First Day

In 1989 after 20 hectic months working in the Beehive as an education aide I needed a holiday. I took Anne to Italy where she had never been before for what basically was an art tour. Christmas we spent in a hotel high on the hills overlooking Lake Como – blue sky except for the spreading of jet trails, below the rippling lake and in the distant north the snow-clad Alps. Not far away was the spot were Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were executed. The subsequent display of their strung-up bodies in Milan service station pictured frequently at the end of the war. Obviously such was the strong reaction from my adults that the image was fixed in my mind. The event signaled to them that the European war was over and that justice had triumphed – a good ending for a modern morality play. So not surprisingly I used the image in a poem.

FIRST DAY

In winning their war my adults counselled certitude,
though perilous the outcome from those massive fieldguns
until strung up to view was a mistress & her Mussolini.

My stepfather, who'd slogged from Cairo to Trieste
swore fluent, & rolled his own only as a soldier could & should
& his wife, my mother,
anxiously signed me up for the third form.

Being small -
35 the roll -
'your son won't come to any harm',
& “Sticky”Arnold strolled out to the clustered strangers
suggesting they leave untouched this uncounted one.

Despite my plea(s),
they gave me the neglect of a horse trough dribble,
the other new boys received a headfirst dunking
in front of the admiring girls.

Inside - at a test, unthinking, I got them all right
someone said "skite",
& for revenge
at lunchtime caught & bowled me spin first ball,
whereupon I went out to field cicadas on the boundary

It describes my first day at secondary school – Akaroa District High.

At Random

So Michael Cullen’s gone as well. It is indeed an end of an era. A striking thing about the Clark/Cullen government was its tight ship nature. I’m sure that both of them with memories of the dysfunctional Lange/Douglas years were determined not to repeat the mistakes of that government.

In three days Wellington has gone from having a very low April rainfall to well exceed the monthly average. Our climate while temperate is very unpredictable.

I understand the severity of the recession but I wonder sometimes about the remedial actions. The Commerce Commission is considering shedding some jobs. If people lose income they will spend less. Likewise, the Reserve Bank announcement of official interests rates lowered to 2.5%. I appreciate it helps people with mortgages. But for many like myself the slashing of interest rates lowers income. Again, we will spend less.

An American education researcher called to ask about my perceptions of the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms. Talking to him brought back memories. The reforms were based on a premise of trust. David Lange kept talking about a covenant in a legal sense, the community should be able to know that the school had the necessary resources and teachers to deliver the required education. The State had that responsibility. It was a clear vision - underpinned no doubt by his Methodist upbringing. He saw it as a three-way partnership, school, community and government. He wanted to ensure that the changeover disrupted young people’s schooling as little as possible. The process was like outfitting a ship while it was sailing. To this end he appointed four well-known educators and charged them with making sure the outfit did not disadvantage students. It seemed to me then and now that this is a good consultative model. It worked well.

Farmer Bill

I’ve finished reading Farland’s life of William Massey - a disappointing book. Our Prime Minister from 1912 to 1925 deserves a better analysis than this shallow account. Though basically Farland’s probably correct in that Massey has been underestimated by historians. He rails against them from Sinclair to Bassett – proponents of the Long Pink Cloud theory he calls them. His own intense dislike of the Labour politicians of the period and even more the strikers makes his own narrative unbalanced. He keeps making unnecessary diversions – a long background to the First World War with his thesis that the French were its main culprits.

Massey’s undoubtedly hard to write about. Gardner couldn’t come to grips with him. There are no diaries, few letters and not many personal accounts. Farland relies almost solely upon Parliamentary debates and legislation – not the best source. (I wonder in ninety years time what biographers will have to say about Helen Clark – email leaves little record and she herself has been reticent).

Massey obviously had presence. Like Seddon he was a masterly Parliamentary tactician, pragmatic and cunning. He lacked the showman’s instincts but he seemed to have instinctive leadership qualities. Whereas Seddon’s heart was with the worker, Massey’s was with the owner and the boss. Massey had to work harder to survive. In his period Parliament was fractured and parties were more fluid.

His belief in the British Empire and his anti-Catholic bias were made clear – they reflected his origins - but I was left wanting to know more about what made this man tick. There were hints – a kinder heart than expected under an exterior of flint. His emotions as wartime Prime Minister are not revealed though the soldiers seemed to like him.

His resting place, Point Halswell, is one of the most commanding sites in Wellington Harbour. It has been for a long time one of my favourite picnic spots.

