Zac+Opinion+Writing

 Education should be free for everyone Every day, thousands of children attend school. In England, it is free to go to school [primary, at least] and they only have to pay for their books. They get to access all of the school’s facilities for the whole school day, and the only things they need are their stationary. I think that this is fantastic, and I think that New Zealand should follow suit. Education takes a huge toll on parents because they have to pay tech art fees, school donations, and lots of other fees. These are all ways to take money from parents, even when some schools are supported by the government. I firmly believe that education should be free, and you should not have to pay for anything at all because the amount of money that parents pay each year could be used in other aspects of their lives. Firstly, if public third stage education is made free, there will be a lot of families who have a bit of money left over. Ten    dollars may seem a small amount, but that could buy at least three days food for a family if they spent carefully. If you count all the fees up, you would be left with quite a lot of money, which the parents could put towards an extra- curricular activity for the child. The money could also be used to support the family if they are going through financial trouble. Also, if parents did not have to pay college fees, there is a chance that they would be able to perhaps buy more things for the child to enhance their learning. If the family could afford to buy some books for themselves, or hire a tutor to assist with the child’s learning, this could have a very positive effect on them. On the other hand, if colleges did not get funding from parents, how would they pay for all their resources? Yes, the government pays for some, but the school cannot rely on the government for everything, that is why parents need to pay some money towards the school. The school should not have to pay extra if a student decides to play with the printer and waste a whole packet of paper. Also, how would the colleges pay for all their fundraising opportunities? They need to be able to purchase the things that they use to cook sausages etc. And they would not be able to finish enormous projects i.e. like a new arts centre, or new expensive instruments for their band? I am sure that at least some of the money was given by parents paying fees or giving donations. In conclusion, I firmly believe that school fees should be abolished for public schools because the benefits for the families who do not have as much money as others will be staggering. The amount of money that the parents had spent on fees could be spent on the family, where it may really be needed.

Education should be free for everyone- Reflection. I think that i could have done better by doing more research and perhaps giving more reasons for why education should not be free. I also think that i could have made it more interesting.

By Zac Should Smacking As Part Of Parental Correction Be Legal? Every day, there are children that misbehave and continually break their parent’s rules and their parents are only allowed to tell them off verbally, which the children frequently ignore. I think that Smacking should be legal because it allows them to punish their children in a way that the children are more likely to remember it. The anti-smacking law was introduced in May, 2007 by Sue Bradford, whose bill was even supported by Helen Clark, who said that it was needed to give the police a “reasonable chance” at catching serious offenders. The bill had a lot of opposition and Chester Borrows- a former police officer, was concerned that the bill would “catch everybody” rather than the more serious offenders.

For starters, smacking creates a small sense of wariness in children, so that they know that if they do something wrong or stupid they will be punished. This may lead to the child being better behaved at school, at home, and out when they are with the public because they know the consequences of their actions. The child may also improve in performance at school because they know that if they misbehave, the teacher will notify the parents of the child and they may be punished- smacked, in this instance.

Secondly, The Smack is a better form of punishment than simply telling them off, because the child will take the fact that they will be smacked rather than told off if they do something wrong. The smack also is more effective than a telling off because the child may not listen, which means that the parent can get the child’s attention and make sure that they get the message.

Also, the Smack serves as a way to show the children that the parent is in control, because telling off gives the child control, by giving them the option to tune out and this leads the parent to possibly become more frustrated and they may also take their anger out on the child, which could have been avoided if they had decided to give them an open hand smack on the arm or on the leg.

As well as this, the smack is a better way of punishing children because so many children are abused and one cause of this may be the fact that they feel in control and feel powerful by breaking the law, I think that if the law was expanded to only a single, open handed smack on the arm or leg, there would be less cases of child abuse in New Zealand.

In Conclusion, I think that parents should be allowed to smack children once, on the arm or the leg, not again and again, because it is a way of punishing children that is better than simply shouting at them, or beating them, because it is a fair way of punishing a child that makes them behave.