Have New Zealand schools got a bit dull and boring?
Posted by: Lyn in Interesting, WonderingsI like the cup stacking video. The girl is so fast and skilful. She must be really motivated to get that good. I hadn’t heard of student sport stacking before … much less world record attempts and national tournaments! 
American schools have a student culture quite different from ours in New Zealand. The spelling bee is another example. While big in the US, they are largely unknown here – I mean the big-event-with-an-audience sort of thing. I have to say that American schools could have more exciting things going on than NZ schools!
Back in the day, I remember padder tennis tournaments, target tournaments (hitting a tennis ball against a small wooden fame and catching it on the full), skipping and hoola-hoop competitions. The whole school would be seated around the netball court to watch the finals. 
The winner won sponsored prizes and a few days of fame. ‘Basic Facts Battle’ was another biggie which electrified the school. The final was held at the last senior syndicate assembly of the term. Parents attended and teachers hoped their student would win. Do exciting events like this still happen? Or have New Zealand schools got a bit dull and boring? Why not get sport stacking happening in your school – ‘Its a track meet for your hands … at warp speed!’
technorati tags:New_Zealand, America, school, teaching, learning, students, motivation, competition
Entries (RSS)
May 21st, 2007 at 12:28 am
You might find one of the reasons for the demise of padder tennis tournaments in the following article How Not to Talk to Your Kids The Inverse Power of Praise. Po Bronson in New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
Since the 1969 publication of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, in which Nathaniel Branden opined that self-esteem was the single most important facet of a person, the belief that one must do whatever he can to achieve positive self-esteem has become a movement with broad societal effects. Anything potentially damaging to kids’ self-esteem was axed. Competitions were frowned upon. Soccer coaches stopped counting goals and handed out trophies to everyone. Teachers threw out their red pencils. Criticism was replaced with ubiquitous, even undeserved, praise.
Dweck and Blackwell’s work is part of a larger academic challenge to one of the self-esteem movement’s key tenets: that praise, self-esteem, and performance rise and fall together. From 1970 to 2000, there were over 15,000 scholarly articles written on self-esteem and its relationship to everything—from sex to career advancement. But results were often contradictory or inconclusive. So in 2003 the Association for Psychological Science asked Dr. Roy Baumeister, then a leading proponent of self-esteem, to review this literature. His team concluded that self-esteem was polluted with flawed science. Only 200 of those 15,000 studies met their rigorous standards.
I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized—it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts.
After reviewing those 200 studies, Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn’t improve grades or career achievement. It didn’t even reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.) At the time, Baumeister was quoted as saying that his findings were “the biggest disappointment of my career.”
So where does these research findings leave students in NZ schools? They are going to have to wait until those that run education read Baumeister.
May 21st, 2007 at 2:04 am
An interesting article, Artichoke. How PC and non-competitive schools (and child-raising) have become is something Leighton Smith on News Talk ZB frequently bemoans. And he was on the case again this morning. Bring back competition, I say! Even when we lose we still enjoy the event .. and we practice harder to win next time.
May 21st, 2007 at 6:22 am
Glad you enjoyed it – Is a provocative read for teachers and for parents – it has stimulated some interesting conversations with both groups in this part of the wobbly isles – I have also used it with some senior secondary students who found it alarming and credible in the light of their own more personalised experiences with “everyone is a winner” and “self esteem” talk