Article In Mahurangi Matters 

As news reports all too frequently remind us, an increasing number of boys
are being referred to health professional by their parents and teachers
because of their disruptive behaviour and poor literacy rates. It's a
message that comes as no surprise to Graham Crawshaw, 76, who runs a camp
for boys at Windy Ridge, south of Warkworth. For decades, Graham and his
wife Joan have devoted themselves to giving boys back their boyhood. His
efforts were recognised in 2003 when he received a Queens Service Medal
for community service. Here he shares his passion to see literacy rates
improve in NZ and his vision for the future ….

I had a privileged childhood. I was born in Leamington, Cambridge, where
my father was the school principal. The only cup I ever won was for being
the first baby born in the school house there. We shifted to Thames in the
early 1930s and then later moved to Mt Eden, in Auckland. At that time, Mt
Eden was a boy's paradise – it was like a mini farm and we had pets, huts,
trees to climb, trolleys to race and all the other things boys love to do.
There was a real sense of community, whether you were mixing with family
or friends, neighbours or just the local butcher. People socialised a lot
more and I think we under-estimate how much we learn from this everyday
contact with one another. Contact through technology is artificial.

I'm a compulsive learner and I'm certain it is my upbringing that fostered
that. My parents, shared my upbringing with many others, who were more
than just teachers or sports coaches to me. They really listened to me and
understood my need for adventure and activity. From the age of seven or
eight, I started visiting farms owned by family friends in the Waikato and
Northland. I would catch the bus or train by myself and spend the school
holidays with them. Being able to make these farm visits had a huge effect
on my education.

At 17, I headed to university, undertaking first a medical intermediate
course in Auckland and then moving to the dental school in Dunedin. But
during my dentistry training I realised I wanted to be a farmer. I think
it was the happy memories of my childhood farm visits which convinced me
that that's where I wanted to raise my future family. At secondary school,
I'd always been criticised for changing courses but my parents were more
understanding. They said "go for it". I think we do boys a disservice when
we put them in a straitjacket so that they feel they can't change their
minds. My advice to them has always been not to be afraid to make a change
in direction, because dreams and ambitions are much more valuable than
NCEA marks.

I started working on a farm in Rangiora and then moved to my uncle's farm
in Dargaville. I then leased-to-purchase a 162 hectare sheep and dairy
farm at Arapohue, a little south of Dargaville, which I converted to sheep
and cattle. Joan and I married in 1959 and had three daughters and a son,
Richard. We encouraged all our children to be independent and when Richard
was nine, we sent him to an uncle's farm in Gisborne. It was a chance for
him to experience the farm life I'd enjoyed when I was a boy.

About this time I decided to establish the Arapohue Bush Camp concept.
Joan shared my vision, which was to provide boys with the experiences they
were missing from their home environments. We held our first camp in 1962,
with nine boys camping in our house. Two more camps were held that year,
utilising a woolshed, where a loft was constructed for the sleeping
quarters. The boys loved it. Later on, they helped us build 10 rough
cabins – it was this hands-on approach, as well as our focus on activities
designed particularly with boys in mind, that made us different from the
many other camps that were around. The boys came to us from the Auckland
Baptist Tabernacle – some were very hard cases. We could see the camps
were making some radical changes in them. You could see the delight in
their faces when they were doing things they enjoyed. Camps were held
regularly from 1962 through to 1991. We also set up an alternative school
for boys and girls from 1978 to 1982, with 87 children attending over the
four years, but this stopped due to the difficulty of staffing the school.

The year 1991 was a key time. We had 42 boys at a camp and I decided to
test their reading ability. We were appalled at some of the results. The
problem cut right across wealth and ethnic boundaries. Although I knew
nothing about teaching reading, except my memories of the good primers we
had had at school which taught phonics, I decided to try to do something
to help the boys who had such low reading ability. It was a case of trial
and error. We started with the 10 poorest readers. Then, in 1995, we held
our first reading adventure camp in Titirangi, which was attended by about
30 boys. Girls didn't seem to need the camps as much as boys - they seem
to have been better at surviving the whole language (look and guess)
methods used by schools. I realised that conversation is an integral part
of literacy learning and there is a marked absence of conversation in many
boys' lives. We hear of boys disrupting the school, but I sometimes wonder
if it is the school system disrupting the boys' learning style. Since then
we have held 70 reading camps, now called Farmstays. I still believe the
level of illiteracy in our nation is a national scandal. No boy should
pass his seventh birthday without being able to read. If there is a
problem, such as dyslexia, Irhlen or Asperger syndrome, then they need to
be diagnosed early so teaching can be adjusted accordingly.

