Trees beat grass for carbon sequestration
Sylvia Brian’s letter (Tuesday October 18) makes a misleading statement saying that grasslands are the world’s biggest carbon sink. While this may apply in certain places — California for one where there is a greater risk of forest fires due to heatwaves and droughts — natural grassland may be more suited to sequestering more CO2 into the soil.
Grassland that has gone into animal farming, especially for more intensive use, the release of greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxides far outweighs what CO2 is being sequestered by the pasture. This is what accounts for nearly half of all New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Under New Zealand conditions tree planting will soak up considerably more carbon, whether it be exotic or native species.
Ray Paterson
Teaching and learning
About 2400 years ago Plato, while sitting under the olive tree, had his students enthralled by his teaching in
Ancient Greece. Nothing like a brilliant teacher who knows his subject and has the ability and personality to give understanding in an interested way to students of any age. It’s a skill that can be learned but also comes as a natural gift to some.
Sitting around a rock pool at the beach, or on a marae, a science lab, music room, sports ground, class room, or eating lunch out on the school steps with the pupils — the junior classes ideally are taught to listen and be given the chance and skills to order their thoughts and have their say. Good teachers who listen are listened to.
Having at one stage of my career as deputy principal of a very large, full primary school with a class of 45 Year 7 pupils stacked in one room to manage plus DP duties to survive, I had to cut the unnecessary screeds of written rubbish and throw myself 100 per cent into teaching and essential management.
Sundays I went sailing. I did this for four years and got on well with pupils and parents and staff.
Essential test results, and written reports were done but repetitive screeds required by the politically correct ministry were ticks on the syllabus.
My Form 2 pupils were super kids who had the advantage of earlier teaching of basics in a happy formal, large infant department with their own rooms and teachers for most of the day.
However it’s wrong to blame teachers for falling standards but some changes are needed at Training College and the ministry.
Looking back many years, I have pleasant memories of most of the members of the school inspectorate and the teacher grading system. Hamiora
Kerikeri
Stuck in the mud
The Groundswell protest today (Thursday, October 20) shows just how stuck in the mud some farmers are when it comes to moving with the times. That after decades of scientific evidence and easily felt changes here on farms in Aotearoa, some people still call climate change a hoax or not man made really speaks volumes of how detached they are from the rest of the world.
This country’s rural and agricultural sector has been hard hit