Very rarely do you get the chance to witness a truly great teacher at work in the classroom.
Dr Paul Crowhurst has worked in education for over twenty years – almost as long as I’ve known him – and I’ve had the privilege of observing him teach in various contexts, both to children and adults. He’s impressive.
Paul’s Doctorate of Education was earned while not just juggling a busy family life, but also a highly demanding role as a school principal.
It wasn’t a surprise to me that when Paul was asked to teach a tertiary paper in 2020 on Educational Leadership at Massey University’s Institute of Education, he gladly accepted the offer.
While his lecture load was initially on a fixed-term contract, Head of the Institute of Education, Associate Professor Alison Kearney, was soon asking about the potential for Paul to take on more lecturing opportunities at Massey. There were also promising indications that his Adjunct Senior Lecturer’s role would continue into 2022 and grow into something larger.
But this is a story of how, despite the positive conversations, Paul was mysteriously denied the opportunity.
It was only through an OIA that the puzzle pieces came together.
Paul was aware of the radical trends emerging in education. But he was unaware of just quite how radical the institutional ethos had become at Massey.
The term “ideological capture” typically sums up this phenomenon whereby ideological gatekeepers within an organisation or institution weed out independent thinkers from their ranks.
This pervasive mindset was first revealed in the OIA when Professor John O’Neill, Paul’s former PhD supervisor, wrote to Professor Kearney as Head of the Institute of Education, recommending Paul as a lecturer. The otherwise enthusiastic endorsement from O’Neill came with a caveat that “the only real downsides with Paul are he is male and Pakeha.”
The professor, though also “male” and “Pakeha”, seems, ironically, to have exempted himself from such categorical discrimination.
The first semester of 2021 passed satisfactorily for all concerned as Paul continued to teach the 771 paper in Educational Leadership, all the while continuing his role as principal of a busy South Auckland primary school.
And, during the mid-year break, Paul submitted an op-ed to Stuff on the new Unteach Racism initiative, which the Teaching Council of NZ decided to roll out in schools across the country.
Paul had concerns about two aspects of the programme’s revolutionary new thinking. Firstly, the fundamental claims it makes concerning “unconscious bias”, and secondly, the traditional “Pakeha social structures” which, according to the new theory of racism, are necessary to maintain “white supremacy”.
In his article, Paul does not doubt that racism is real and problematic. He believes there is a need to address racism whenever it occurs in schools. However, he points out that the Unteach Racism programme, which declares that modern NZ has an inherently racist social system, seem to be contradicted, at least in part, by the evidence of educational outcomes.
You can read the full Stuff article by Paul here.
At the time the article was published, Paul expressed interest in a permanent job as a Senior Lecturer in Education with the responsibility of heading up the Educational Leadership programme. Given his experience and conversations with Massey, he seemed a strong and obvious candidate.
Yet, mysteriously, he wasn’t even shortlisted.
Unbeknownst to Paul at the time, the article had caused a stir at Massey.
Within days of the op-ed appearing in Stuff, another lecturer in the Institute of Education flagged the story with Professor Kearney.
Internal email communications show that several members of the Massey faculty believed that Paul’s op-ed is “horrific” and “deeply racist” and “part of the problem they’re trying to eradicate from the education system”. Another lecturer wrote to Kearney stating, “with all the work we are doing to undo this thinking, it would be terrible to be linked to (Paul) and his opinion”.
One even asked whether others could feel “safe” around Paul’s ideas, and there was talk of reporting him to the Teaching Council (the very same professional regulatory body which initiated the Unteach Racism programme in the first place).
While Paul was aware after writing the op-ed that not everyone would have agreed with the ideas, he still assumed his role as an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Massey would not be threatened by a thoughtful article written in good faith.
Bear in mind that at this time, Paul was a principal of an ethnically diverse primary school in South Auckland. He wanted more than anything for his students and staff to thrive and succeed. His intention was to help them overcome any barriers they may face; he was just doubtful that an ill-defined, unsubstantiated and unworkable curriculum was going to achieve its stated end.
Paul continued revising his notes for the second semester of the 771 paper. But, further internal email communications at Massey show that, in hindsight, the campaign to get rid of Paul was already in full swing.
