Bob Edlin: Why the PPTA needs PoO.....

Why the PPTA needs PoO – to help them identify the extremists who need expelling from the classroom

Too late, the PoO team today realised that time was fast running out to pitch for a $10,000 (plus GST) contract plus expenses. The job is up for grabs for “experienced writers and educators”, a category into which we modestly reckon we comfortably fit.

The challenge would be to develop advice and guidelines on dealing with extremism in the classroom.

If we land the job, our employer would be the Post Primary Teachers Association, which spelled out its requirements in a call for expression of interest.

The EOI says:

Teachers know the disruptive impact of extremism and online harms on classroom dynamics, students’ ability to think critically, student mental health, and teacher workload. Students are engaging with harmful ideologies that undermine respectful relationships, inclusive values, and their learning and development.

PPTA members believe that teachers and schools should not be left to face these challenges alone. The education sector needs tools, training, and resources necessary to equip both educators and students to navigate digital culture as safely and as critically as possible.

The PPTA’s Information and Communications Technology Advisory Committee regards this as complex and comprehensive work. Just the ticket for the PoO team.

The EOI then says extremism in the classroom can include:

• The ‘manosphere’: promotion of ‘toxic masculinity’, misogyny, and opposition to feminism.
• ‘Trad-wife’ culture: expressing regressive views on the role of women.
• ‘Pro-ana’ and ‘pro-mia’: pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia, body dysmorphia.
• Homophobia and transphobia: extreme views on people in rainbow communities.
• Islamophobia: imperialist justifications for genocide, individual justifications for mass killing.
• Antisemitism: resurgence of explicitly Neo-Nazi fascism keep antisemitism alive.
• Anti-Māori racism: racist ideologies increasingly prevalent in our classrooms.

Hmm.

In our experience, declaring one’s support for a democracy in which all citizens have equal rights and entitlements can trigger charges of “racism. Just ask Don Brash.

The EOI goes on to say the successful writer will develop high-quality advice and guidance that reflects the recommendations of an Annual Conference paper titled “Responding to Extreism in the Classrom – Online Lies and Real World Harm”.

We were not disappointed in expecting to find the paper includes:

6.2.6 Embed Te Tiriti o Waitangi Principles

• Media and Information Literacy and Digital Citizenship initiatives must honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and be underpinned by Māori approaches to knowledge, identity, and digital engagement.
• Te Ao Māori expertise should be involved in design and delivery.

The consideration that must be given to Māori approaches to knowledge and identity is where scientists can find themselves vilified as extremists.

The paper further calls for a response which

• empowers teachers to help students make links between historical forms of fascism and contemporary forms of fascism…

But fascism has been described as a bundle of ideas: ultranationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, mythic identity, suppression of dissent, and hierarchical social order. Different ideologies can clash with different parts of that bundle.

For example, is it fair to suggest the promotion of Maori sovereignty gels with the “mythic identity” which (according to the campaign against extremism) should be dispelled?

And doesn’t barring the likes of Don Brash from speaking at Massey University amount to the suppression of dissent?

If we prepare our Expression of Interest in time, we look forward to getting the project under way “as soon as practicable”, as the PPTA requires.

The interview – when we get there – will enable us to discuss the news media’s reportage of the PPTA’s concern with “extremism” as a concern about “a rise in reports of far-right extremism in the classroom”.

This perhaps is explained by the RNZ report saying:

PPTA president, Chris Abercrombie – a history and social studies teacher – told Checkpoint teachers were seeing a rise of neo-Nazi symbols, neo-Nazi language, Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and misogyny.”

On the other hand, we wonder how ideological extremes are being measured these days, where the left and right extremes are pegged, and who does the pegging.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.