Journal article

Most of what we know about children comes from watching carefully what they do. Proud parents entertain their friends - or bore them out of their minds - with the latest tales of their offspring's achievements. Just as frequently we discuss some 'problem', often asking a simple question such as, 'when did your child begin to walk?' or, 'when do they stop sucking their thumbs?' Teachers often ask more complex questions such as how children of a certain age can be expected to interact with each other, or how they learn difficult concepts. Checking with other experienced people helps.

At Dunedin Teachers College, all students who graduate with a B.Ed. degree are required to carry out an independent

Society accepts violent behaviour and it is modelled in homes, schools and streets. This accepting and modelling is the major cause of violent crime. This is no longer supposition but fact, supported by a heavy weight of evidence. Consider, specifically, corporal punishment in schools. Here is a situation where beneficial change can take place. Evidence is available which suggests that helping teachers to relinquish corporal punishment in schools significantly changes community

The comment that predicting the future is hazardous (as any gambler knows) has been made so often that it is trite. Yet there is a need to look at the possible social outcomes of particular policies, especially when we have limited resources to invest. The problem is that, unlike the physical sciences, the social sciences have no established formulae on which to base their predictions. Human beings are delightfully unpredictable! But there are some things that are fairly certain. Many writers

Secondary schools can be organized in a variety of ways. A whanau organization subdivides a large school into largely self-contained units or whanaus to gain the social advantages of a small school while retaining the curriculum flexibility of the large school. The social objectives of promoting caring relationships and a sense of belonging are embodied in the name whanau, meaning extended family.

Most claims of bias in a test concern its content. Each of the three illustrations contains elements of content bias, which is the type of test bias that comes readily to mind for most people. A test with biased content contains questions that in one sense or another are 'unfair' to an identifiable sub-group of those being tested.

What is work experience for? The main goal may be to make students more employable, or it may be to teach students about the community in which they live. It may be to help students to become more responsible and socially mature, or, to establish links between school and community. Does the type of work experience fit that educational purpose? A student is not likely to develop responsibility in a job consisting of closely supervised routine tasks.

If we distinguish what it is that good readers learn to do that poor readers do not learn we are half way to knowing what to

Theories of how we learn to read are important springs for research and as research data piles up their strengths and weaknesses are being revealed. Meanwhile, back in the classroom, trial and error is as important as theory and data. In this item we have the experiences and methods of one successful reading teacher. She does not claim for her methods that they will work in every case, and she can not mention all of them in this short article.

Teachers coordinate and supervise the work of a team of people. In this respect they are like managers in business and
industry and must have similar skills. In school, as in industry, work has to be done, tasks are described and assigned, teams of people are organised and supervised, time is allocated and monitored, and an output is generated and controlled for quality. The output of the school is learning and the teacher has the demanding task of orchestrating everything that happens in the classroom to maximise learning.