We bought the Windy Ridge Bush Camp, now called Windy Ridge Boy's Farm,
south of Warkworth, 12 years ago. It's a 14 hectare bush property and we
have added 'boy friendly' buildings with no electricity, long drops and
bunkrooms with minimal furnishings. It's a 1900s zone. The boys we see
come with a lot of 'baggage'. They are often very angry so we spend time
with them trying to work through their issues. We give them alternatives
to angry behaviour, offering them activities involving the three key
elements boys love – mud, fire, and water. After awhile, they forget to be
angry. Fairness and justice are also an integral part of what we teach.

We've held five programmes at Windy Ridge, one of which was filmed by
Maori TV, but there are still many challenges ahead. We hope to eventually
have available a manual for tutors to help standardise our programmes. We
are looking for new tutors, people with a real heart for boys. Funding is
also needed to help run the camps and other services we plan in the
future, such as free reading tests, an 0800 literacy hotline, training
courses for parents, tutors and teachers, special programmes for those who
have dyslexia and other syndromes and adult literacy programmes. The
environment we raise boys in is crucial in determining the young men they
will become. Camps like ours are helping to give at least some boys the
chance to get back on track so that they can lead happy and useful lives.

Graham & Joan Crawshaw's passion for running children's camps based on
Christian principles targeting underprivileged children was first realized
in 1962 with a camp for nine Auckland boys in a woolshed on their 420 acre
bush-farm near Dargaville. At an adventure camp at Arapohue in 1991 the
reading levels of 42 boys were tested with startling results. The ten
poorest readers were called back for individual reading instruction and an
introduction to phonics. Those boys responded quickly and were eager to
learn. Since then, starting May 1995, the Arapohue Bush Camp has hosted 68
READING ADVENTURE CAMPS for children aged 7 – 12.

What Principals Say

"The camp combined character and confidence building along with a focus on reading development. Our pupils came home showing greater confidence in themselves and have all shown an improvement in reading level and attitude to reading.” 
Mr Jo Wilson, Ellerslie Primary school

“Our children came back happy, healthy their self-esteem and confidence boosted, and advanced in their word attack skills in reading and writing…. Although I don’t agree with a totally phonic approach to reading, I know it is the first step, and without those skills children fail. The Arapohue Bush Camp has become an important part of our school reading programme, and we intend to make this an annual event…” 
Ani Johnson, Te Horo School, Pipiwai

What Parents Say

"The camp achieved a lot in such a short time for our son; first the confidence to want to try reading again…”
Roy & Lynnette Grubb, Wellsford

“We are thrilled at the way Jamie has improved her reading at the camps she has attended at Arapohue over the last two years. She says she always hates reading but what you do at camp … is fun.”
Tony & Helene Blomfield, Kaukapakapa

“My son wasn’t that keen on going to a reading camp. But the difference towards reading was amazing. He read his first novel in one week and couldn’t put it down … It has been evident to me this camp is essential for all children with reading difficulties …” Sue McKay, Tauranga

“Shannon, aged 10. is wanting to return to camp to tutor children whose limited abilities in this day and age stunned him. How do children his age and older pass thought the system unable to read …? Princess Jury, Te Kopuru

What Former Senior Constable Says

"In our work, we have found that there is a strong link between offending behaviour and reading ability. Accordingly, we have referred many of our ‘at risk’ from the Projects to these Reading Camps and the results achieved have been outstanding.” 
Nick Tuitasi of Mt Roskill

 

 

A NZ Herald obituary to Marie Clay (I refuse to recognise her grand title of "Dame") concluded that "her influence on literacy in New Zealand is unparalleled." With that judgement I wholeheartedly agree - except perhaps for the equally disastrous influence of her mentor, Clarence Beeby.

Marie Clay [her first name is pronounced MAH-ree, but hey, just go right ahead and guess; it's what she used to encourage] has certainly earned for herself a place in literacy history that is unchallenged. She is credited with changing the face of primary school literacy in New Zealand, and she did: largely by discarding the teaching of phonics as the very foundation of learning to read, leaving several generations of New Zealanders adrift in a world of words, and. without any means by which to decode them.

The results can be seen in literacy surveys such as the 1996 world survey on adult literacy, which demonstrated all too clearly -­and it's worth reminding ourselves of this fact frequently - that too many New Zealanders emerge from school without two of the basic skills that were once (pre-Clay) taught there: they can neither read nor write at a skill sufficient to function in the modern world.

