafts and Physical Education Advisers were introduced that year under the new assistant Director of Education, with experimental programmes trialled in Wellington and Dunedin. Two years later, Beeby became the…
Read MoreIn the footsteps of Beeby
It’s only fair and proper, so to speak, to fund state schools fairly and properly. Why is that? Professor John O’Neill of Massey University investigates.
Read MoreGive peace a chance
Principals are great people managers. Good leaders have the support and trust of whānau and their working relationships with boards and staff are positive. But good relationships take time and effort, and it’s not unusual for overloaded leaders to miss the warning signs and suddenly find themselves in turmoil. No matter how dire the…
Read MoreEarly intervention: Yes please! But where’s the money?
Figures bandied about by officials suggest that a $30,000 investment in early intervention education will save the government around $150,000 down the track. Yet officials are also clear that there will be no new funding for the early intervention, and in fact the Ministry of Education may have less to spend. Last term, the ministry’s…
Read MorePORSE the winner in nanny intern programme
It looks like PORSE (owned by Evolve Education) is onto a real money-making winner with its nanny intern course. According to its media release and website, young women (they’re invariably women) aged 17-25 can do PORSE’s 21-week Nanny Intern Programme, at absolutely NO COST. Such an amazing deal – how do they do it? The…
Read MoreNgahere Tamariki – Children of the forest
A four-year-old girl scrambles to the top of a steep, slippery slope, her face flushed with triumph. Just 20 minutes earlier, she had been clinging to a tree root at the bottom of the hill, too scared to move. This sort of achievement is what bush kindergarten is all about. “Bush kindies” in various forms…
Read MoreFeeding childhood independence or parental fears?
This is a photo of my son on the very first day he was allowed to walk to school by himself. He was five-and-a-half years old and his excitement is obvious. As his mum, I was less thrilled. I watched the clock until about 9.15am, at which point I figured that the school would have…
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