Having a late read of the July 2nd Sunday Star Times, I came across an article written by a young lady by the name of Gabrielle McCullough. I’ll refrain from calling her a journalist in the true sense of the word as reflective of the so-called profession she is attached to. I’m not saying she’s not somewhat qualified; Gabrielle appears to be quite a bright young thing.
For example, between December 2021 and February 2022 at the Auckland University of Technology, she researched, wrote, filmed and edited a series of 10 videos on journalistic concepts. These videos will be used to teach tertiary-level journalism students. Hmm…I won’t waste time trying to discover what the concepts might be. You can probably work it out for yourself.
I did take the bother to find a picture of Gabrielle. At the risk of maligning her I’d say she might be a bit of a Jacinda fan, a bit like the outfit she works for, until said person headed for the hills supposedly with ‘no gas left in the tank’. These types really aren’t that difficult to identify. They have a certain demeanour about them. Anyway, enough of Gabrielle as a person.
The piece she wrote is really the subject of this article. You may have read it. It concerned the new school history curriculum and books on New Zealand history written by authors whose books are published by a company called Tross Publishing. According to some so-called history ‘experts’, one by the name of Vincent O’Malley, books published by Tross Publishing are full of ‘misinformation’, a word favoured by the left.
Also shocked to find Tross Publishing had visited her school was Sasha Eastwood, a school librarian and president of the School Library Association of New Zealand AOTEAROA (my capitals). They called when she wasn’t in the library. On strike perhaps. Sasha said many students weren’t equipped to recognise misinformation. “At my level we’re not teaching our kids that. They’re at the stage where you give them a truth and they’re going to take it as truth.” Hmm, maybe that’s why students are taking days off protesting climate change.
Now I like to give people a fair go, so rather than dismiss Vincent’s and Sasha’s opinions outright, I googled Tross Publishing. Not surprisingly I found my answer to their reservations. Here are some of the titles of their books: He Puapua: Blueprint For Breaking Up New Zealand, New Zealand’s History Curriculum: Education or Indoctrination, New Zealand: The Benefits of Colonisation, Global Warming, The Treaty: Basic Facts and Free Speech Under Attack.
Now, for obvious (political) reasons, you would never expect to find any of those books in a school library. They don’t fit the narrative for an education system under Jan Tinetti and her Government. The old saying springs to mind: the truth hurts, and we wouldn’t want to hurt the young ones with the truth, would we? (Jan herself has had a recent unfortunate brush with the truth.) So rather, let’s give them our leftist brand of truth which risks misinformation or nothing at all. The one thing this bunch excel at.
Why does the new curriculum start at 1840? Well, we all know the answer to that: so we can ignore all the travesties that went before, like cannibalism. Even one of our lead activists, Professor Margaret Mutu, admits to its existence. It comes with a covenant, though: we white people don’t really understand the whys and the wherefores. What does this tell us? It is that, from as far back as 1820, Maori have never had to account for any of their misdeeds. They’re either whitewashed or not acknowledged.
1840 is a convenient place to start, with the Treaty being the excuse. From that point on everything, all their ills and failure to get on, can be blamed on colonialism. It’s exactly what the Maori Party are doing now. At every opportunity. The colonising of this country has benefited them immensely and all Maori excepting the radical activists will agree. To say otherwise is hypocrisy of the highest order.
There was even misinformation in Gabrielle’s article, for which Stuff has written an apology. The events at Parihaka Pa in the 1880s were described as a massacre. Accompanying the article was a photo taken around the time of the happenings. Everyone appears to be standing normally. Believing what I had read and seen to be the TRUTH, as per Sasha Eastwood, I did some research to find out how many were killed. Precisely zero.
Sasha Eastwood accused Tross Publishing of “preying on the possible naïvety” of staff and librarians. Naïve teachers? Surely not! Sasha wrote, “It is frightening. It’s very biased material. I think we have to be very careful allowing this stuff in schools without a disclaimer. There is no place for misinformation [there’s that word again] and disinformation [there’s another one] in our school libraries.” Damon Ritai, regional coordinator for Maori Achieving Success, said the new history programme was critical to putting the record straight.
Except it doesn’t, or maybe partially at best. Those who ignore history are most likely to repeat it (not that I’m suggesting cannibalism will rear its ugly head again). For me, this article points to the broader picture as to why education in this country is in such a mess. A useless government, and a minister driven by ideology and possibly instructed by the unions to not teach anything that doesn’t suit the narrative. No wonder we are tumbling down the OECD rankings. It’s a disgrace.
And now the new ‘science’ curriculum…
But never fear, help is on the way. It’s coming in the form of the National spokesperson on education, Erica Stanford. I had the privilege of hearing her speak a few weeks ago. She’s brilliant and I can assure you education will be back on track. It will be back to basics as outlined in their manifesto. An hour a day of each of the three Rs. There’s three more R’s: RANKINGS RISING as a RESULT. Bring it on!