The survey found that a staggering 66.4 percent of Maori are below the minimum level of "ability to understand and use information from text," and an equally tragic 41.6 percent of non-Maori. 40 percent of employed New Zealanders and 75 percent of the unemployed are below the minimum level of literacy competence for everyday life and work. Universities organising remedial reading and writing courses for first-year students report that "University students can't read, write or spell," and that "Students fail basic skills," and the Labour Department estimates that up to 530,000 New Zealand adults have inadequate literacy and numeracy skills.

530,000 New Zealand adults! You'd have to think that levels of functional illiteracy that dire did not happen by accident, and you'd be right. They happened after Marie Clay's "look and guess" method of reading was substituted for the teaching of phonics. 

Phonics teaches children to match the sounds of letters and groups of letters that make up words, a skill that once mastered allows the student to match letters to sounds and vice versa - in short, to learn to read. Eighty-seven per cent of the English language can be easily learned using phonics, and the remaining thirteen per cent by rote and memory -- not a difficult task once the groundwork has been laid. It is a tried and true method by which the mystery is removed from those mysterious marks that appear on the page.

Marie Clay rejected this thinking altogether. In her book Becoming Literate (given me by a training college student for whom it was required reading), she writes,

Teachers may feel that the critical thing for the child to learn is his sounds, and they may provide an elaborate scheme for teaching that overrated aspect of reading known as phonics ... Current thinking suggests that we may have to revise our thinking about the value of phonics ...

Given the tragic results of lost generations before us, perhaps instead we might find more value if we "revise our thinking" about the work of this woman, who threw out the baby of phonics without even leaving any bathwater behind. I suggest a more appropriate name for her book is Remaining Illiterate, which sums up the situation for several generations of functionally illiterate New Zealanders who have her own overrated system to thank for their minds having been turned to mush.

Although some schools and even some of Clay's own protégées claim to teach phonics as part of a "mixture of methods," in reality this teaching is mostly confined in the early stages to teaching the 'names' of the letters (rather than their sounds) so that children may identify the first letter in words, at which point children are encouraged to guess what words say by using "the context of the story," or "picture clues," and then to commit them' to memory by "shape." Other approaches bizarrely introduce children to whole words first, only then getting them to sound out letter combinations within words. Where more structured phonics is taught it is usually later on, and then chiefly for spelling purposes.

However research evidence shows that pupils do not learn to distinguish between the different sounds of words simply by guessing, or by being exposed to books by a process of osmosis. They need to be taught the connection between letters and sounds, rather than an over-reliance on guessing.

Supporters of Clay will point to her much vaunted Reading Recovery programme, initiated by Clay to pick up the casualties caused largely by her own implementation in NZ schools of the wholesale rejection of phonics, and which earned for her a Damehood. It was adopted by NZ schools in 1983, and for a time even bought overseas in the UK, the US and in Australia.

However, research in the US and by James Chapman and Bill Tunmer at Massey University in NZ show that the true results for this programme have been grossly overrated. Reading Recovery programmes often resulted in lower self-esteem, they found,and no long-term improvement in reading ability. US education writer Martha C. Brown summarises the reasons that made California and Texas drop Reading Recovery and Whole Language and begin again to embrace phonics. Reading Recovery's stated goal, notes Brown, is to bring "the bottom 20 percent of readers up to the average reading level in their classroom."

The Reading Recovery programme claims an 83 percent success rate, promising to cut other remedial costs. However, Timothy Shanahan, professor and Literacy Center director at the University of Illinois, and Rebecca Barr, professor of reading at the National-Louis University in Evanston, Ill., found Reading Recovery rejects some eligible children and drops others who progress slowly. Reading Recovery omits these children in figuring its success. With this data included, the researchers found the short-term success rate was 51 percent, not the 84 percent Reading Recovery claimed with one group of children ...

A New Zealand Ministry of Education study blames Reading Recovery's failure on lack of "systematic instruction in word-level strategies" (phonics). Reading Recovery uses "principles and practices very similar to those of whole language," says Patrick Groff, emeritus professor at San Diego State University. Reading Recovery books, like Whole Language books, contain repetitive sentences and pictures to help children guess.

"The Whole Language approach to reading simply does not work for children with reading disabilities. A structured, phonics -based approach is more likely to help them," concludes a 13-year study by 100 researchers in medicine, education and psychology.

Despite flawed methods and high cost, Reading Recovery's average annual enrollment increase between 1986 and 1998 was 47 percent, based on figures from Reading Recovery Council of North America. Nearly 11,000 U.S. schools use Reading Recovery, and 560,000 children have participated.

A Battelle Institute study shows the average annual cost of a Reading Recovery tutor is 30 percent more than the cost of a teacher for other remedial programs ...

