“Te Whāriki” early childhood curriculum guidelines were first published in 1996. The inaugural Te Whāriki was published under a National Party-led Government, with Jim “Spud” Bolger as Prime Minister. There’s a misconception that the calamitous decline in New Zealand’s educational standards has been a Leftie subversion. The slow train wreck has received cross-party support.
The 1996 edition of Te Whāriki focused on how early childhood “teachers” should go about indoctrinating children up to six years of age with the Critical Race Theory dogma of biculturalism. That’s the divisive and incoherent dogma that there are two distinct and irreconcilable types of humans residing in New Zealand – those with Maori ancestor(s) and those without. Critical Race Theotearoa holds that the privileged non-Maori are destined to perpetually oppress Maori, and this innate oppression requires all State institutions to constantly succor all descendants of the long-dead indigenous folk.
The authors of the 1996 Te Whāriki included Dr Sir Tamati Reddy and his wife Tilly. It was Tamati who gifted/grifted the “Te Whāriki” name, which apparently means woven mat in the Maori language.
In their colourful lives the non-needy Reedys have sequestered a treasure trove from relentless race hustling. Tamati’s adventures have included killing the very Department of Māori Affairs he was supposed to be running. He was the ring master in his Department’s bizarre 1986 attempt to borrow $600 million in Arab petrodollars, with Tamati personally signing the "Unconditional and Irrevocable Fee Agreement" rewarding a duo of international conmen $20 million (of his Department’s money) in “finder’s fees”. You can’ t keep a good man down. (It seems, in this fabulous farce, that no money changed hands – but who knows.)
Tamati and Tilly returned to the Te Whāriki fold to co-author the 2017 bilingual (Maori and English) 2nd edition of Te Whāriki. It was about this time – possibly earlier - that Alexandra Gunn first reared her ugly head in New Zealand’s indigenous Te Whāriki neo-Marxism. Comrade Gunn has been a Professor at Otago University since 2011. According to her University website, Alex’s Areas expressly include:
* Michel Foucault was the paederast French “philosopher” whom contemporary neo-Marxists like Alex Gunn worship as The God of Woke
Professor Gunn co-edited the third (2019) iteration of Te Whāriki.
The authors of the 1996 Te Whāriki included Dr Sir Tamati Reddy and his wife Tilly. It was Tamati who gifted/grifted the “Te Whāriki” name, which apparently means woven mat in the Maori language.
In their colourful lives the non-needy Reedys have sequestered a treasure trove from relentless race hustling. Tamati’s adventures have included killing the very Department of Māori Affairs he was supposed to be running. He was the ring master in his Department’s bizarre 1986 attempt to borrow $600 million in Arab petrodollars, with Tamati personally signing the "Unconditional and Irrevocable Fee Agreement" rewarding a duo of international conmen $20 million (of his Department’s money) in “finder’s fees”. You can’ t keep a good man down. (It seems, in this fabulous farce, that no money changed hands – but who knows.)
Tamati and Tilly returned to the Te Whāriki fold to co-author the 2017 bilingual (Maori and English) 2nd edition of Te Whāriki. It was about this time – possibly earlier - that Alexandra Gunn first reared her ugly head in New Zealand’s indigenous Te Whāriki neo-Marxism. Comrade Gunn has been a Professor at Otago University since 2011. According to her University website, Alex’s Areas expressly include:
Inclusive education (difference, diversity, and social justice in early childhood education)
Gender and education
Pedagogy in early childhood education
Inclusive education and social justice (particularly queer concerns and heteronormativity)
Ethnography and genealogy
Queer theory
Foucaultian* discourse analysis
Cultural historical research
Decolonising teaching
Inclusive early childhood education (Pasifika/disability/refugee/immigrant focuses)
* Michel Foucault was the paederast French “philosopher” whom contemporary neo-Marxists like Alex Gunn worship as The God of Woke
Professor Gunn co-edited the third (2019) iteration of Te Whāriki.
