More sexism in Auckland homeschooling?

(Updated and moved to the front 28/4/2018)

This is the third time I've noticed it.  I hope it's a coincidence, and not a pattern.

In each instance, the style of sexism is similar -- that boys do "boy" things and girls do "girl" things, and it's inappropriate for boys to do "girl" things to the point where boys are actively excluded from these "girl" things.

I wrote about the first time here, regarding the role of dads in homeschooling.

I wrote about the second time here, regarding boys doing ballet.

This third time it's about boys doing sewing.  I'll explain.

Our local homeschool organisation (HASCA) helps organise various activities for homeschooled children.  One of the activities it organises is sewing classes.  Their ad is here.

On Thursday 19th, an email was sent around our homeschooling community advertising these sewing classes:

Title: Sewing Tuition for girls aged 9 to 13 years -

        BE QUICK! [HASCA member subsidy available]

Dear members,

I have only two spaces left now for the term 2 Sewing Class. If your daughter is between the ages of 9-13 and keen to participate, let me know asap! 

...Cost : $85.00 for HASCA members (HASCA subsidised fee), or $170.00 for non membersPlease let me know as soon as possible if you are keen or would like more details. 

I checked the website ad, and it similarly states:

The programme offers sewing tuition to home educated girls aged 9 to 13 years.

I replied to the ad to clarify things, getting an immediate response.  And indeed, yes, HASCA does subsidise a girls-only sewing class but does not subsidise, or for that matter even offer, any equivalent classes allowing boys.  In fact, the only class that HASCA subsidises is this girls-only one (via a donation from an external charity organisation).

The reasoning, I was told, was that HASCA is linked with a for-profit company (Sew Inspired) that runs these sewing classes.  The sewing teacher used to run classes that included both girls and boys, but recently has decided to change her lessons to make it only for girls, as she prefers it that way.

HASCA command recognises that this is not so good, and say they are working towards a solution.

Well, it seems to me that the obvious solution is that HASCA should not be subsidising and organising this girls-only class, when there's no reason for it being girls-only except that the teacher likes it that way.  HASCA should stop enabling and supporting such blatant sexual discrimination, and their only charity-funded subsidies should not go to a sexist class.

I said as much to HASCA command, and have received no reply back.

I also recommend that families who have signed up for sewing lessons at Sew Inspired stop until this problem is corrected.

UPDATED 28/4/2018:  Great news, and problem solved.  The class is now allowing boys.  Today, a new email ad was sent out to the local homeschooling community, and the HASCA website details the adjusted course.  HASCA command also emailed me personally with the news.  Thanks!

Some homeschoolers give homeschooling a bad name

(Updated and moved to the front 28/4/2018)

Paul Ens gives the details.

Alberta Home Education Association, you got it badly wrong on this one.

UPDATED 28/4/2018: Paul Ens replies to AiG (Answers in Genesis) misinformation regarding this homeschooling conference.

This is yet another example of how AiG and Ken Ham have almost zero credibility about anything -- the repeated lies, deceit and bad rhetoric is surely obvious to all.

And as for the Alberta Home Education Association, actively blocking open discussion of ideas is not a good way to educate children.

(As an added bonus, for those living in Australia or New Zealand, you may be interested in the discussion of Israel Folau at 7:07 min.)

Anzac Day

We attended the Anzac Day dawn parade at Browns Bay yesterday morning.

It was an early start -- dawn is pretty early, you know.  To prepare for it, the girls had progressively earlier bedtimes for a couple of night prior.  And as a result, I was up at 5:30 this morning.

But, first world problems, as they say.

Personally, I think the Anzac Day message is about the horrific evils of war.  That war should only ever be the last resort.  Not the rhetorical last resort.  But the really, genuine last resort. Almost all wars weren't the last resort.

The personal, individual stories should tell us that.  Those who died.  Those who survived, but were broken by their experiences.  And also, importantly, those who refused to participate -- yes, let's include remembrances of Archibald Baxter and other conscientious objectors on Anzac Day.

These stories, sadly, need publicly retelling.  For some weird reason, people otherwise start to imagine glories and excitements.

Some of the messages we get on Anzac Day, in my opinion, are not so great.  A couple especially stood out for me yesterday.

The first incident happened during the parade march.  The various uniformed groups (music band, returned servicepeople, currently military, police, emergency workers, scouts, guides, etc) walked along the closed-off road, past us crowds lining the sides.  The road was wide enough, and the marching groups were small enough, such that they only took up about half the width of the road.  Most marching groups chose to march fairly much in the middle of the road, or a little over towards our side, where almost all of the crowds were.  The police group, however, chose to march really close to us crowd, within centimetres of our noses, leaving the other side of the road completely empty.

