Compulsory Courses at the University of Auckland
The University of Auckland is set to deliver courses entitled ‘Waipapa Taumata Rau’ (University of Auckland, 2024). All undergraduate programmes there must include a Waipapa Taumata Rau core course that students must complete within their first year of study.
The relevant web-page informs us that ‘Waipapa Taumata Rau’ is the Māori name gifted to the University of Auckland and that the relevant courses are called by this name in order to symbolize students’ aspirations as they seek to be a part of the University and to succeed in their studies.
“Designed to transition you into University life, your Waipapa Taumata Rau course provides knowledge vital to your studies and essential skills (like critical and ethical thinking, effective communication, and the ability to work well with others).
Each faculty course teaches you why place matters, introducing you to knowledge associated with the University, the wider city, this country, and its people and history, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
You’ll learn about different knowledge systems that underpin your area of study to provide a foundation for your future learning.
Your Waipapa Taumata Rau core course will play a key role in shaping your first year of study with us. Completion is required to progress into your second year of study where you will have opportunities to build on what you have learned.“
Some of the material to be delivered through these courses does seem very relevant, especially critical and ethical thinking, effective communication and the ability to work well with others. Also positive is the discussion of knowledge associated with the University, the wider city, this country and its people and history, provided that a balanced picture of New Zealand’s history is encouraged.
However, we ask why all students must take such a course in order to progress into second year at a time when STEM courses are being cut. Why is Te Tiriti an enforced part of these courses but apparently not the New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852 (Parliament, 2017)? Will the Constitution Act of 1986 be mentioned (Parliamentary Counsel Office, 2024) or other recent legislation?
Knowledge Systems?
What exactly are these knowledge systems that underpin students’ areas of study and that will provide a foundation for their future learning? How will these knowledge systems support electrical, civil and mechanical engineering, experimental physics, pure mathematics, theoretical and applied statistics, organic and inorganic chemistry, evolutionary biology, cancer research, combatting malnutrition and infant and child mortality, clean energy technologies, efficient transportation, or many other fields of endeavour?
Will students of forestry science at New Zealand universities be introduced to traditional medicine for restoration of kauri forests, as in Shortland (2016), which asserts the “need to tune into the vibrations of the forest” and recommends burial of mauri stones within the affected areas, along with appropriate rituals? Will students be taught that sperm whale oil embodies healing properties for kauri? Will they be encouraged to “send out a call to the world, asking communities to hold special ceremony on behalf of kauri” and “invite the world to Aotearoa to join us in prayer and ceremony in the initiation of our future Rongoā interventions.”?
“Through listening and traditional meditation in the forest, will assist those to align to the cellular frequency of the forest and to become more enlightened in the work of looking after the forest.”
Will students of agriculture learn that farmers should manage their farms on the basis of the phases of the moon (Our Land and Water, 2024) when in reality the lunar cycle has no effect whatsoever on plant growth or physiology (e.g. Coyne (2023))?
If the thinking behind such traditional knowledge is taken as an allegory for loving and caring for the natural world and its living environments, then something wonderful has indeed been gifted to us. But if such beliefs are accorded the status of literal truth then we have the makings of a very serious problem in tertiary education.
In New Zealand, what about the approximately 25% of tertiary students who are non-Māori/non-European? Will their knowledge systems be presented too? What about international students? Must they be forced to take these courses and, if so, will they consider their fees to be money well spent?
Today in various countries we hear demands for decolonization of mathematics. For example, Rowena Ball claims that mathematics has been gate-kept by the West, defined to exclude entire cultures and that almost all mathematics that students have ever come across is European-based. Among others, she wants to enrich the discipline through the inclusion of cross-cultural mathematics (Ball, 2023). However, Sergiu Klainerman responds as follows:
“If mathematics was in fact a cultural artifact, like music, literature or the arts, it would be impossible to explain its extraordinary effectiveness in the physical sciences, weather prediction, engineering or artificial intelligence.“ Klainerman (2024)
We agree with Klainerman and believe that both science and mathematics transcend all political and geographic frontiers, but also surpass all social, ethnic, cultural and religious frontiers.
A Core Curriculum?
Today, readings at many universities in the Western world cover “progressive preoccupations” that include anti-colonialism, sex and gender, antiracism and climate. Surely, there is great merit in dialogue on such issues. However, instead of reading George Orwell, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or Hannah Arendt, students now read Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault and the Combahee River Collective Statement, all of which are important to understanding only the perspectives of the contemporary left (Ferguson and Howland, 2024).
Ferguson and Howland tell us that if students are to become active and reflective
individuals, they must learn to regard the past not merely as the crime scene of bygone ages, but as the record of human possibilities - an always unfinished tapestry of both admirable and shameful lives and both noble and base deeds. They must develop an ear for the English language and the language of ancestral wisdom, as well as the various languages of intellectual inquiry, including mathematics. They need a good grasp of modern statistical
methods and they must also allow themselves to be inwardly-formed and cultivated by the classics.
They suggest that a sound foundation would also require an introduction to the modes of cognition, including intellectual and moral intuition and scientific demonstration. Aristotle, informal logic and Karl Popper would introduce students to ta mathemata, the “preeminently learnable and knowable things”.
Will Students Vote with their Feet?
The perceptions of international students that New Zealand is indigenizing its degrees could lead to a significant loss of international enrolments and reduced credibility of our universities. Is there not a disconnect between the motive of preparing students to be effective learners, and then demanding of them to assimilate different knowledge systems? Must students of necessity acquire understanding of these systems in order to progress in their other studies?
