I found the following on The Man of Errors blog out of Wellington. He's a teacher and an insightful blogger.
"A total of 73.2 per cent (399) of respondents – all of whom live in Auckland – said they supported the introduction of standards for reading, writing and maths in their children’s primary schools.
However, just 11.9 per cent said they had “a full understanding” of the policy; 61.8 per cent said they had a partial understanding, and 26.2 per cent admitted not understanding it."
NZ Herald, 6 Feb. 2010
73% of people surveyed support something that 88% of them don’t understand.
"This kind of surveying is close to the direct democracy that Athens had where the citizens of Athens would vote on every issue concerning the city (rather than representational democracy where we vote in the NZ election and our representatives do whatever they want for three years). Sometimes it seems like direct democracy is a good idea, and sometimes when you hear what the man and woman in the street actually has to say in the pointless, time-filling vox pops in a news item you really begin to worry.
Actually I worry about two things: (1) what people think, and (2) how badly the media let us down when they shape these thoughts. On reflection I find (1) a lot less worrying than (2).
I am not nimble minded. Ask me a tough question about an issue of the day and I will say something ill-conceived. I imagine if a guy with a microphone and a TV camera asked me something I would also say something inane.
Reporter: “Bananas… good or bad?”
Man of Errors: “KILL EM ALL!”
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