Why did the police group uniquely do this?  Intimidation?  Toxic masculinity?  I'm not sure, but, at least to me, their walk past had a different feel than any of the other groups.

The second incident happened during the speeches after the parade march.  During the speeches, it was amazing how many times the word "freedom" was used.  Fighting for our freedom, the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, protecting our freedoms, and so on.  What disturbed me was the distinctly nationalistic propaganda feel to these "freedom" speeches.

It would be okay if these wars actually were about fighting for our freedom.  But for the most part they weren't (the Second World War might arguably be the exception, though it is complicated by the post First World War injustices inflicted by the victorious Allies).  In fact, some of these wars, if anything, were quite the opposite.  Think about the reasons for Gallipoli.

Rewriting history for nationalistic propaganda is a bad idea.  Perhaps the Anzac Day message should also be about that.  In another universe, Anzac Day may even be a time for New Zealand to formally apologise to Turkey for its part in the invasion -- New Zealand's attempt to forcefully take away the freedoms of others.

Some readings

This sounds right to me -- the excerpt here, the full article here.

And another one (which, while right in the factual sense, is anything but in the moral sense).

Chomsky and Pikachu

Pedro Reyes points out:

After I became a parent I found myself wondering, if kids can learn 300 names of Pokemon and 'Star Wars' characters, why not some history?

Excellent point.

It is a common strategy when teaching ideas to kids to leave out the names and dates -- let the kids encounter, or discover for themselves, the ideas.  That's all well and good, and sometimes it's an excellent teaching strategy.

But yeah, kids are good at learning Pokemon names.  We just need to find ways of making Aristotle, Galileo, Leibniz, Kant and so on as attractive as Pikachu et al.

The Language Police

The Language Police have arrived.

In our home we are getting fined every time we speak in the wrong language.  Yesterday we all had to speak only English, and today we all have to speak only Chinese.  Yesterday was very relaxing for me, but today it is pretty tough going.

Why are we stressing ourselves out in this way?

The girls' third cousin, from China, is staying with us for the next several days over the school holidays.  This year she moved to Christchurch and is attending secondary school there.  Of course she is fluent in Chinese, but her English is still at the level of simple conversation.  Whenever she stays with us, she and the rest of the Chinese folk chat away in Chinese, and she doesn't get a chance to practice her English.

So, we needed to get the police involved to enforce the right language.

But for the sake of fairness, the police decided to challenge me, too, and require that I work a bit harder on my Chinese.

The inspiration for all this was the Chalet School books (I think Mulan has read about 59 of the 62 books in the series).  The girls in the books speak multiple languages, and the school has set days for each language.  There are fines (real money) for infringements.

We are not at the level of real money, but yesterday Mulan and Miya spent a few hours making paper money for all of us.  Each day we are given $30 in our own purse, and each time we use the wrong language we need to pay a little into the fines box.  If we run out of money before the end of the day, then Mulan and Miya won't cook our eggs at breakfast/lunch.

This is all very well and good in theory, but, after being eager to set up the system, Miya has been the one who has had the most problems.  This is not because Miya is struggling with either English or Chinese -- she is fluent in both -- but it's because she is so used to speaking to me in English and Mama in Chinese that she feels very stressed at using the other language with each of us.  As we all know, seven-year-olds are very chatty, and she likes to chat comfortably with us.

So, we have agreed that Miya can have times off from having to follow the rules, and also that Mama and I can chat to her in our respective languages, if she wants.

We'll see over the next several days how all this forced language practice works out for us all.

What is a teacher?

(Updated and moved to the front 20/4/2018)

The proposed bill, the Education (Protecting Teacher Title) Amendment Bill, is certainly thought-provoking.

It raises the question of who counts as a teacher.  Is a teacher anyone who teaches, regardless of context?  Or to count as a teacher must someone also pass some other sort of requirement (such as some suitable expertise, experience, qualification or registration, etc)?

Our everyday English word is, understandably, both vague and ambiguous about this.  It is vague because it is unclear how much teaching one needs to do to be appropriately called a teacher.  And it is ambiguous because, depending on context, we sometimes mean different types of occupations or roles.

For example, sometimes we are pretty wide with the definition, such as when, perhaps at the most extreme, we say that a parent is a child's first teacher.  Other times, towards the other extreme, we might more narrowly mean to be referring to just those who work in weekday schools teaching 5 to 18-year-olds.

But those who support the proposed bill appear to want to move away from this everyday multiple-meanings approach to the word, instead creating a technical/legal/jargon meaning that is very precisely defined.  Furthermore, they wish to restrict usage of the word and fine ($2000) those who use the word differently.

The immediate response is to ask why.

