Guy Steward: Reflections on Education

I recently retired from school teaching.

It started thirty-five years ago, when, in my late twenties, I got a job in South Auckland taking after-hours music classes. You didn’t need to be trained, just able to play the guitar. I remember the first lesson – a row of kids in front of me wielding guitars of every shape and size, and a row of watching parents behind them. From there, over the years, the contexts and subjects have been many and varied and I eventually ended up in secondary teaching and then pre-tertiary foundation. For the last thirteen years I was blessed to teach in supportive academic environments.

John Raine: The Laws of Science Haven’t Changed

Those of us who were at secondary school in the 1960’s were a fortunate generation. Back then, English grammar was still taught, and we had emerged from primary school able to spell and do mental arithmetic. Many of us were taught a foreign language that became useful in our later lives.

Those in science streams beyond Year 9 received a solid grounding in basic sciences. Some even completed Year 13 strongly enough grounded in the sciences to enter Year 2 at university.

David Lillis: Education is in Big Trouble

The Current Refresh of our National Secondary Curriculum

By now most of New Zealand’s public is aware of co-governance, Three Waters and efforts to normalize the Treaty of Waitangi as central to much of New Zealand life and society. In this multi-cultural nation that we have become, it is critical that we respect Māori, and value the good things that Matauranga Māori has achieved for Māori over centuries, but stand firmly against any movement that attempts to place one ethnic or cultural group above others. Our entire society cannot, and should not, be re-configured to enforce the world view of one small, self-identifying minority. Nor should we give ourselves over to the notion that traditional knowledge is somehow the equal of modern science.

How many of the general public are aware of what is happening in education right now? We should be deeply concerned about the refresh of the national curriculum currently in progress within the Ministry of Education and related organizations. The proposed new curriculum is referred to as Te Mātaiaho: A draft Te Tiriti-Honouring and Inclusive Curriculum Framework. We are told that Mātauranga Māori will sit at the heart of the learning areas and that key competencies, literacy and numeracy, will be woven explicitly into each learning area. (Ministry of Education, 2022a)

The New Zealand Curriculum is being refreshed in a phased approach over the next four years so that it honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and is inclusive, clear, and easy to use. Ministry of Education (2022b)

Guy Steward: Reflections on Education

I recently retired from school teaching.

It started thirty-five years ago, when, in my late twenties, I got a job in South Auckland taking after-hours music classes. You didn’t need to be trained, just able to play the guitar. I remember the first lesson – a row of kids in front of me wielding guitars of every shape and size, and a row of watching parents behind them. From there, over the years, the contexts and subjects have been many and varied and I eventually ended up in secondary teaching and then pre-tertiary foundation. For the last thirteen years I was blessed to teach in supportive academic environments.

The rewards have included bustling campuses, successful students, engagement with great colleagues and outstanding educationalists, long-standing friendships, and personal character growth. I’ve taught all kinds of students, from excellent to good to average to atrocious. Challenges are there as with anything. But I still recommend it as a career to anyone sensing the call. The rewards come with the challenges and vice versa.

Melanie Phillips: The treason of the educational class

Censorship of knowledge and ideas is now expanding from campus to schoolroom 

Bad ideas owe their advance into mainstream thinking not just to bad people but also to otherwise decent people going along with such notions out of cowardice or other weakness.

The censorship of any thinking which conflicts with the orthodoxies of identity politics is increasingly destroying the western university as the crucible of reason, along with its core purpose to advance knowledge through the free play of evidence, ideas and argument.

This closing of the western mind is now taking place inside schools too. 

NZCPR Weekly: Shaping Impressionable Minds

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we investigate how the Government is allowing school children to be indoctrinated with political propaganda, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Barry Brill, a former Energy Minister and the Chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, has examined the Government’s new climate change resource for 11 to 14 year old children and reveals that it is designed to teach climate activism instead of science, and our poll asks whether you believe our Education Act should protect children from political indoctrination.

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Frances Widdowson: The Threat to Academic Freedom, Freedom of Inquiry and Academic Standards

In September 2018, the Office of Academic Indigenization provided Mount Royal University (MRU) faculty with a document entitled “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula: A Call For Engagement”. 

This document affirmed MRU’s “commit[ment] to indigenizing its curricula to ensure that all students graduate with a basic understanding of Indigenous content informed by Indigenous perspectives”, and encouraged faculty to transform their courses on this basis. These arguments for “curricula indigenization”, however, have not been subjected to any critical analysis. In fact, “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula” contains serious flaws and constitutes an unprecedented threat to academic freedom, freedom of inquiry and academic standards at MRU.