According to the university’s handbook for teacher education programmes, teaching graduates must be committed to “social, cultural, and ecological justice.” Decoded, that means attending protests about political causes the activists lecturers find important.
Providing teachers with skills to manage a classroom is not part of the brief. Neither is ensuring they can teach their students even a modicum of knowledge. It is crucial, however, that new teachers can critique their ancestors.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Akopai 1 is one of two courses focussing on practical teaching skills. One of its assignments, worth 45% of the marks, is called Ko Tōku Tupuna Ko Au (my ancestor, myself).
For this assignment, students must critically analyse one of their forebears, living or dead. Personally, I’d choose a living one. Having a corpse on my psychotherapist’s couch would be untidy.
The analysis must include critical commentary on “how gender influenced” the ancestor’s life. If I had asked my Victorian grandfather how gender had influenced him, he’d have told me not to be impertinent. But I suspect that response wouldn’t wash with the commissars course coordinators.
The ancestor’s spiritual side, political views and financial situation must also be discussed. But my ancestors followed old etiquette. They knew never to discuss religion, politics or money in polite company.
To achieve a high grade in the assignment, students must demonstrate “deep connection to whakapapa.” But where does that leave the estranged or the orphaned? And pity the bewildered international students who thought they had come to New Zealand to learn how to teach.
Top marks also require students to “deeply engage” with their ancestor’s “tangata whenua or tangata Tiriti positioning,” and with their “power and privilege.” For non-Māori students, the trick here is to choose an ancestor who had money or status and beat up on them mercilessly. Pride in one’s heritage is not recommended.
It so happens that many of my ancestors were teachers. If they saw the content of Akopai 1, they would have some critical analysis of their own.
“Why,” they would wonder, “do the people who designed this course continue to be employed?”
“How can they, with apparent impunity, inflict such blatant and insulting nonsense on people aspiring to educate young New Zealanders?”
“Now that,” they would say, “is power and privilege.”
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
Yes, you read that correctly.
Akopai 1 is one of two courses focussing on practical teaching skills. One of its assignments, worth 45% of the marks, is called Ko Tōku Tupuna Ko Au (my ancestor, myself).
For this assignment, students must critically analyse one of their forebears, living or dead. Personally, I’d choose a living one. Having a corpse on my psychotherapist’s couch would be untidy.
The analysis must include critical commentary on “how gender influenced” the ancestor’s life. If I had asked my Victorian grandfather how gender had influenced him, he’d have told me not to be impertinent. But I suspect that response wouldn’t wash with the commissars course coordinators.
The ancestor’s spiritual side, political views and financial situation must also be discussed. But my ancestors followed old etiquette. They knew never to discuss religion, politics or money in polite company.
To achieve a high grade in the assignment, students must demonstrate “deep connection to whakapapa.” But where does that leave the estranged or the orphaned? And pity the bewildered international students who thought they had come to New Zealand to learn how to teach.
Top marks also require students to “deeply engage” with their ancestor’s “tangata whenua or tangata Tiriti positioning,” and with their “power and privilege.” For non-Māori students, the trick here is to choose an ancestor who had money or status and beat up on them mercilessly. Pride in one’s heritage is not recommended.
It so happens that many of my ancestors were teachers. If they saw the content of Akopai 1, they would have some critical analysis of their own.
“Why,” they would wonder, “do the people who designed this course continue to be employed?”
“How can they, with apparent impunity, inflict such blatant and insulting nonsense on people aspiring to educate young New Zealanders?”
“Now that,” they would say, “is power and privilege.”
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
3 comments:
This is all to ensure that NZ children get indoctrinated to become loyal Green Party and TPM supporters.
Teachers should not be encouraged to regard themselves as 'agents of change' as that gives them the excuse to use their influence to recruit child activists for their pet political causes. This is an abuse of power and is thereby unethical.
As for this utter codswallop parading as a teacher-preparatory course, let me, as a first-generation immigrant, 'engage' with the questions. I'll focus on my grandparents.
They were all born in 1890/1891 and spent their whole lives in Holland. I left Holland in 1961 as a 6-year-old and returned for a while in 1979/80 but by then all but one had died. I did catch up with my maternal grandpa before going to PNG for a job there. I do not recall ToW arising in our conversations. I doubt whether a single one of my grandparents ever heard of the bloody ToW. The writers of this 'course' appear to think the whole world shares their obsession. It doesn't.
My grandmothers were 'housewives' as most of their fellows were and bore 14 and 8 children. I can just see them smiling at the question how gender influenced their lives. I can imagine some caustic remark my paternal grandma would have made ridiculing the questioner. To her, the question would be a stupid one that hardly merited a serious response.
Um, do I pass?
A former Stuff colleague of mine (not part-Maori) decided to become a teacher after leaving in 2016. She was always Labour but not woke. After going through a teacher brainwashing course in 2020 or so (Ardern inspired) held in Waikato she is now on board with the victims narratives. They see what they do as truth not ideology, just like Stuff and NZME and RNZ writer-cadres do today. It is a form of warfare. I would not want any of my kids, if I had any, near state school teachers. They are predators of children's minds.
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