Judy Gill: Learning Lost in Facebook Reo-Lish Gobbledygook

Doggy Daycare Rights for Children

In New Zealand, “preschool” is Early Childhood Education (ECE). It isn’t babysitting — since 1996, when Te Whāriki (the national ECE curriculum) was introduced, the purpose has been education. Parents are supposed to get “learning stories” that record a child’s development. Secure apps like “Educa” and “Storypark” exist for that reason: private, child-specific updates for families.

Doggy daycare pics on Facebook? Perfectly fine. Dogs don’t have a Privacy Act. There’s no United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Dog. No Doggy Rights Act.

But children aren’t dogs. Children do have rights — human rights. And yet at our preschool, the Facebook Group — that social media platform notorious for abuse and data harvesting by the Zuckerberg empire — has become the main record of children’s so-called learning.

Four updates in three years

I’m pedantic — I actually counted. Across 13 months of attendance, spread over three years (October 2022 – September 2025), my son has had exactly four proper Educa learning stories:

- 14 November 2022

- 19 December 2022

- 9 June 2025

- 30 June 2025

That’s it. Four.

Meanwhile, on the Facebook Group? Five posts a week, every week, some including my son, some not — the feed starts even from before he began attending. Hundreds upon hundreds of photos.

Parents play detective

One social-media-savvy parent trawled the Group to see which adults “liked” which photos, worked out which child belonged to which parent, and used that intel to send birthday invitations.

Because most photos show groups of children, when one parent shares a screenshot, they’re sharing other people’s children too. None of us consented to that. If you want to share with an absentee parent, that’s what “Educa” and “Storypark” were built for — private, child-specific sharing.

What are we supposed to do with this?

Children can’t even use Facebook. It’s an adult platform — 14+ only. So what exactly are we as parents meant to do with these daily posts? Sit a one-, two-, three- or four-year-old down after preschool and say: “Look darling, here’s your daily highlight reel — shall we ‘like’ it together?”

We are priming toddlers for social media years before they’re allowed on it. Some of us weren’t on Facebook at all — but were pushed to join just to read “progress reports.” Or else become that difficult parent whose child has to be cropped out of photos or asked to step aside before the photoshoot begins.

I must admit, I post family photos on social media every few months, special pictures, or special moments. What sort of parents post pictures of their children on Facebook every day? Well, I can tell you, idiot parents do. Parents selling their children’s images for likes or influencer status.

But now our preschool uploads stories to Facebook every single day, trying to create “special” moments out of ordinary situations. I guess they are special in a way. But these at best are special moments, not education.

Entertainment for teachers, not education for children

Let’s be honest: for teachers, this is a break. Time out from nappies and noisy classrooms. Sit in the office for an hour, write captions, sprinkle in Te Reo, add background music — having fun on Facebook.

But that hour isn’t free. It comes straight out of teaching time.

If you asked us parents what we’d rather have:

- an extra half-hour of mat time learning alphabet, songs and numbers, with two teachers, or
- a Facebook video with music, we all know the answer. We send our children for education. And it’s been education, not babysitting, since 1996.

If you want to play on Facebook, play with images of your own family members, in your own time.

Leave our children out of it. Leave our children alone.

“Remove you from the Group”? And the cartoon saga

From the outset, parents were pressured to join the ECE Facebook Group; I reluctantly joined too — rather than be “that difficult parent” whose child has to step aside before each photoshoot begun, who had to be cropped out of every images, sit somewhere else during mat time photos.

Recently I wrote a satirical story elsewhere and included a cartoon image of three children with Te Reo / English speech bubbles. The piece was inspired by a ReoLish story I’d seen in the preschool Facebook Group.

Then came the paranoid parent, who feared her child might be recognised in the cartoon/story. Talk turned to threats of removing me from the Group — as if my outside satire breached a real child’s privacy. Meanwhile, the Group itself continues to post photos of actual children to other adults and families every day.

And let’s be clear: if you remove me, you must remove my son. You must remove him from all past posts, all photos, and all videos. He cannot remain in a Group that is called “private” but is effectively public — shared to parents all over the island, and then beyond. Blotching rarely works — his collection of dinosaur shirts is very limited and very recognisable, and his sweatshirt literally says “Waiheke.”

The cartoon story wasn’t the issue. The Facebook Group is.

