Category Archives: NZ Media

By day a teacher … by night a prostitute

Posted on by

Another reason for Home Educating our children:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10533330

By day a teacher … by night a prostitute

4:00AM Sunday Sep 21, 2008
Rachel Grunwell

Photo / Herald on Sunday

Photo / Herald on Sunday

An Auckland primary school teacher is moonlighting as a prostitute, throwing her school bosses into a quandary over her future.

The woman, a mother of two children in her 30s, is new to teaching and moonlights as a prostitute to boost her income.

The Herald on Sunday understands her principal was alerted to the situation by a student’s parent.

It is understood the principal is now in a dilemma – prostitution is legal, but he is worried about the reaction of other parents and students if they find out about the teacher – and has referred the matter to the school’s board of trustees.

The board will meet in committee shortly to debate whether it should ignore the issue, discipline the teacher or refer the matter to the Teachers’ Council to judge.

The matter was raised at a recent Law Society seminar.

The teacher has apparently defended her situation to her principal, saying that what she did in her own time was of no concern to him, that it was a private matter, and that prostitution was now lawful and legitimate work. She told him her moonlighting job was not affecting her performance as a teacher.

She apparently told the principal he had no right to be the “moral police”.

A source said the woman was considered to be a “good teacher”.

Employment lawyer John Hannan said he had heard about the case and believed it was still unresolved.

He said schools could have policies to prevent teachers taking secondary jobs, or make sure that they first sought approval from their board.

But even if the board in this case did not have such policies, he believed it could still ask the teacher to quit prostitution and if she refused, it could threaten dismissal.

“It’s a case of whether the outside employment is regarded as incompatible with the role of a teacher in terms of role-modelling and in terms of any policies that the board of trustees might have in place,” he said.

Another employment lawyer, Patrick Walsh, who also knew of the case, said an issue like this had not been before the Teachers’ Council so there would be no precedent for boards to follow.

He said the council could end up being involved if the school deemed the teacher’s second job was “conduct that brings discredit to the profession”.

Teachers’ Council director Dr Peter Lind said the key issue was whether the teacher’s second job was having an impact on her professional teaching duties “and there would have to be actual evidence”.

He said principals and boards generally tried to resolve issues first. If problems escalated and remained unresolved then the Teachers’ Council could be notified.

Prostitutes Collective national co-ordinator Catherine Healy said she knew of several teachers who worked in second jobs as prostitutes and they had every right to do so.

“There is no incompatibility between a woman who’s a teacher and who works as a sex worker,” she said. “I can’t imagine what the problem would be.”

She said if the school board needed questions answered about the industry, or advice, members were welcome to call her.

According to the primary and intermediate teachers’ union, the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), the pay scale for primary teachers is generally between $42,600 and $66,000. Experienced teachers who took on increased responsibility could earn more on top of their basic salary.

Two years ago, an Auckland policewoman got into trouble with her employers after it was revealed she was moonlighting as a sex-worker at a top massage parlour.

She earned up to $500 a night working in the parlour, on top of taking home at least $43,000 a year as an officer.

Police bosses said at the time the secondary employment would never have been approved because that kind of work was seen to be inappropriate and incompatible with policing.

An investigation was carried out and the woman was able to keep her job in the police.

Never too late to learn to read

Posted on by

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4685740a11.html

Never too late to learn to read

Graham Tumai, 59, read his first book this month.

BIG STEP: Graham Tumai, 59, read his first book this month. It was a book about the humble sausage, but it was a big step for the Hellers sausage-maker.

It was a book about the humble sausage, but it was a big step for the Hellers sausage-maker.

The Christchurch man joined his company’s work-based literacy scheme just five months ago, unable to read or write even the most basic words.

After an hour a week of class, and plenty of dedication to his homework, he can now read and write, and is learning maths.

“To me, it’s done me the world of good. I feel I have achieved out of it,” the grandfather of six said.

As a child, Tumai missed a lot of school.

“I was always thinking about what would happen when I got home, rather than doing schoolwork. I never realised it was that important,” he said.

“I was expelled at nine or 10 and, from then on, I never really bothered with anything.”

That lack of education meant Tumai could not sign his name until he was 25. Being illiterate was embarrassing, he said.

“For me, anything that anybody gave me I was embarrassed, like, give me a pen and fill this out.”

Tumai believed he was the only one with a problem until the literacy programme opened his eyes to how many other adults were also struggling.

“I used to tell people ‘I’m not good on reading’ and catch their eye to see what they think.”