If the academic and political initiatives relating to these courses were truly about preparing students for university studies, then perhaps they should take the form of preparatory courses, possibly available online, before students begin their degrees. In the United States, for example, many universities provide future students access to "Cornerstone" courses in order to prepare them for assessment on writing, reasoning, research and literacy.
Possibly, someone has taken a practical and useful idea for supporting aspirant students to arrive at university with a set of useful skills, and then others have captured this idea as a way of indoctrinating new students.
Any mandatory belief-based curriculum amounts to indoctrination and should have no place in our universities. In a competition amongst the universities for fee-paying students and Government funding, will universities that insist on such courses see their enrolments fall, as students go to wherever they are not forced to pay for indoctrination?
Epilogue
“Today’s students tend to value social influence more than human excellence. Worse, they pay more heed to antiheroes - people who tear down civilization - than heroes: those who protect, repair, and rebuild it. So, at the outset of their studies, we think undergraduates should encounter not just thinkers and writers but also founders, doers, leaders, and
pioneers such as Abraham and Socrates, da Vinci and Mozart, Lincoln and Churchill. They should study the works of great men . . . but also of great women: Sojourner Truth and Malala Yousafzai, Ada Lovelace and Lise Meitner. It is no small part of a liberal education to show students the broad range of meaningful lives they might aspire to lead.” Ferguson and Howland (2024)
Today, a number of academic and research staff are taking the risk of standing against devaluation of teaching and learning at our universities. They deserve our fullest support.
Dr David Lillis trained in physics and mathematics at Victoria University and Curtin University in Perth, working as a teacher, researcher, statistician and lecturer for most of his career. He has published many articles and scientific papers, as well as a book on graphing and statistics.
References
Ball, Rowena (2024). Maths has no borders: Professor Rowena Ball brings Indigenous mathematics to ANU
https://science.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/maths-has-no-borders-professor-rowena-ball-brings-indigenous-mathematics-anu
Coyne, Jerry (2023). Why Evolution is True
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/07/30/new-zealand-government-spends-2-7-million-to-test-already-debunked-indigenous-theory-about-the-effect-of-lunar-phases-on-plants/
Ferguson, Niall and Howland, Jacob (2024). WHAT THE FRESHMAN CLASS NEEDS TO READ The Atlantic. 24 August, 2024.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/what-freshman-class-ought-be-studying/679530/
Klainerman, Sergiu (2024). Radical egalitarianism and mathematics
Heterodox STEM
https://hxstem.substack.com/p/radical-egalitarianism-and-mathematics?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=618970&post_id=147093362&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=fi8t0&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Our Land and Water (2024). Can Māori Knowledge of Moon Phases Help Farm Resilience?
https://ourlandandwater.nz/news/can-maori-knowledge-of-moon-phases-help-farm-resilience/
Parliament (2017). New Zealand’s first Constitution Act passed 165 years ago
https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/new-zealand-s-first-constitution-act-passed-165-years-ago/
Parliamentary Counsel Office (2024). Constitution Act 1986
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0114/latest/whole.html
Shorland, Tui (2016). Rongoā (Traditional Medicine Practices) Improving the health of kauri forests
7 comments:
This is clearly a take-over by a rubbish pseudo religious ideology, that is an existential threat to all the ordinary citizens who are too busy with their lives, to protest & take effective measures to this stop this nonsense. My instinct is; this is a take-over ideology promoted by white Feminists & now many women in general, because of the timing (‘60’s ‘70’s) & the belief system involved. Because of their infiltration of the education system, we now have 2 generations of boys & girls that have been brainwashed against Critical Thinking & the power of science & argument. Those able bodies must fight hard for the unseen & unspoken.
Overt racial indoctrination - this is compulsory. Minister Stanford should intervene to prevent this - but she seems very "woke" regarding anything pro-Maori.
As this happens, Peter Gluckman is leading an enquiry into the future needs of the NZ university sector - how ironic.
What I need is a course to understand current academia writing convention/style. Much adverse comment is avoided because only fellow indoctrinated get the message. I was brought up on Churchill and similar straight shootin' stuff which mere ordinary folk like me can grasp.Throughout govt agencies, councils, firms etc statements alluding to matters maori are especially coded. I am curious how so many become so accomplished at the art. It is obviously taught in Maori Studies but pervades much else. Taught nder what heading? Curious because without such indoctrination maori are often very direct (to a fault)
Excellent comment and thank you, David for your continuing efforts. It must be like hitting your head against a brick wall. No matter how obvious and sensible, the powers that be are just not listening and taking heed.
It's the same with our school education system, no matter how dismal the continuing decline in outcomes, those powers continue to double-down, and those above continue to back the same ideologues at the helm.
Minister Stanford has made some tweaks around the edges, but all will be in vain unless she grasps the nettle and does what so obviously needs to be done. If we can't even get our basic schooling right, what chance do our universities have?
Excellent analysis and comment. Thank you again, David, for exposing and commenting on the weird (to me) current trend.
Indoctrination identical to the Third Reich in the 1930s.
Why does Luxon, by lack of action, effectively condone such appalling nonsense?
The problem lies with him as much as these woke academics.
BTW, why do all these people who run our top institutions want to destroy the fabric of our once proud society ?
What's in it for them ?
Are they so woke they want to be at the most "indigenous " university in NZ, and thus the world ?
Will they take any responsibility for the building resentment which is likely to lead to race violence ?
Will students get an additional free 'Freshwater For Brains' degree (FFB) for their troubles?
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