One complainant also drew attention to the fact that Stuff initially received strong feedback from many readers both for and against Paul’s op-ed, such that an Editor’s Note at the end of the article was added the day after publication which read: “In response to this column, we will be publishing a different opinion from an educator on Friday, 16 July. We're also reviewing Stuff’s process behind publishing this article to determine if it aligns with our company charter and editorial code of practice and ethics.”
Paul, it seems, had been found guilty of that most heinous of things: sparking debate.
During the two months following the publishing of the op-ed, not once did Paul hear from any member of faculty at Massey of any concerns regarding what he had written. But eventually he received a surprising email from Professor Kearney explaining that his services as a lecturer at Massey would no longer be needed in 2022.
She said the position Paul applied for would be filled by an existing member of staff due to a “tightening of budget where all units have been required to make target savings for 2022.”
Paul politely requested a copy of his personnel file and all email communication from Massey that may have discussed him or his employment over the previous 18 months, and eventually received over 120 pages.
Paul says, “I’m not bitter or resentful toward anyone at Massey, but as an institution they have a problem with deep rot… What I learnt from working at Massey for two years was that it is just a sad place where you survive by saying the same nonsense over and over.”
Paul’s story reveals a number of problems about where higher education is going wrong.
Diversity of representation seems only to apply to an individual’s appearance. The prevailing ideology, on the other hand, requires conformity.
There is a deliberate and often orchestrated attempt to filter out dissenting or independent thinkers at the professional level.
Professional and/or employment actions taken against non-conforming thinkers are more likely to succeed when done behind closed doors. Dishonesty and a culture of ‘the ends justify the means’ typify institutional behaviour that leads to unethical - and at times unlawful – discrimination towards people like Paul.
When we pull back the curtain on many of our tertiary institutions, we get the evidence of intolerance on full display.
We need more people like Dr Crowhurst who are willing to stick their heads above the parapet and remind people what a free society stands for. If we care about the future of education in NZ, it is incumbent on the rest of us to support them when they do, whether we agree with them or not.
Nick Hanne is the Education Partnerships Manager at the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published by The Platform and is published here with kind permission.
It wasn’t a surprise to me that when Paul was asked to teach a tertiary paper in 2020 on Educational Leadership at Massey University’s Institute of Education, he gladly accepted the offer.
While his lecture load was initially on a fixed-term contract, Head of the Institute of Education, Associate Professor Alison Kearney, was soon asking about the potential for Paul to take on more lecturing opportunities at Massey. There were also promising indications that his Adjunct Senior Lecturer’s role would continue into 2022 and grow into something larger.
But this is a story of how, despite the positive conversations, Paul was mysteriously denied the opportunity.
It was only through an OIA that the puzzle pieces came together.
Paul was aware of the radical trends emerging in education. But he was unaware of just quite how radical the institutional ethos had become at Massey.
The term “ideological capture” typically sums up this phenomenon whereby ideological gatekeepers within an organisation or institution weed out independent thinkers from their ranks.
This pervasive mindset was first revealed in the OIA when Professor John O’Neill, Paul’s former PhD supervisor, wrote to Professor Kearney as Head of the Institute of Education, recommending Paul as a lecturer. The otherwise enthusiastic endorsement from O’Neill came with a caveat that “the only real downsides with Paul are he is male and Pakeha.”
The professor, though also “male” and “Pakeha”, seems, ironically, to have exempted himself from such categorical discrimination.
The first semester of 2021 passed satisfactorily for all concerned as Paul continued to teach the 771 paper in Educational Leadership, all the while continuing his role as principal of a busy South Auckland primary school.
And, during the mid-year break, Paul submitted an op-ed to Stuff on the new Unteach Racism initiative, which the Teaching Council of NZ decided to roll out in schools across the country.
Paul had concerns about two aspects of the programme’s revolutionary new thinking. Firstly, the fundamental claims it makes concerning “unconscious bias”, and secondly, the traditional “Pakeha social structures” which, according to the new theory of racism, are necessary to maintain “white supremacy”.
In his article, Paul does not doubt that racism is real and problematic. He believes there is a need to address racism whenever it occurs in schools. However, he points out that the Unteach Racism programme, which declares that modern NZ has an inherently racist social system, seem to be contradicted, at least in part, by the evidence of educational outcomes.
