The Tremendously Underwhelming Response of Erica Stanford to a VERY key question.

Kerre Woodham hosted Minister Stanford on Newstalk ZB during the week. There were positive aspects and responses to questions from callers.

However, it came massively unstuck towards the end when Kerre asked what parents can do for their children re education.

It is a truism to state that parents are far more important/influential than teachers/schools.

As a parent – when my children were growing up – their mother and I were responsible for their education … not their school. They went to good schools – Cornwall Park District School, Mt Hobson Middle School, Auckland Grammar, Epsom Girls … but, if were living in a place like Whanganui our expectations would have been the same.

As a career teacher I have always seen my role as doing my best for the child and family and ALWAYS holding them in high esteem.

Kerre Woodham asked the question and Stanford’s only response was “talk to your children” and then a false assertion that “research shows that this is the most important thing …”

The role of parents is so much greater:

- care for yourself during pregnancy – no alcohol, no drugs, exercise, sleep well, eat well avoid stress, inform yourself about great parenting.

- create a physical space for the children before they are born and engage with your family and community (“it takes a village …”).

- surround the child with great experiences from day 1. Music, positive talk (the Minister is partially right ….. lots of words), extensive, activity, a bright room, play groups, …

- as soon as they can sit still – read to the child – complex picture books, Dr Suess, Roald Dahl, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, A. A. Milne, etc. I read The Lord of the Rings to my oldest when he was 2 – 3 years old. You can read well above their skill level – to their cognitive level.

- make Maths natural – with cooking, normal discussion, fun on puzzles. We had a guest in our home one day when one of our kids said; “is 89squared 7,921?” The capacity of young children is well beyond adult expectation.

- engage with all external learning situations and understand them. ECE, Primary School, High School …. Parents should be fully interested and involved.

While the Minister – let alone the Ministry – think that they have the solutions – it matches Ronald Regan’s great quote: that they worst nine words in the English language are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

The solutions to our problematic education system involve elevating and empowering parents – not with an overwhelmingly boring set of English texts (from Elizabeth Rata who does not seem to know that books have been written since 1950), not with pre-categorizing students as “vocational” in the face of all counter evidence from neuro-science in the last 25 years.

Stanford is positive and highly motivated. She is also often deeply wrong and poorly advised by those in her “tent”. She might be better than Hipkins and Tinetti but that is a VERY low bar.