The answer seems to be that Charter Schools made it possible for people who had no formal teaching qualifications to teach in (weekday, children's) schools (although they would have surely had some other, subject-matter, competence/expertise).  Consequently, it was more difficult for students (and their parents) to know who at that school was a formally trained teacher and who was not.

And some saw this as a problem.  They thought it important to know the difference.  Implicitly (and sometimes explicitly), they thought there was an educational quality difference or a professional status difference.

Consequently, one proposed solution (given in the proposed bill) to this supposed problem is to restrict the word "teacher," such that it only refers to those who have some specified formal tertiary qualification in education (Bachelor of Education, Graduate Diploma of Teaching, or equivalent).  Unless you have this tertiary qualification in education, you are not a teacher and cannot call yourself one.

According to this NZ Herald article*** from a couple of days ago, it seems that the proposed bill is not "hard and fast", and lots of discussion is currently happening regarding the details.

Stepping back for a moment, it seems to me that there are two broad ways in which a person may get into teaching (with some overlap).

The first way is that the person learns some particular subject for a length of time such that they become suitably proficient in it.  At this point they may start imparting their subject knowledge/skills to others -- that is, teaching them.  Since they haven't specifically learnt how to teach, they might not be all that good at getting the subject matter across to their students.  Their ability to teach will depend largely on the luck of their personality, as well as their ability to learn on the job.  But because they haven't explicitly trained as a teacher, they might never stumble across certain teaching details that a more systematic training would have taught them.

The second way is that the person learns primarily about education and how to teach.  They might not have spent as much time learning specific knowledge/skills (aside from education), but at least they have teaching skills and knowledge, which allows them to (better) get their message across to their students.  The correctness of the content of what they teach will then depend on the adequacy of their earlier life experiences, and their ability to learn on the job.  Hopefully they will have picked up enough knowledge/skills to get the facts right in the subject they are teaching, but, all things being equal, they won't know as much as someone who specifically trained in the subject.

In other words, someone who trained mostly in the subject may not be able to get their message across as well, even if they know their stuff.  Someone who trained mostly in teaching may get the subject matter wrong more often, even if they are able to get it across.

It seems then, that those who support the proposed bill are prioritising the second way to get into teaching over the first way.  Why is this?  Are they significantly better at it?  And is there empirical evidence for this?

If there is no evidence for this, then is this a case of prejudice?

And if there is evidence for this, then why allow schools to hire these less competent teaching staff in the first place?

Regardless of this, why go to the extreme of redefining the word "teacher"?  Why not simply call those who have the approved qualifications "qualified teachers"?

Having said all this, the above discussion ignores the many different types of teaching, a lot of which does not involve teaching weekdays to 5 to 18-year-old children.

For many of these other teaching areas, the required tertiary qualifications listed in the bill may be mostly irrelevant to their needs, with topics and issues covered that don't apply in these other teaching environments.  For example, those who teach adults or small groups don't need to learn the details of classroom management of children.

Instead, these teaching areas often have their own subject-specific teaching qualifications, that are typically adequate to the teaching needs in those subjects.  There are many Certificate or Diploma-level teaching qualifications out there, specific to the subject to be taught.

Are those who teach in these other areas, and with these other teaching qualifications, going to be penalised because of the potential for confusion in that one particular teaching environment?

Whatever the case about my musings above, if this bill passes, it seems that Mama (who has been classroom teaching for over 20 years and has published textbooks as well as research articles on teaching) will no longer be able to call herself a teacher.  I hope this won't result in her having a mid-life identity crisis.

And as for us homeschoolers, I suppose we will just get on with teaching our children, whatever we happen to get called.

***To jump to the top of the class, spot the there/their mistake in the NZ Herald article!

UPDATE (20/4/2018): When I am looking at issues I try to be as charitable as I can with people's ideas -- presenting and fairly examining the best possible versions of people's stated ideas.  But another approach is to ignore their stated reasons and examine their underlying motivations.

Discussing this idea yesterday with Yeye (who is a "real" teacher, with a Diploma of Teaching, and whose university major was politics), we raised the idea that these stated reasons, above, are beside the point.

Maybe the real reason for this proposed bill is control.  Firstly, the bill is being proposed by the political party New Zealand First.  And secondly, the Diploma of Teaching arguably trains teachers to conformity, by breaking them down through extreme stress and rebuilding them in the politically desirable form.  Upping the professional status of those who get trained in this way, and denying the name to teachers who have not trained in this way, increases the control of those in authority.  1984-style thought control by language control.

I guess certain homeschoolers will sympathise with this conspiracy theory understanding of schooling!

UPDATE (8/5/2018): According to this NZ Herald article, the proposed bill has been withdrawn.