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Summarised by Centrist
Rodney Hide argues that New Zealand’s education system is prioritising ideological indoctrination over traditional learning, using his 13-year-old’s English class as an example.
The class, titled An Introduction to Culture and Identity in Literature, included a video, How colonisers went from learning te reo Māori to trying to exterminate it, featuring Victoria University sociolinguist Dr Vini Olsen-Reeder.
In the video, Olsen-Reeder states: “Once the Pākehā government was established here, from there the desire grew to exterminate the Māori people.”
Hide calls this an extraordinary claim made without evidence, yet students were not encouraged to question it. Instead, the exercise focused on analysing mood and tone, reinforcing a Te Ao Māori perspective without room for debate.
MP Rawiri Waititi appears in the video, stating: “We were taught everything we were doing was bad and everything they were doing was good. That white was right.” Hide sees this as part of a broader trend in which traditional subjects, including grammar, punctuation, and classical literature, are sidelined by a “supposedly conservative-led government” in favour of a curriculum shaped by Critical Theory-–where society is viewed through a mostly one-sided racial lens.
Hide places responsibility on the Ministry of Education and the National-led government. He argues that Education Minister Erica Stanford, who studied political science and Māori studies, is unwilling or unable to challenge this ideological shift.
“She can’t argue it or defend it. But she doesn’t need to. She has power. That is all that counts,” he concludes.
Read more over at Bassett, Brash, and Hide
Image: jumpyjodes
