Teacher's Council are Dicks

Says it all really

To become a qualified teacher here in sunny (but sightly chilly at the moment) Aoteroa, you need

1. A degree from a University
2. A diploma in Education
3. Registration with the New Zealand Teaching Council (NZTC)

Money grabbing bastards

It now costs an amazing $228 to get registered, $302 if you are coming in from abroad, and this fee  (purely to cover administration costs.  So they tell us) is required every three years.

The NZTC are supposed to check and validate that those registered as teachers;

• Do not have any serious criminal convictions (especially sex-related crimes)
• Have a suitable qualification
• Meet the criteria to remain a viable teacher.

Not a good teaching technique

In the past, as long as you didn't get pissed (drunk for any readers from the USA)  in class or broke a kid's jaw with a delicate backhander, and were still breathing, then you got re-registered.

Things have changed.

The NZTC took it upon themselves to increase the crap we go through every day by insisting that we all undergo a program of Professional Learning (PL).  And that was when they increased the fee from about $80 to $228. They've made the whole process much more complex, and I seriously doubt that New Zealand will end up with a better set of teachers after the process has been completed.

To be fair, occasionally a little gem of an idea surfaces during these PL sessions which is a good idea, and can be incorporated into our lessons. but most are either:

• A rehash of previous good practice (Learning Intentions now, not Objectives or goals.  Go figure)
• An idea a dickhead, who calls him/herself an Educationalist had during an especially vivid and probably drug-induced hallucination and thinks should be disseminated throughout NZ.
• Items produced by academics or organisations with specialised (and often hidden) agendas (Drug education by the Scientologists is a good example)

But the main objective of the NZTC is to maintain a register of teachers who are qualified and safe to have in a class of children.

It's the real reason the NZTC was set up.

But now it transpires that they've taken their eye off the ball.

They've become so obsessed with the whole "Let's make our teachers better by forcing them to undergo mostly pointless, boring and possibly completely wrong Professional Learning for the rest of their teaching lives" that they missed a doozy.

It transpires that they have registered, and repeatedly re-registered a repeat sex offender who has been using multiple identities and teaching at many schools.

See Stuff for details

If the stupid bastards had really been doing their job, this would never have happened.

It's typical of the way that our civilization and culture is trending, making things over-complex and preferring the appearance rather than the substance.

Why can't they just leave us alone to get on with a job most of us love.  The job can be tough, and the kids can sometimes be little buggers, but we (mostly) enjoy it, and have a bit of fun..

That's the real problem.

The little bastard employed by the NZTC who goes around sucking the fun out of everything

They're sucking the fun out of teaching.



Oh well, there's always the senior girls in their summer frocks to keep us happy.

The 12 weeks holidays help as well.