Good Health

Our health system comes in for a lot of stick, some warranted, some unfair. Over the last few years I have had considerable first-hand experience with it. I had a pacemaker fitted in 2004 and on 24 April 2006 I was rushed to hospital in an ambulance. Eventually, two problems were diagnosed. One was a form of sleep apnea whereby I stopped breathing which resulted in a shortage of oxygen. The other was a rare muscular degenerative disease. The two are probably related but not necessarily so. Treatment for both is facilitative rather than rehabilitative.

The dedication, commitment and cheerfulness of the people involved has been impressive; especially the hospital nurses and even more so the district health nurses. There is talk of privatising the latter service. I hope not. Change just for ideological reasons or even worse for cost-cutting will disrupt a good thing that’s working well.

The specialists have been clear in explaining my problems, procedures to be followed and likely consequences. Other professionals have supplied resources and arranged support and care. My needs have been recognised and met. There have been frustrations over delays but unfortunately that is part and parcel of the human condition.

I admit to one moment when I had a flash of anger. The day I had a muscle biopsy; as I was being logged in for the operation I was jauntily told to think of the experience as a journey. New age balderdash. It was surgery, not a venture into darkest Africa.

I am well aware that the tax-payer foots much of the health bill. I just hope that the government in its zeal to reduce the impact of the recession does not leap to the conclusion that the critics of our health system have it right. As in education there is always room for improvement. But as with education there is great wealth in the people involved in the sector. Let’s appreciate and build from that.

Rosellas, Life & Epidemics

It's strange weather – mist, unusual in Wellington, alternating with heavy rain. The garden needed the rain, April has been a very dry month so far. It hasn’t deterred a fantail which has been squeaking around for much of the day. And a rosella pair are now coming daily to the neighbour’s crabapple tree to eat the ripening fruit. These Australian birds began appearing in the Wellington area in the 1960s – probably escaped cage birds. They are delightful to watch, such colourful parrots. Nature is amazing in its variety and shapes.

On this subject it continues to amaze me that the cells in my body constantly repair and renew themselves. The chemical components of them have been disassembled and re-synthesised day after day for over seventy years. According to what I’ve read there have been at least ten complete changes of every one of my individual cells – brain, heart and funny-bone. The miracle is that despite all these changes memory continues. The inter-action of it all is miraculous and the complexity is extraordinary. In my liver alone there are over 50,000 different enzymes working to keep my body functional. Part of the ageing process is sometimes the replacement is not a hundred per cent accurate. This is how and why, for example, the skin weakens. It is a fact of life – we can delay the process. We cannot stop it.

Meanwhile the media is making an understandable meal of the possibility of a swine flu panedemic. Such events are not new. As long as humans and animals co-exist the possibility is there as history proves. What is different is modern communication.

Pay parity

It’s been my career good luck to avoid taking part in industrial discussions – confrontation is not my style. There was one exception when my role was facilitative; in 1994 I was asked to chair a SSC/NZEI joint working party. By happen-chance I became a bit player in a major education development.

NZEI, the primary teachers’ union, was negotiating for pay parity with its secondary brethren. There had been a strike earlier in the year – on the day Prime Minister Jim Bolger on Morning Report said that maybe NZEI had a point. Hastily up and down the country NZEI pulled paragraphs from its prepared speech. A week before Bolger had asked education minister Lockwood Smith what was the difference between a form 2 teacher and a form 3 teacher. Smith replied that it was between a physics teacher and a new entrance one. Bolger left muttering he knew which was more crucial. His public musings meant NZEI had won its case in principle.

But working through the details proved tricky. Hence the working party and my being asked to be its independent chair, acceptable to both parties and the Government. At the time I was executive director of the New Zealand Council for Teacher Education. The Council gave me clearance to accept the request.

It was tiger country. The Government and its agencies, SSC and the Ministry of Education wanted to cap expenditure and to get in return for parity a system of teacher performance pay. NZEI wanted the pay change but not the assessment scheme. PPTA, fearful of parity’s impact on secondary salaries and even more wary of performance pay, refused to participate.

To assist the working party a contract was let to prepare two background reports. Eight firms tendered; Deloittes were selected. While in association with us they beavered away on we met weekly as a group. NZEI were always well-prepared and passionate in their advocacy. The other side didn’t present requested information, kept delaying and in general time-wasted. Tempers got heated. At one meeting things got so unpleasant that I decided to fling a controlled teacher’s paddy. Snapping a pencil I stood up, announced I was fed up and stormed out of the room to spend a pleasant half an hour in Unity Bookshop. When I went back they were working quietly. I sat down and read my new book for a while. Sometimes adults are like children.

In the interests of fair play I warned SSC that NZEI was doing all the running with Deloittes. Nothing changed. Then when the Education Ministry made a presentation to Deloittes their spokesman said that performance pay was a no-no. It was a complete contradiction of what its working party officers had been arguing, left hand not knowing what its right hand was doing. NZEI’ was jubilant. Its records state I kept a poker face.

