Not Achieved
AS THE FATHER OF TWO STUDENTS WHO seem to have been well served by their passage through the NCEA system, I find it hard to see why Joanne Black is so upset about it (Editorial, June 9).
Her specific criticisms seem to be:
(1) Pass/Fail has become Achieved/Not Achieved. A change in terminology, sure, but hardly a Voldemort-style attack on society as we know it.
(2) Grades don’t appear on NCEA final certificates (as opposed to the record of learning, which contains detailed information). I have four degree and diploma certificates awarded by reputable institutions. None of them indicates my grades or the subjects that I failed. This hasn’t been a problem for my American, British and New Zealand employers in government, private industry and academia.
(3) NZQA moderates only about 60,000 standards a year. That still sounds like rather more than the external moderation of a typical undergraduate degree.
These don’t sound like “serious deficiencies”. Any new qualification system needs fine tuning, but the main NCEA deficiency seems to be media that relay the prejudices of a few traditional educators and focus on the occasional mis-marked paper, rather than make the effort to provide balanced reporting.
—Alastair Smith (Aro Valley, Wellington)
The otherwise measured feature (“Greater expectations”, June 9) on the influences on children’s achievement has one omission and two distortions. They concern the question: what motivates children to persevere or continue to make an effort?’
John Hattie’s central point that effort is more important than ability could have been strengthened by reference to the growing body of research that shows when children are routinely praised for their effort (if this praise is merited) they become more predisposed to attempt harder challenges, whereas those that are routinely praised for their ability become predisposed to avoid harder challenges for fear of failing.
Thus parents and teachers must be careful to praise genuine effort, even when the result of that effort was failure. Children perceive that they have some control over their effort, but little over their ability.
They can usually be motivated by praise for the former, but will more often be demotivated by praise for the latter (thinking either “I don’t have to try” or “If I try something difficult, I might show myself up”).
The first distortion is disturbing, because it seems to reflect a cultural bias in New Zealand. It is suggested that perhaps Chinese are motivated by fear of poverty, while later the principal of Scots College is quoted as saying that students need to be confronted with the (negative) “consequences” of failure.
Both suggestions refer to fear-based motivation, but nowhere is positive motivation mentioned. Positive motivation has come to mean praising people even when they don’t deserve praise. Motivation to learn is best stimulated by parents and teachers fostering an inquisitiveness and curiosity about the world. If such an outward-looking spirit of inquiry is successfully instilled, then the effort required generates itself. Looking at motivation this way worked for me as a parent and as a teacher.
The second distortion concerns the moral panic about “Asian” academic success. If we are going to look there for answers, then we need to make sure that we draw the correct conclusions. Within China itself there is considerable disquiet among educators and policymakers about the limited ability or willingness of young Chinese to think for themselves, even though they may have performed at a very high level in formal academic qualifications. But when I watch New Zealand Chinese parents interacting with their children of any age, I see them doing things that are neither entirely Chinese nor entirely New Zealand European. It seems to me that they are much more likely than Europeans to be fully, even intensely, engaged with their children in their play, sport or music; but they also seem to be much more likely than parents in China to encourage inquiry, experimentation and adventurousness.
If I am correct, then that may well be a world-beating synthesis.
—Phillip Capper (Wellington)
Corked or Capped Wine
The health of wine consumers is of utmost importance to the New Zealand wine industry and, as the industry’s representatives, New Zealand Winegrowers takes any legitimate claims concerning product safety extremely seriously. However, the allegations made by Keith Stewart (“Making a case”, May 5) regarding the use of screwcaps do not have the weight of science behind them.
While the screwcap liners used by the New Zealand wine industry do contain a .80 micron layer of the polymer polyvinylidene chloride or PVDC, there is no evidence that this can be linked to negative health effects.
PVDC is approved for food packaging by the European Food Safety Authority, the US Food and Drugs Administration and the New Zealand Food Safety Authority, which has confirmed to us that the screwcaps used for New Zealand wine are safe.
Stewart’s article notably links the use of PVDC in screwcaps with endocrine disruption. However, PVDC does not feature in a list of almost 1000 chemicals suggested in published literature to be potential endocrine disrupters (Chemicals Purported to be Endocrine Disruptors: A compilation of published lists, by the Institute for Environment and Health, March 2005).
Furthermore, the manufacturers of the screwcap liners used for New Zealand wines have assured us that the substances Stewart alleges establish a link between screwcaps and cancer (phthalates, nonylphenols and bisphenol-A) are not used in the production of the liners used by the wine industry.
Keith Stewart replies: The situation is not as Mr Gregan purports it to be. The seals in screwcaps contain a notified endocrine disruptor, vinyl chloride, which is an essential ingredient of PVDC. According to Dow Chemicals, which makes the tin-backed Saranex™ film that seals most wine screwcap closures, there is 200ppb vinyl chloride in each seal. Vinyl chloride is listed in Chemicals Purported to be Endocrine Disruptors: A compilation of published lists (March 2005), which specifically identifies it as being implicated in breast cancer. More specifically, the International Agency for Research of Cancer lists vinyl chloride as a Group 1 human carcinogen.
