(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

Okay, now that the, ahem, "riot" at the Canty rally has been mentioned all over the place including TVOne last night, Hard News and That Waste of Time occasionally known as David Farrar (I went through it to get to some photos where, in fact, if you're very clever you will be able to see myself and sixth_light although only if you know exactly what we were wearing. :P) Anyway, I feel that since it's been mentioned by all these people who, you know, weren't actually there, I am maybe more qualified to actually say something about it.

Firstly: I am among the crowds who feel kind of annoyed that Helen didn't stay very long and there was no opportunity to ask questions and so forth. On the other hand, I am a heck of a lot more sympathetic than most seem to be and I will add: I was actually there. Also, all that "aggression" and supposed near-rioting there... it was only really in the front metre or two; I mean, it was there, but I don't think anyone- even Helen- was in any physical danger at any point, and the further you were back in the crowd- like three metres like me and sixth_light and thinkaholic were- the more peaceful (and pro-Helen) the crowd was. I really do think that it was a smaller group of Nats who were just more noisy and aggro than a mostly red crowd.

We were quite close to the front and did manage to see a couple of glimpses of Helen- but the view was mostly obscured by a small group of rowdies with signs. This pissed me off and will continue to do so because I actually saw this group arrive: they'd come in a group, they'd got signs and they were clearly planning on doing exactly what they did do- be generally threatening and aggressive, along with causing the speech to be cut short (Fuck you very much, retards.) But beyond their attitude, and their being a pain in the ass for those of us who were there to actually listen to the speech- which we couldn't do. Ultimately, actually, if she'd left at 1.15 or two minutes after she'd begun, I- about five metres away- would have heard basically the same amount, which was zip, because of the losers who set themselves up to be pains. Beyond them being a pain for everyone else- I am quite frankly disgusted at the nature of the signs they were carrying. There were some perfectly peacable blue "Vote National" signs- no problem with them although they did meanI couldn't see. Even "I acheeved wif NCEA" was okay- although it was fucking rude to dyslexics (a lot of the letters were back to front) and simply served to demonstrate that, forget NCEA, whoever wrote that sign seemed to have failed out of primary school. But "Y R U so ugly"? I could have hit the guy carrying that without compunction.

I'm sorry, I think it's below the belt. Would anyone with any sense of human decency go up to someone in the street, to a stranger, a loved one, who-the-fuck-ever, and say "Why are you so ugly"? Why is Helen up for insult in this way? No-one tells Rodney Hide he's a fat, ugly bastard (or I don't, and I would not be impressed with Labour supporters who did) As Lucy said at the time, it's representative of the idea that men can be ugly but women in the workplace must be pretty and that whole archaic attitude. Someone's probably going to tell me it's all PC crap, but in my not very fucking humble at all opinion: insulting someone on the basis of their looks is about as barbaric and acceptable as insulting someone because of their skin colour or sexuality, and it is not okay. Interestingly it's the voters for those parties who want us all to stop being so "nancy" (sorry, consideration for others' feelings is a bad thing now?) and PC and whatever who are the ones holding these signs.

Assholes.

Anyway, this is just me registering my contempt and anger with them. Yeah.

Also? She was born that way. They don't have that excuse for their asshattery.

Comments

[aim-toothpaste.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Would anyone with any sense of human decency go up to someone in the street, to a stranger, a loved one, who-the-fuck-ever, and say "Why are you so ugly"?

It's absolutely ridiculous because Don Brash is hardly a sex God (shudder) but Helen Clark gets the shit about her teeth being crooked or the fact that she's a strong female bringing NZ forward in the world without sacrificing our morals.

For some reason, unattractive men are 'good capable leaders' but unattractive women are 'dogs' or 'ugly bitches'.
I hate politics so much right now.

Also, NCEA's pretty damn harsh on spelling and grammar. I've been marked down because of structural stuff in English and because I mispelt names and places in Classics.
People seem to forget that 1) National invented NCEA and 2) School C was a hell of a lot worse but the problems were disguised.

/rant.

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

Overall the work in Level 3 is a lot easier than it was under Bursary. I think the only exceptions are Physics *mutter mutter* and Biology. The Physics exam is a lot longer now because they added explaining questions, and apparently a lot of Bio teachers have had to cut out core skills that aren't assessed because the assessed work is so hard and there's so much of it. In any case, I'm doing physics, chem, english, french and calculus, and chemistry, english and calculus are all FAR easier than they used to be. French isn't easier so much as being a fuckload less comprehensive.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Did you actually sit any subjects under Bursary (I know you did under School C... did you honestly feel, even sitting it a year ahead which usually make stuff tougher, that School C was dramatically harder than Level 1? I know I didn't. In fact in many ways I found it easier on account of having less hoops to jump through.)? Because I didn't, but sixth_light sat both French and Latin- traditionally an extremely tough subject- under Bursary and assures me that in terms of work done there's vry little difference between the two, that the difference lies in assessment, and that that's a good thing.