Tumai used to avoid helping his grandchildren with homework, but now likes to be involved.

He and his eight-year-old granddaughter worked on his reading together, and the whole family joined in dice games to help him practise maths.

“I’m achieving one thing at a time and I’m getting there,” Tumai said.

Hagley Adult Literacy Centre head tutor workplace Sue Vallance said working with people such as Tumai was “humbling”.

His was a case of missed opportunities, as he was a quick learner and enthusiastic student, she said.

“It’s people like him we need more of in the world, because they will go out and say `I have a difficulty’, and the stigma is going, because they all think they are alone.”

Yesterday was International Literacy Day. Research from 2006 found that about 1.1 million New Zealanders 43 per cent of adults aged 16 to 65 have literacy skills below those needed to participate fully in a knowledge society.

Craig’s response as a Letter to the Editor:

Editor

Manawatu Standard

Palmerston North

How heartwarming that Graham Tumai of Christchurch has learned to read at age 59. But how disgraceful that the compulsory school system not only failed in its stated mission toward Mr Tumai, but that even today, “1.1 million New Zealanders, 43 per cent of adults aged 16 to 65, have literacy skills below those needed to participate fully in a knowledge society.” The compulsory, secular state schooling system has been going for 130 years. That seems long enough to figure out how to teach reading. And yet the system, despite the many fully dedicated teachers within it, now produces masses of near-illiterates. And that is on top of record levels of bullying, drug abuse and pornography.

The school system is a fraud. Although the law requires children to attend schools, neither the Ministry of Education nor the schools nor the teachers are held responsible when the system produces illiterates. This fraudulent system has deceived most parents into thinking their children’s education is in good hands when in fact it is unsafe educationally, physically, toxicologically and morally. Get out of it. Teach your children yourself at home.

Craig S. Smith

National Director

Home Education Foundation

www.hef.org.nz

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/NewZealand/

Test of Democracy In Parliament Today

Posted on by

MEDIA RELEASE

27 August 2008

Test of Democracy In Parliament Today

Family First NZ says that there will be a test in Parliament today of whether NZ is a democracy that represents the voice of New Zealanders.

Independent MP Gordon Copeland is seeking the leave of the House for a debate on a motion that the House recommends to the Government that that anti-smacking referendum be held at the same time as the General Election. (Under section 22AA (5) of the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993, a Referendum can be scheduled for polling day if the “House of Representatives passes a resolution requiring the indicative referendum to be held on the polling day for the general election.” A postal vote can also close on Election day.)

“That is an ordinary 50% majority vote in the House,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “We are therefore calling on all politicians to acknowledge the voice of 310,000 signatories to the petition and require that the Referendum be held at the most obvious and effective time of the upcoming election.”

In a recent online poll by TVNZ, 81% of the 4624 voters said that the referendum should be held at the same time as the election.

“The excuses presented in the Cabinet briefing paper simply don’t stack up,” says Mr McCoskrie. “The paper acknowledges that better organisation such as separate ballot boxes and colour coding would solve many of the problems experienced in 1999.”

“It is also an insult to voters to suggest that voters would be confused by an extra question in the ballot box. Voters have been able to grasp the far more difficult MMP voting process,”

Family First NZ is also disappointed that the Deputy Prime Minister Dr Michael Cullen yesterday refused to allow acknowledgement of the huge effort put in by organisers of the two petitions on this issue which obtained more than 600,000 signatures. (The second petition fell just short of the required numbers).

“Democracy is defined as being where the people have a voice through their elected representatives. Today will be a test of whether we do live in a democracy,” says Mr McCoskrie.

ENDS

For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

Bob McCoskrie JP – National Director

Tel. 09 261 2426 | Mob. 027 55 555 42

Parents to get truancy reminders

Posted on by

ttp://www.stuff.co.nz/nelsonmail/4666609a6007.html

Parents to get truancy reminders

By MARCUS STICKLEY – Nelson | Monday, 25 August 2008

Parents could soon start being prosecuted for taking their children out of school for a holiday, a Nelson principal says.

Primary schools have been reinforcing attendance rules with parents after receiving reminders from the Education Ministry to do so.

Under the Education Act, every pupil enrolled at a registered school must attend the school whenever it is open. Ministry guidelines say it is up to principals to decide whether an absence is justified.

Parents can be prosecuted for not sending their children to school, and fines of $15 a day – up to $150 for a first offence – can be imposed if they are convicted.