ReoLish everywhere

Educa could at least give parents a choice. Updates could be sent in the language of a parent’s choice — English, Te Reo, or even the first language of that child’s teacher if the parent so desired.

This parent said she did not consent to receiving her child’s story update in ReoLish. If others want English laced with Te Reo, they can have it. I’ll take English — or proper Te Reo — or Spanish, because my son’s teacher is Latino.

But - that’s when the Educa stories dried up altogether. So I take it, it must be Reo-lish or nothing at all!

Side story: ReoLish and the Birthday Board Nobody Can Read

And then there’s the birthday board. A portrait of each child with their date of birth written underneath — in Te Reo only, no English. Those dates have been sitting there since each child started at preschool. No one ever explained “this one means September” or “that one means April.” Nothing.

Last week I stood with two other parents, staring at the board. We were still trying to work out which children were about to start school. Each of us could recognise the month of our own child’s birthday, but beyond that — nothing. None of us could read the other months. So what’s the point of it? There was no point at all. We asked one of the teachers to explain the months– she didn’t know either!

It isn’t for the children, because they can’t read. It isn’t for the parents either, because we couldn’t read it. And these aren’t even traditional Māori names for the months — they’re loanwords. Just English words copied for their sound and shoved into Māori spelling. It’s ReoLish on the wall — the warm-up act for the pidgin words children will be forced to learn at primary school.

Meanwhile, the children themselves? Can they count to ten? Can they say or read the alphabet? Some of them, maybe. My son? He’s far more interested in constructing things, kicking balls, and doing puzzles. He’ll happily browse through books, even though he can’t read a word — making up stories from the pictures as he goes.

Yes, my son writes his name — because of Ara Kura (the pathway to school). Thank goodness they say it in English as well, because otherwise the parents wouldn’t even know what they were talking about. The teachers make sure that at the barest minimum, every child can write their first name and surname before they go. It’s a little ritual when they arrive at preschool at four years of age. And that’s fine, as far as it goes. But let’s be honest: it really isn’t good enough.

And that’s the irony. This really is the best ECE on the island. The others openly push religion, and I’m grateful this one doesn’t. But when it comes to ReoLish, it’s the same old nonsense as everywhere else. Different wrapping, same problem.

Privacy risks

This Facebook Group has never been compliant with expectations. Consent doesn’t make it private. Photos remain long after children leave. Even if a post is deleted, screenshots live on. With ~70 adults in the Group, you don’t know who’s saving what or where it’s ending up.

From the very first day of enrolment the drip-feed begins — day after day, week after week — and nothing seems to be deleted. Over time the Group builds a complete child profile: name (in captions), face (hundreds of angles), age/birthday (party posts), peer group (constant group shots), routines/interests (described in text), and the fact they live on Waiheke Island. That’s not education. That’s a security risk.

Oversight blind spot (and the ritual)

Do the Ministry of Education or the Education Review Office (ERO) see any of this? I hope not. Parents are pressured to join; regulators aren’t in the Group (and we don’t want them in there either).

So why does the ritual continue? If the Ministry doesn’t see it, if parents never asked for it, and if children can’t read it — who is it for? At this point it looks less like education and more like a ritual. Almost a cult. The daily offering of children’s faces into the feed — as if Facebook were our very own ReoLish temple, complete with chants in ReoLish.

TAKE IT DOWN - DON’T ARCHIVE - DELETE IT ALL.

Because education should be about learning — not rituals, not indoctrination, not ReoLish gobbledygook.

If you want to play on Facebook (and the ReoLish gobbledygook)

If teachers want to play on Facebook, they need to have a purpose. What is the purpose of this ECE Facebook Group? Entertainment? Distraction? Ritual? Because it isn’t education.

Appendix: Privacy References

- Privacy Act 2020 (NZ) — children have Privacy rights; dogs do not.

- UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) — NZ is a signatory; children’s rights to privacy are explicit.

- ERO Guidelines — require documentation of learning to be secure, not public social media streams.

- Ministry of Education guidance on ECE portfolios — recommends apps like “Educa” and “Storypark” for private, child‑specific updates.

- Risks of Facebook Groups — screenshots persist, posts remain long after children leave, and ~70 adult members can save and share content freely.

Judy Gill BSc, DipTchg, is a parent, former teacher, and a staunch advocate for secular education.