I mean, for me anything in which exams count for more is a tough system because I don't work well in an exam situation- I tend to do far better under internal assessment, and this is apparently true of girls in general. Boys in general tend to do better under exams, and cramming at the end of the year, so for them, exams are easier. IMO making the percentage of the two more equal is a good thing, not a bad one; along with the things that really cannot be assessed externally, like lab competence and research projects in the Sciences and History/English respectively.

I'm also failing to get whether you think thigns should be easier, harder, or the same under NCEA as they were under Bursary. NCEA is flawed- but so was Bursary, with things like Bio generally being considered a cruisy subject and in Physics students memorising and regurgitating formulae without understanding principles. Don't get me wrong, I hated the explaining questions as much as any student but I do think it's important that they are in there, I think that's a really important part of any physics curriculum. Unfortunately, it is going to make Physics harder as it's implemented into the curriculum where it hasn't been before- but just because changing stuff is hard (hey, three-year guinea pig here) doesn't mean it doesn't sometimes need to be changed, which is why implementing NCEA was always going to be hard and why I, personally, am very angry at the way the whole nation has reacted to NCEA- which is the wrong ways. Mostly it's been reactionary "Oh NCEA is easier/harder/better assessed/worse assessed than Bursary." Which shouldn't be our reaction- our reaction is what are the problems with it? Why is it being harder or easier automatically a bad thing (is it supposed to be hard to learn? Is it supposed to be easy to learn?) Was Bursary actually a good system? Why is implementing NCEA hard? How should we implement it- this is the one they really seriously got wrong. It was put through too fast. Also, seriously, Level 2 is SO much better than Sixth Form Cert.

Also, I'd be interested to hear why you think Calc was harder under Bursary (no idea about chemistry, didn't sit it) and also English... oh,but if the English thing is about the whole writing six essays under Bursary as opposed to three under NCEA: I'm glad I didn't have to write six essays in three hours, because they would have been shite- and I am a good essay writer, it's one of the few things I am actually comfortable doing in exams. Hey, give me the right topic and I'll even enjoy it- but six in three hours (plus comprehension??) NO WAY. Not a good method of assessment, IMO.

I know I seem to have gone slightly OTT on your ass but... I really resent this notion that NCEA has somehow devalued my education. NCEA has flaws and problems but it is an assessment system, not an education system, and in many ways it represents a significant improvement on Bursary. The reason it's being compared to Bursary is that Bursary was the status quo and no-one likes a change in the status quo- but sometimes it's needful! But everyone constantly saying that NCEA is so much "easier" than Bursary, especially without giving reasons why, pisses me off: I am now at university and doing perfectly well, thanks ever so, with my NCEA- and so is nearly everyone else I know who sat this terrible system and who must therefore have come out with a substandard Certificate.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Shite, that's a long comment. o.O I didn't know I had so much to say!

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

Let's see. Teachers opinions, nearly all our practise work comes from Bursary papers... Calculus and Chemistry are packed with questions that basically everyone but Mrs Francis acknowledges are way harder than anything we'd ever see in NCEA. Our Differentiation assignment's excellence questions were 5-point Bursary questions which somebody's out of school maths tutor said are actually a lot harder than level 3 excellence. Some of the old organic chemistry work is about complicated molecules that are Scholarship level now. Mrs Campion told us today that the English exam is definitely less demanding than it used to be, except that it requires us to go into more minute detail. The comprehension papers we've done for Scholarship in English are from Bursary and they're not exactly harder but have a totally different approach that we've never learnt to cope with so they're pretty impossible for us. There's more internal work now though because of research. We've done listening exercises from old French papers and there used to be so many more skills tested - you had to to dictations, and some of the listening questions were answered in French. Mr Savage constatntly tells us that the old Physics papers didn't go past the new Achieved level. And you only had two or three pages on each topic instead of eight or ten. Which means they were easier to do without actually understanding, so yes it's probably better that you need to explain things now. I don't think it should be easier or harder, I think it should be fair and realistic and the teachers should be honest with us about what we do and don't need to know. The exception is second languages - I think NZQA treats them like a copout subject instead of something useful. The standard should definitely be higher for being able to actually USE the language, isntead of just being able to give speeches and memorise sentences to put in an essay.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I don't think it should be easier or harder, I think it should be fair and realistic and the teachers should be honest with us about what we do and don't need to know.

I agree. But how does NCEA fail to provide this, and how did Bursary succeed? And how did Bursary fail, and how does NCEA succeed? Because they both did both.

