NCEA brouhaha is simply no trivial matter
HOW can we possibly expect our school leavers to become ODT
readers if people like Civis use not only words like trivial but also ubiquity, serendipitous, leverage, neurological, empathise, predominantly and diagnostic?
(ODT, 24.11.18).
Is the ODT trying to marginalise our young people by using words beyond their comprehension? Perhaps Civis is just warning us that soon we will no longer be able to communicate with the younger generations.
I constantly have trouble with all the new words entering our vocabulary: knowen, showen, messive, primarrily, ceremoany, halth and many others.
I am trying to adopt the new verbs. I no longer draw a picture; I create an image. I am not merely writing this; I have tasked myself to author a letter to you. As for having the temerity to complain to the examiners, I once complained, before Google and computers were invented, to Prof Morrell for setting me a history topic, the later relations between Napoleon and the papacy, only to find there was but one text on this topic in the library and it was in French. ‘‘I understand you are studying French,’’ he said. ‘‘You may use a dictionary.’’
I do hope that school leavers will now be allowed to take dictionaries into their university exams, or better still, laptops with all the information they require. Even better, why not abolish exams or scrap subjects like history altogether? Indeed, why pursue and education at all? We could save the taxpayer billions.
Ann Barrowclough
Roslyn
CIVIS (ODT, 24.11.18) has once again expressed succinctly what I consider to be the feeling within the greater community. This time it’s about the comprehension (or otherwise) of everyday English (language).
For students sitting an exam with the word ‘‘trivial’’ in a question to complain they did not understand the meaning of the word is reason enough for the examiner to mark the answer with a ‘‘no pass’’. Stop whingeing. We live in a real world, not a virtual world, so . . . just get real! Trevor Norton
Temuka
Euthanasia
DAVID Seymour is getting excited about a partially completed PhD by an Otago University student which he believes shows support for his euthanasia Bill.
No matter that none of the polls studied require that respondents have read his draft legislation. Nor that polls typically make leading and euphemistic questions like asking if the respondent believes people should be assisted to have a painfree death.
To skew the results even more, many people responding to such polls are simply unaware of legal rights already in place such as the right to refuse lifesaving treatment such as resuscitation.
These factors give the lie to Seymour’s claim that such surveys are ‘‘scientific’’.
What New Zealanders want is more real choice at the end of their lives. In other words, guaranteed palliative care services which will take into account their own individual needs and wishes. Currently there is no requirement for DHBs to provide this. We need to pressure them to do so, along the lines of the member’s Bill being promoted by Maggie Barry, which would make firstclass palliative care universal throughout the country.
Why would we legislate to kill precious New Zealanders before trying this more positive option? Melissa Hardy
Auckland ..................................
BIBLE READING:
. . . let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. — Romans 14:19