So not surprisingly the Deloittes reports supported pay parity as well as advice on how to implement it and opposed performance pay. Lockwood was not pleased. His office rang me demanding an explanation. My reply was simple ‘they were independent, I was merely the chair’. I felt like saying his officials should have warned him but I didn’t. ‘Shortly thereafter the working party was disbanded.

The dispute simmered on with another round of strikes until in early 1998 settlement was reached. Pay parity was entrenched but in the process the government got its wedges in on performance pay and bulk funding.

Despite the heat there was a strange camaraderie within that working party. The experience gave me an inkling of how hostages can bond with their captors. I confess I used to look forward to the challenge and life became duller when it stopped meeting.

Harvey McQueen

Inspector

As an inspector of secondary schools I observed, advised, graded, assisted hundreds of teachers. I saw lessons that humbled me - teachers performing magnificently against the odds, or with that brilliant flair that left one speechless with admiration. I saw students exploring excitedly as self-directed learners. Sometimes the learning charge in the atmosphere was so substantial I felt it could be cut into blocks and packaged - the elation was obvious. Sadly, there were also times when I saw kids getting short-changed.

Once as I watched a student pocketknife his name onto his desk, the teacher in me wanted to intervene, but the observer noted the depressing lesson, unclear instructions, chilly room, bored class, and the fact his knees could hardly fit under the table. His eyes met mine. He folded the knife away and sat sullenly still for the remainder of the lesson.

Furniture arrangements proved fascinating. Old schools tended to have big thick heavy desks but the newer ones had lighter furniture, which meant rooms could be quickly rearranged for different activities. A well-drilled class could do this very quickly. Indeed it was a yardstick for measuring the teacher’s control. Increasingly at that time, a U-shaped model was used, all desks facing the centre of the room. Some teachers had their desk behind the students, others at the front. Some taught standing behind their desk, others walked around the room. My admiration for Phys Ed, metalwork, woodwork, home economics and clothing teachers grew as I watched them cope with children in groups and often with different projects.

The boy who was chiseling on the desk I saw later in a workshop. He was leader of his group. The master asked him to show me his work. Proudly he did. This time his eyes met mine openly, conspiratorially almost. "Good work. How long did it take you?" "Not long. I am a quick worker, especially with the girls." - a cheery grin accompanied his boast. "You can say that again", a mate said, hilarity lurking close to the surface. I left the group, not too quickly, dignity must be maintained, but the circumstances were nearing compromise.

"Rough diamonds that bunch" said the teacher after they left. "That boy has a widowed Mum and three younger brothers. He delivers papers in the morning and works after school to earn extra money for the family. Most of this class have some form of work. I'm not sure we need work experience. Some of them, especially the sharemilkers’ kids, are too tired to do their schoolwork properly." As inspector with responsibility for work experience I could only nod at the complications of it all. Memo to oneself - beware of charm when least expected. No, chalk it up to the irrepressibility of the human spirit.

During one early visit I reported to the principal that a certain teacher was doing damage to the kids. He sighed and said "when you walk away I've still got the problem. He should go. I have told him but he doesn't hear what I am saying."
One of my colleagues muttered about disciplinary proceedings.
“That rips your staffroom apart. And it takes so long.”
"I'll go and tell him," I brightly said. So I did. When I asked him if he liked the job replied, "To tell you the truth I hate it". I had earlier observed his pain at the contempt of his classes.
"Why don't you leave then?"
"I haven't got the guts. Besides my old man's a teacher and he would see me as a failure. Where would I go?" It all poured out. "I'd have to give notice and I couldn't face the staffroom or the kids."
"We could help you go almost immediately and quietly."

The look of relief on the chap's face was touching. So it was arranged that afternoon. In the car on the way back to Hamilton the debate raged. I had broken one of the rules. "You could end up in a court case. They get the message with their grading." I knew I was safe - the teacher's thanks had been profuse. He had just needed that final push. Other times it was not so easy. "I loathe the job but a mortgage and three young kids, I'm trapped."

Thinking now about that action I realise that a few years later I would probably have been more cautious.[It’s a pity to have to admit that particular truth]. As someone fresh out of the classroom I saw the world differently from my more experienced colleagues. Down the years as I learnt the tricks of the bureaucratic world compromise and necessity blunted that youthful enthusiasm. When I moved to Wellington this pressure increased.

One day soon I’ll write a blog about teacher assessment. It’s going to be a hot potato under this government. If you have ideas about it let me have your comments.

Harvey McQueen