Hampden St School principal Don McLean said that for a school to prosecute a parent for taking their child away on holiday would be a “bold thing to do, but maybe it’s not too far away”.

In his school newsletter in May, he told parents that the ministry was taking a “tougher line on attendance and have clearly defined what a justifiable absence is and what truancy is”.

“Some of you may be surprised to hear that if you take your child on an overseas trip in school time, this is considered an unjustified absence and therefore your children are recorded as truant.”

Similarly, a week-long ski trip during school time would also be unjustified, he said in the newsletter.

Mr McLean told the Nelson Mail the school kept a record of pupils who missed school due to family holidays, and he planned to “take parents aside” to discuss the issue if they did it regularly.

“We have to get tough on them.”

However, he said the rules were “one size fits all”, which he did not agree with.

If a pupil was travelling to a destination such as Europe, the cultural education they would get could be more valuable than what they would learn in the classroom in that time, he said.

Mr McLean said four children were currently away overseas, mostly for family reasons.

“There seems to be a lot at the moment.”

Hampden St School parent Andrew Meffan has taken his two children on week-long skiing holidays to Wanaka during the school term in previous years.

He said he planned to do the same next week, staying with members of his extended family in a house that was available to them only at certain times during the year.

“But we don’t want to be on the wrong side of the rules and have a truancy officer knock on our door.”

Mr Meffan said truancy rules needed to be targeted appropriately.

“There needs to be more of an evaluation of cases based on the student and family, and commitment to learning.”

St Paul’s Catholic Primary School principal John Dorman said he had received a letter from the ministry before the start of the school year, saying schools should not condone parents taking their children out of school for holidays.

Craig wrote this letter to the editor:

25 August 2008

Letter to Editor

Nelson Mail

Nelson

The idea of schools threatening parents with truancy notices for taking their children on holiday demonstrates one of the more obvious characteristics of state schooling institutions: that they are simply prisons or child warehouses, designed to baby-sit kids and keep them off the streets.

A holiday with the family, the MoE apparently informs the schools, is not a “justified” absence from school. So the MoE equates a geographical/cultural/social field trip with a child’s parents and siblings to hanging around the mall or sitting at home watching videos all day. The MoE demonstrates again its disconnection from the real world. Any formal notification by the parents that they are taking the child out of the schooling institution should be justification enough: the parents’ authority should trump that of the MoE any day.

Regards,

Why ‘cotton wool’ children face risk of mental problems

Posted on by

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23524947-details/Why+%27cotton+wool%27+children+face+risk+of+mental+problems/article.do

Why ‘cotton wool’ children face risk of mental problems
Evening Standard (UK) 2 August 08
Children do not learn how to cope with life’s setbacks because a ‘cotton wool’ culture stops them experiencing hardships, an education expert claimed yesterday. Sandy MacLean says there is a link between a rise in mental health problems and a culture of entitlement which promotes the belief that success and celebrity do not need effort and hard work. She said youngsters must experience adversity so they develop resilience, but are increasingly protected from life’s hard knocks. Miss MacLean, an adviser to teachers and lecturers on mental health problems among students, blamed a tendency to treat young people like infants who cannot handle responsibility. But this only encourages them to behave like infants, she said.

Society has become too focused on the feelings of the individual, meaning young people ‘think that they are the centre of the world and blow out of proportion any setbacks or challenges in life’, she added. ‘Young people are not fragile  –  they can be likened to springs or balls,’ she said. ‘People can bounce back psychologically after being knocked out of shape, just like in nature.’

Miss MacLean said mental illness is on the increase, with 11 per 08cent of the UK’s 16 to 24-year-olds having a major depressive disorder. One in ten children between the ages of five and 16 is said to have a ‘clinically recognisable’ mental disorder. And there is evidence from the Institute of Psychiatry that the number of teenagers with emotional and behavioural problems doubled between 1974 and 1999.

Miss MacLean told the Times Educational Supplement that part of the problem is a culture of entitlement which vaunts instant success, increases self-obsession and undermines resilience. She also called for a fundamental change in attitudes towards feelings of negativity. ‘People are frightened of negative emotions,’ she said. ‘This encourages them to try to suppress their emotions. Paradoxically, research shows this causes more of the negative sensations they didn’t want. ‘People think bad feelings don’t have a purpose, that feelings such as guilt, shame and frustration are only negative  –  but research shows such sensations can galvanise us to do things differently. We need them to succeed.’
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23524947-details/Why+%27cotton+wool%27+children+face+risk+of+mental+problems/article.do