You can read the full Stuff article by Paul here.
At the time the article was published, Paul expressed interest in a permanent job as a Senior Lecturer in Education with the responsibility of heading up the Educational Leadership programme. Given his experience and conversations with Massey, he seemed a strong and obvious candidate.
Yet, mysteriously, he wasn’t even shortlisted.
Unbeknownst to Paul at the time, the article had caused a stir at Massey.
Within days of the op-ed appearing in Stuff, another lecturer in the Institute of Education flagged the story with Professor Kearney.
Internal email communications show that several members of the Massey faculty believed that Paul’s op-ed is “horrific” and “deeply racist” and “part of the problem they’re trying to eradicate from the education system”. Another lecturer wrote to Kearney stating, “with all the work we are doing to undo this thinking, it would be terrible to be linked to (Paul) and his opinion”.
One even asked whether others could feel “safe” around Paul’s ideas, and there was talk of reporting him to the Teaching Council (the very same professional regulatory body which initiated the Unteach Racism programme in the first place).
While Paul was aware after writing the op-ed that not everyone would have agreed with the ideas, he still assumed his role as an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Massey would not be threatened by a thoughtful article written in good faith.
Bear in mind that at this time, Paul was a principal of an ethnically diverse primary school in South Auckland. He wanted more than anything for his students and staff to thrive and succeed. His intention was to help them overcome any barriers they may face; he was just doubtful that an ill-defined, unsubstantiated and unworkable curriculum was going to achieve its stated end.
Paul continued revising his notes for the second semester of the 771 paper. But, further internal email communications at Massey show that, in hindsight, the campaign to get rid of Paul was already in full swing.
One complainant also drew attention to the fact that Stuff initially received strong feedback from many readers both for and against Paul’s op-ed, such that an Editor’s Note at the end of the article was added the day after publication which read: “In response to this column, we will be publishing a different opinion from an educator on Friday, 16 July. We're also reviewing Stuff’s process behind publishing this article to determine if it aligns with our company charter and editorial code of practice and ethics.”
Paul, it seems, had been found guilty of that most heinous of things: sparking debate.
During the two months following the publishing of the op-ed, not once did Paul hear from any member of faculty at Massey of any concerns regarding what he had written. But eventually he received a surprising email from Professor Kearney explaining that his services as a lecturer at Massey would no longer be needed in 2022.
She said the position Paul applied for would be filled by an existing member of staff due to a “tightening of budget where all units have been required to make target savings for 2022.”
Paul politely requested a copy of his personnel file and all email communication from Massey that may have discussed him or his employment over the previous 18 months, and eventually received over 120 pages.
Paul says, “I’m not bitter or resentful toward anyone at Massey, but as an institution they have a problem with deep rot… What I learnt from working at Massey for two years was that it is just a sad place where you survive by saying the same nonsense over and over.”
Paul’s story reveals a number of problems about where higher education is going wrong.
Diversity of representation seems only to apply to an individual’s appearance. The prevailing ideology, on the other hand, requires conformity.
There is a deliberate and often orchestrated attempt to filter out dissenting or independent thinkers at the professional level.
Professional and/or employment actions taken against non-conforming thinkers are more likely to succeed when done behind closed doors. Dishonesty and a culture of ‘the ends justify the means’ typify institutional behaviour that leads to unethical - and at times unlawful – discrimination towards people like Paul.
When we pull back the curtain on many of our tertiary institutions, we get the evidence of intolerance on full display.
We need more people like Dr Crowhurst who are willing to stick their heads above the parapet and remind people what a free society stands for. If we care about the future of education in NZ, it is incumbent on the rest of us to support them when they do, whether we agree with them or not.
Nick Hanne is the Education Partnerships Manager at the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published by The Platform and is published here with kind permission.
6 comments:
This really shows up both Stuff and Massey "university". Massey, like AUT and Waikato "universities" is really only a polytechnic whose purpose is producing woke clones for Jacinda's public service and ideal society. In the long run, someone like Dr Paul Crowhurst is better off avoiding them. They have actually done him a favour. Stuff is all about freedom and diversity of views but only as long as they agree with Stuff's.