Also re English: I agree that writing three essays and a comp instead of six essays and a comp is way less demanding. But this shift back towards close reading- which is the detailed analysis- is part of a global trend in literary scholarship over the past twenty or so years. It possibly would have happened under Bursary anyway- but in a way, isn't this just doing the same thing to a higher standard but less of it?

PS: don't want to feel like I'm attacking you just because I'm disagreeing strongly... I still love you? :D

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

:D




*yawn* Bedtime.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

Interesting about Chemistry, because I felt that the Bursary practice papers were much, much easier than NCEA, and the results for last year's exams bore that out - the Chemistry NCEA exam was _hard_. Maybe they've eased up too much on the sciences this year.

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

I'm probably finding it easier because the NCEA workbooks and scholarship problems and things on organics are mostly familiar molecules except for the proteins, while the bursary practise papers had a lot of unfamiliar molecules but with functional groups we've learnt about. Which is pretty daunting because they're so BIG! I think the bursary questions had a tendency to be more obscure. Shorter, but less obvious.

[blademistress.livejournal.com]

I think that at NCEA's very heart and soul it was a good principle: break a subject into individual areas and assess them so that workers, teachers and students have a better understanding of their strengths and flaws. They totally fucked up the implementation, for sure, but at its core it's not a bad thing.

Which shouldn't be our reaction- our reaction is what are the problems with it? Why is it being harder or easier automatically a bad thing (is it supposed to be hard to learn? Is it supposed to be easy to learn?) Was Bursary actually a good system? Why is implementing NCEA hard? How should we implement it- this is the one they really seriously got wrong. It was put through too fast. Also, seriously, Level 2 is SO much better than Sixth Form Cert.

Totally with you on the Level 2 vs Sixth form cert. OMG the pain! That system was just fucked in the head. I took it for maths and computer studies, and was belatedly told in maths that unless I had merits in level 1 I was going to have a very hard time.

Though I do think there is a fundemental flaw in NCEA, and that's the assessing. My principal was a major NCEA supporter, and he sent in a letter to the Herald bashing the McLeans principal, in which he said that NCEA was better because it removed the guess work and down-to-teacher aspect of the marking, which is frankly bullshit. If anything it was worse. Those explain questions were Satan in disguise - not because we have to explain, but the guide lines given made it so flip floppy as to whether you should get the marks. Because *everything* is assessed that way there's no real way to avoid it.

My brother is currently going through the system now, and they have made some changes apparently. For one he can pass a unit standard with just a high mark, not a 100% which annoys me, as I would have got a half dozen more credits at least then. As my teachers kept saying - it's not new material, just a differenet way of assessing, so the learning really shouldn't be any 'harder'. If it is then something is wrong.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I agree- I hated going through being the first class to sit NCEA for three years in a row because I just felt like all the unsolved problems with NCEA we were being hit with, and it sucked- I know they've made some real changes to it which kind of improve it. I also wish that Parliament as a whole would agree to work on it, instead of point-scoring over the debacle- I can't really support anyone's stand on it (National designed and began implementing it, Labour put a bit of effort into denying there was really a problem at all) & I just wish everyone would agree that no-one wants NCEA to suck and everyone wants to improve it because, you know, assessment is important.

but... I do agree with a lot of the philosophy of NCEA
... so many of the people who are criticising it? HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE what it's about. I've had to deal with several people telling me that "it's all internal! There are no real exams! So the schools can mark it and there's no consistent standard liek omg the horrors!!11!!Cambridge!11!" And I'm just, you know, if you want to criticise be my guest but actually know what you're talking about. & I really don't feel that comparison with Bursary is all that useful.

And yeah. the assessment? SO CRAP. I hate that A is like 45-60, Merit is supposed to be variously between 60-80, 60-65, and 60-95 in some subjects, and then E is like... whatever's leftover. There needs to be some stuff in between there. Mmph.

[blademistress.livejournal.com]

I don't think they'll ever manage to really fix it. I once tried to hand over my "record of learning" at a job interview. Fucking joke. There was so much useless information, and for them to actually know about my results I'd have to go with them through each part and explain how no, that assessment was really damn easy, everyone got Excellence, but that I should be really proud of my Merit there. Always fun to tell the parents your results. "I got an A!" "So?" "Everyone else failed!" "So? I don't care about everyone else." "..."

Yesssss. The Cambridge thing is a nightmare to explain. THEY WERE UNIT STANDARDS OMG SHUT UP. Talking about it is like an interactive *facepalm*.

Some of my teachers gave us "Achieved Plus" and stuff, which was helpful to us for knowing where we were. Trying to explain that an A ranged from anywhere from 35-70 was sooo fun. It was always a great lark when you actually worked on something and another bastard handed in a frantically scribbled piece of shit and you both got achieved.

*laughs* nevertheless I still get the overwhelming urge to attack the ACT "Scrap the NCEA" billboards.

Or maybe that's just an ACT reaction...

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Right on. :D