Just when we think the politicians are making a bit of a meal out of benefit bashing, along comes an article that highlights just why many people feel the way they do - ie negatively, about beneficiaries.
One just shakes one's head in wonderment - the funny thing is that they all look the same, not guilty sir.
Bill Cromwell, Welcome Bay
Change the model
Re Dame Susan Devoy's column (Opinion, Nov 12), I wonder whether she or Robert Mangan, principal of Tauranga Boys' College, understands what it'll take to "raise the bar" for those "middle stream and the Maori students" currently not achieving at scholarship level?
Does either realise that the concerning under-performance results from the use of a learning model Nuthall has discovered is "inherently inefficient"?
That one-and-only model teachers use causes the wide variations - evidenced at the top end by those 57 scholarship achievements and the school's resultant high league table placing. Collateral damage is an inevitable consequence of its use, those at the academic bottom end ending up disproportionately clobbered.
To stop the repetition of this winners-and-losers situation and to ensure top level passes across the board, that inefficient learning model has to go.
Were that to happen, another of Nuthall's discoveries - virtually all students possess a "remarkably similar" capacity to learn - can kick in, opening up tremendous possibilities. Taking advantage of them, though, requires an efficient learning model.
Developing one can only come from understanding better how learning works. That there's little apparent appetite to look in that direction is a sobering thought.
Laurie Loper, Tauranga
Letter supported
Tommy Kapai's letter supporting the relevancy of Maori language (Bay of Plenty Times Weekend, Nov 12), in my opinion, is right on the mark. Thanks Tommy, you said it well.
Craig Greenlees. Whakamarama
Warped thinking
Well, I see yet another protest group, this time in Aotea Centre in Auckland, is flexing its muscles. Isn't it about time our society came down on these posers with their disfigured faces and warped thinking. They are bringing down our society to a third world level, while decent, law-abiding citizens are earning the money that pays their daily bread with a clear conscience.
One people, one nation should be the catchcry; these rapacious bludgers are getting far too much attention. Have they not realised by now that a people divided amongst itself will surely fall - if they are dissatisfied why do they not cross the ditch and make their mark there. I will tell you why ... they would not get the same latitude of thought there, just look at the way the Australian native race have been sidelined.
One redeeming feature in all this is that, with Maori being predominantly tribal, and unable to agree as to who has the major voice in Maoridom, we will never have a native government as such - so take heart, my fellow New Zealanders, the worst will never happen.
B Guernier, Hairini
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