It doesn’t matter the colour of your skin as to how you conduct yourself. It is a fact of life that there has been, and always will be, those that apply themselves and do well in setting themselves up financially and those that just want to cruise. Whether that comes down to genes or what, who knows, but the chance to better oneself is not a racial issue.
Although I don't actually believe that anything is a 'Pakeha societal structure' (PSS) I will humour that term momentarily.
The formal school system in NZ, including higher education must surely be a PSS. After all it did not exist in pre-European NZ. A government that is democratically elected. This too is a PSS. A social welfare system. I could go on of course.
There are many people in this country who are happy to engage with and benefit from 'Pakeha Societal Structures' that they like, while complaining and labelling 'racist' the ones they don't like.
Perhaps its time we accepted that we are all human, and the simple fact that all people are equal before the law in this country and the right to vote is not determined by your skin colour, means we have exactly the 'societal structure' that is created daily by the people living here - Pakeha, Maori, Pasifika and everyone else.
Our educational institutions are now places of indoctrination into Progressivism and Marxist Critical studies. However we shouldn't be surprised since that always was the aim of Progressivism since the middle of last century. Traditional values and its education may seem to be stuffy and archaic but they actually practised and believed in the true meaning of education-producing a fully numerate, literate individual who can do critical thinking for themselves and be independent citizens with a worthwhile career that contributes to building up society not breaking it down as Marxists do. Shame on you Massey Uni. Examine yourselves.
I congratulate Paul on his endeavours to try and improve our very sick educational climate in NZ. What could be more important than working for our children's futures.
“He [Dr Paul Crowhurst] believes there is a need to address racism whenever it occurs in schools.
Racism occurs whenever a group of people with an ethnocentric membership base creates or colonises a system to afford themselves separate, different, or superior rights on the basis of group membership.
Those who believe in one law for all, colourblind government, individual equality in citizenship, and an end to unearned ethnocentric privilege for brown supremacist part-Maori are the polar opposite of their racist opponents.
But the actual racists have carried out a sneaky little bait-and-switch.
Thomas Sowell identified this scam as far back as 1988: "Sixty years ago, if you believed everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, you were a radical. Thirty years ago, you were a liberal. Today, you're a racist."
Racists are people who give purpose to otherwise empty lives by adopting unfounded assumptions of collective superiority as their North Star.
A classic local example being the assertion by Te Pati Maori’s Rawiri Waititi that: “Māori have superior genetics.”
As Eric Hoffer points out: "The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."
When brown supremacist part-Maori bang on about ‘racism,’ they don’t mean getting rid of any ‘racism’ that might exist.
Just placing it under new management.
Theirs.
Never forget that it’s about utu.
Payback.
Revenge.
Since the Maori phenotype tends to predominate as a determinant of appearance, there’s a raft of people who’re way less than half-Maori by blood quantum, but who ‘look Maori’ - that is. they have brown skin and Polynesian features.
Identified from early childhood both by their own and outsiders as ‘Maori’ whether they like it or not, many aggressively adopt a collectivist ‘Maori’ identity and an adversarial attitude towards the majority culture they don’t feel fully part of.
And what does the hurt child do?
It seeks to hurt by way of retaliation and make others suffer too.
To justify acting out against their fellow-citizens, brown supremacist part-Maori need to demonise them as the 'other.'
Eric Hoffer again "Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil."
As Communist and anti-colonialist, Frantz Fanon reminds us: "The native is an oppressed person, whose constant dream is to become the persecutor."
So what is often referred to as "The Treaty Grievance Industry" is perhaps better understood as ‘The Treaty Grudge Industry.’
The ‘Maorification of Everything’ going on right before our largely unseeing eyes is driven by pathological haters and wreckers looking to bully and dominate non-Maori by way of payback for being brown in a country created and civilised by white people.
Quite why public policy should validate someone else’s adjustment issues eludes me, especially as it is destroying our country and rapidly approaching the point at which only a civil war won by the good guys will get rid of it.
It’s hard to see how universities in New Zealand can assert with much credibility today that they are the “critics and conscience of society” when they silence their own academics in such underhanded ways – simply for doing their job by being critics and taking an ethical stance.
LFC
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