On almost every ‘culture war’ controversy in New Zealand politics, I find myself feeling deeply frustrated. We live in a pseudo-democratic country. The loci of power and information, purportedly in service to the New Zealand public, are dominated by a class of persons who are ideologically invested in a
IINZ israelinstitute.nz Massey University has awarded a Master of Arts in Politics for a thesis that reads more like propaganda than academic literature. The thesis, supervised by Dr Nigel Parsons, essentially legitimises Hamas and its terrorism. Dr Ran Porat of Monash University told The Israel Institute of New Zealand
National Party Paul Goldsmith Labour’s messaging on New Zealand’s curriculum is confused and misses what is important to improve student achievement, National’s Education spokesperson Paul Goldsmith says. “On the one hand, Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti says the re-announced curriculum review will focus on ‘wellbeing, identities,
The leaners sure hate the lifters. Australian rock group This Is Serious Mum once described a proposed tour of a Melbourne “Arts” festival, where busloads of Melbournians from the suburbs would be slowly driven along St. Kilda Boulevard, where hundreds of the city’s most cutting-edge arty types would
If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labelled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today Thomas Sowell. To prove the truth of Sowell’s observation,
Curious about the content in the draft curriculum of “Aotearoa New Zealand Histories” to be taught in NZ schools next year, the first obvious mistake I noticed was the title. The content is entirely Maori history (with a nod toward Polynesia because Maori travelled from there) so why not just
Lindsay Mitchell lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com Regarding the new history curriculum, according to RNZ, “On Wednesday, Education Minister Chris Hipkins urged New Zealanders to check out the content and provide feedback before it was finalised.” It isn’t the easiest website to navigate but I eventually found, from the ‘draft curriculum’
“Give us a child till he’s seven and we’ll have him for life,” is a maxim attributed to everyone from Aristotle to the Jesuits, but throughout history it is one well understood by would-be totalitarians. It’s why the Nazis had their Hitler Jugend, the Communists their
righttolife.org.uk A Conservative MP is advancing a Bill to protect freedom of speech at universities from a “corrosive trend… that aims to prevent anybody from airing ideas that groups disagree with or would be offended by”. Last week, David Davis MP offered an impassioned defence of the importance
Bob McCoskrie Family First As children prepare to head back to school, there’s some study prep that parents need to do to become aware of what your children may be facing in the classroom (depending on the values of the school!) around the issues of sexuality and gender identity.
Michael Bassett bassettbrashandhide.com If modern New Zealand History is to be taught to all students in schools as promised by Jacinda Ardern then the curriculum should not start in 1840. By then Maori had been 500 years in Aotearoa, the last forty of them in a state of almost
Australian students are ignorant but woke: just the way the Long March left intended. That’s the depressing conclusion to be gleaned from the latest assessment of Australian secondary students’ knowledge of civics – the basic skill set of a liberal democracy. Most secondary students lack the basic knowledge and skills
One of the interesting things concerning the rise to power of the cult of Ardern is the effect in emboldening the neo-Marxists among us to push their failed ideology harder, particularly in the academic/educational ranks. It’s been seen often and commented likewise here many times, but I
The social engineers on the left have barely been able to contain their excitement at the limitless opportunities offered them by the Wuhan plague. Absolute state control over which businesses are and are not allowed to run. Dictatorial control over whether citizens are even allowed out of their homes. Daily
At the beginning of the third decade of the third millennium, we ponder the fate of our country. We ponder our Parliament being forced to declare a dangerously warming state of “climate emergency” as snow and hail dashed the hopes of many South Islanders for a sunny summer run-up