Click to view
Editor of Te Whāriki’s first two editions was Jocelyn “Joce” Nuttall, currently a full professor at Canterbury University. Joce has been afflicting and infecting New Zealand children’s education for over four decades, from the abandonment of phonetics to the current collapse in literacy and numeracy. Joce was Alex’s co-editor of the 2019 Te Whāriki.
It’s been a feature of all Te Whārikis that they provide absolutely no practical guidance whatsoever on what early childhood educators should actually DO. Take, by way of illustration, the title of Nutter Nuttall’s 2016 “academic” paper…Bodies of knowledge: The concept of embodiment as an alternative to theory/practice debates in the preparation of teachers
The Te Whāriki guidelines are not merely an educational Woke whimsy. They have statutory authority and mandatory legal effect. The current (2024) Te Whāriki was published under the Education and Training Act 2020, by way of a Gazette Notice signed by the worst Minister of Education in New Zealand’s entire history, Jan Tinetti. The Notice is exclusively in Maori, so is completely incomprehensible to almost all New Zealanders.
Click to view
The Gazette Notice expressly references the current Te Whāriki, available - for those with an appetite for the absurd and very strong stomachs - here:
Te Whāriki Online
An array of fellow travellers have joined Te Whāriki’s long guided walk into the educational abyss. Take this, just by way of example, from a paper penned by a delirious duo of dames, Sarah Te One and Jane Ewer (themselves contributing authors of various Te Whāriki editions):
Helen May, Margaret Carr, and Tamati and Tilly Reedy, the original writers, were invited to be kaitiaki (caretakers) of the process and to ensure the spirit of Te Whāriki remained intact. The kaitiaki role was a first for the Ministry of Education and recognised the value of Te Whāriki as a taonga, while demonstrating high-level respect for the Te Tiriti o Waitangi principle to protect such taonga.
The Te One/Ewers paper references this potty 2018 paper by Mere Skerrett, currently Associate Professor and “Head of School” at Victoria University’s School of Education:
Click to view
Mere’s paper is so bad it could easily be mistaken as a parody of the pseudo-intellectual poop that pervades Te Whāriki. It’s easy to be critical – Mere’s six-pager drops “critical” 29 times (and “pedagogy/pedagogical”, also 29 times).
Mountains of this guff is freely and easily available on the website of New Zealand Council for Educational Research, a bizarre creation of its own 1972 Act of Parliament.
But I digress. Let’s extract a few critical titbits from the current Te Whāriki:
Click to view
Click to view
You can even watch a video of Prof Gunn gunning for a “critically oriented curriculum from early childhood education me ngā Kōhanga Reo into kura and school”.
Thinking Curiously: Critical Theories and Te Whāriki – AKO
The crucial point here is that Aotearoa’s pedagogic cultural neo-Marxism is not lurking in the shadows. The Reds are not under the bed and their march through New Zealand’s educational institutions is complete. In her video, Prof Gunn is victorious and celebratory.
The Te Whārikites unashamedly don’t want kids to be able to competently read and write and think for themselves. There’s no ambiguity or subtlety at work here. Te Whāriki is proudly wielded as a weapon of ideological indoctrination.
How have people as mediocre and extremist as Alex Gunn and Mere Skerrett been allowed to hijack New Zealand’s education system and kidnap its children?
It remains to be seen whether the current Government has the guts to fully digest what’s happened and yank Te Whāriki out of the education system, roots and all. All power to Minister of Education Erica Stanford.
Do you ever wonder who the red person might symbolise in the Te Tiriti logo?
It’s Pakeha Professor Alex Gunn and her kooky commie kindred spirits.
John McLean is a citizen typist and enthusiastic amateur who blogs at John's Substack where this article was sourced.
2 comments:
Professors in any subject should engage with major debates of international scholarly importance and marshal evidence that advances or resolves major debates.
Visit the website of NZCER, if you dare, to read about 'Kaihautū Rangahau Tāoki | Emeritus Chief Researcher' ... none other than Rose Hipkins. The fruit does not fall far from the tree.
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