This much we know for sure, but does this cancer-causing monomer migrate into the wine? Eighty percent of wine packaging has been changed to screwcaps, which contain a known carcinogen, yet there is virtually no research into this question. The single piece of research that has been done clearly shows the presence of carcinogenic monomers in wine, and also shows that the source of those monomers was the plastic film seal in the wine screwcaps, and that the monomers were not present in the same wine closed with cork.
—Philip Gregan - (Chief Executive Officer, NZ Winegrowers)
Water Resources
“The price of milk” (June 2) makes a number of erroneous allegations about the Central Plains Water Scheme which we cannot leave unchallenged.
The scheme does not propose to “flatline” the Waimakariri or the Rakaia rivers. Take rates will vary depending on irrigation demand, which in turn will depend on weather and soil moisture content. The average expected take from both rivers is estimated at 3.8 percent of combined annual flows.
The natural “flushing” of the river during peak flows will continue unabated. It would be counterproductive to take water at these times, as the scheme would then have to dispose of large volumes of sediment. During summer low flows, neither river will be left “dry” over any stretch as a result of this scheme – the current low-flow minimums set by Environment Canterbury will be observed and we further undertake to maintain sufficient flows for recreation and during special events, such as the Coast to Coast.
During dry periods, takes directly from the river are likely to be minimal but farmers will still have 97 percent-plus reliable access to water from the proposed reservoir – the unique and essential aspect for this scheme to succeed. This in turn will have positive effects on groundwater quantity in the region.
Aquifers are expected to rise significantly, reducing pumping costs and increasing reliability of supply for Central Plains residents and farms still on well supply, inside and outside the scheme area. It will also lead to improved flows in waterways such as the Irwell and Selwyn rivers.
Second, the article states that nearly three-quarters of river sites monitored by Environment Canterbury in 2004-5 were rated poor or very poor for water quality, and deemed unsuitable for contact recreation. The clear implication is that this is due to farm intensification and dairy farming in particular. On the contrary, the Environment Canterbury website shows that of five monitored sites in the Central Plains, two are currently rated poor. Chamberlain’s Ford, mentioned in your article, actually has a good rating. In comparison, of 20 sites monitored in Christchurch and its environs, six are poor and four very poor. The contamination of the water in those sites could not be attributed to “dirty dairying” or farming in general.
Yes, there is potential for increases in nitrate-nitrogen in groundwater across the Central Plains due to intensified farming, and this will need to be managed. Without mitigation, this increase has been estimated at 2.5g/m3 downstream of the scheme area. However, contrary to the article, there is no risk that Christchurch city’s drinking water supply will exceed the level of nitrates allowable in the New Zealand drinking water standards. Christchurch’s drinking water is fed by rainwater and drainage from the lower reaches of the Waimakariri River, well outside the scheme’s boundaries.
The proposed mitigation measures include the requirement that water users comply with the scheme’s Sustainable Management Agreement (SMA), which will monitor waste and effluent management among other practices. The SMA is being developed in conjunction with the Ritso Society, which represents farms and businesses in the Central Plains, as part of a national Sustainable Farming Fund project.
These are some of the benefits of maintaining water consents in the Central Plains Water Trust, to which the scheme will be accountable.
The inevitable alternative, should Central Plains Water not go ahead, is that the water is still taken but by a series of other smaller-scale corporate schemes. Their takes will not be subject to such strict environmental controls and the opportunity for a large-scale, storage-based scheme will be lost.
—Doug Marsh (Chairman, Central Plains Water Trust)
Investing in Art
Michael Smither’s claim (Letters, June 2) that “at its core, the proposed five percent resale legislation for artworks is about recognition of our cultural heritage” is poppycock. It’s about money.
Artists may resent the fact that works they sold years ago for $40 are now worth thousands of times that, but that’s life. I bought my first new house for less than $20,000 and it’s increased in value by 40 times. Any suggestion that the builder should get a cut of this would be laughed out of court. Why should art be different?
If Smither had kept one painting for every one he sold, he would be able to participate fully in the appreciation of his painting’s value, as, indeed, he is anyway, as new work he produces fetches large sums. The answer is for artists to sell works subject to an ongoing royalty interest, if they feel strongly about participating in the possible future increased value of their works.
—Bruce Utting (Khandallah, Wellington)
Passport Snap
Paul Lewis (Sport, June 2) was quite unjust to blame the government for not calling off the New Zealand cricket tour to Zimbabwe, when Australian PM John Howard called off the Australian tour. The difference is that the Australian Government has the power to cancel passports, which no sane New Zealander would want any New Zealand Government to be able to do, ever.
—Jocelyn Harris (English Department, University of Otago)