The scandalous problem of rampant illiteracy has for too long been denied, disguised and explained away by insiders in the training colleges and the elite clique of educationalists who have followed along behind Clarence Beeby and Marie Clay. Their confusing 'look and guess' system of illiteracy is increasingly discredited, and continues to consign the young people who can't cope with it to the scrap heap. Her influence on New Zealand literacy has indeed been unparalleled - and I do not intend that as a compliment.

                                                                                               July - August 2007-The Free Radical- 19

 

 

This is the NZ, Down under version of "Aren't we oldsters lucky!"  
 
 CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE  
 
 1920's, 30's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!
 
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer. Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking ..  
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a Ute on a warm day was always a special treat.   We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle..

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Red Rooster. Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy fruit tingles and some crackers to blow up frogs with. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight b ecause......   

 WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!  
 
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.   
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and cubby houses and played in creek beds with matchbox cars.  
 
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video
tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!  
 
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
Only girls had pierced ears!   
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross buns at Easter time.......no really!  

We were given BB guns and sling shots for our 10th birthdays,  

We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing at Maralinga in 1956. 

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!
 
Footy had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Imagine that!! Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather staps and bully'salways ruled the playground at school.  
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.They actually sided with the law!
Our parents got married before they had children and didn't invent stupid names for their kids like "Kiora"
and "Blade" (Ed. Nothing wrong with Blade (named in honour ofchampion ruckman Brendan Lade))
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!  
 
The past 70 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. 
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned  
 
  HOW TO  DEAL WITH IT ALL!  
 
  And YOU are one of them!
 
  CONGRATULATIONS!  
 
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the
government regulated our lives for our own good.  
 
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.  
 
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?! 
 
  PS -The big type is because your eyes are shot at your age 
 

On Quoting Shakespeare
If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me", you
are quoting Shakespeare;

if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting
Shakespeare;

if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare;

if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the
thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting
Shakespeare;

if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed
jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied,
a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your
brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one
wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master),
laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much
of a good thing, if you have seen bet ter days or lived in a fool's
paradise - why, be that as it may, the more fool you , for it is a
foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting
Shakespeare;

if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think
it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe
that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own
flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect
foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without
rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were
known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting
Shakespeare;

even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was
dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the
devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking
idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the
dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting
Shakespeare.
Bernard Levin

Callum McPetrie

Libz youth spokesman
November 17, 2008

It could read like a Shakespearean tragedy: using the excuse of their
students' personal weaknesses, bureaucrats at the Ministry of Education
are trying to remove Shakespeare, arguably the finest mind ever in
literature, entirely from the national curriculum. Amidst fears that his
works are too removed from the mind of the average High School student,
Shakespeare could be scrapped.

Perhaps these bureaucrats should consider the reasons why students in New
Zealand are so out-performed in other countries. After years of
politically correct, postmodern "teaching" strategies implemented by both
Labour and National Governments, students, parents and teachers in this
country have been left with the short end of the stick. What we are
seeing today is a population so dumbed down that many lack basic skills
and knowledge, with many ending up on welfare. Indeed, the reason why
many students "don't get" Shakespeare has been through the curriculum
introduced by the same "education officials" now proposing this measure.

This latest proposal to remove Shakespeare, and letting a student who
studies a blog as a piece of English literature obtain the same marks as
a student who studies Shakespeare's incredible works, is simply the next
piece in the puzzle. Shakespeare's works are the best pieces of
literature around, and are still very relevant in today's world. Teachers
in schools are smart enough to know this. Said one, "I am genuinely upset
that the amount of literature students are required to study is being
reduced and replaced with ambiguous standards which seem to water down
the work students are required to do." Said another, "All the challenge
and in-depth analysis and skills required at each level are being
modified, and in my opinion, made easier. Is the implication that we
should not dare to challenge students, or heaven forbid, ask them to
engage with texts that really speak to the human condition in a superbly
crafted form? Dumbing down again."

Yet "education officials" who have no idea of how a child's mind works
dictate what gets learnt.

Politically correct, big government dictatorial thinking at work again.
Appealing to the lowest common denominator, and not challenging students
to think beyond the box of government-mandated thinkingâ€"the concepts of
"sustainability", "equality", or in my English class, "altruism". It is
taught much the same in countries such as Britain and the United
Statesâ€"with similar results.

In a freer world, schools would be entirely free to teach whatever they
want, with the choices of parents and teacher deciding what ought to be
taught. As an interim measure, save us from yet more entrenchment of
political correctness at schoolâ€"save Shakespeare.

Callum McPetrie callummcpetrie@yahoo.co.nz

Article: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4761440a23918.html