A chance comment from a family member recently piqued my interest in what New Zealand children are being taught about racism in school. Like the air, you can’t see it but, apparently, racism is everywhere.
Racism is everywhere.
It is woven into the fabric of society. It lives in our systems and structures, shaping our cultural norms.
Unteach Racism
To my surprise, the Teaching Council claims racism is so prevalent that it warrants teachers dropping everything to give “unteaching racism” their “immediate attention” along with addressing a student’s “cultural needs”.
Quite how a teacher prioritises unteaching racism and squeezes in teaching the basics is not clear, but then again neither is treading the fine line between cultural differences and racism.
Young children haven’t a hope of working that one out and shouldn’t be expected to. My opening comment referred to a 10-year-old grandchild accusing his bewildered grandmother of unbridled racism, which I cannot reconcile with my own grandchildren happily immersed among multi-cultural teachers and friends in early childcare and school environs. Our experience must be abnormal.
Our children, our young people, our rangatahi, were saying that they experienced racism first in the classroom, they experienced it on the way to the classroom…the urgency of the change that was needed really struck home.
And so, that became our call to action. It was our motivation to step into the space and start to create something specifically for teachers that supported them in the spaces they’re in to have really hard conversations about the subject of racism.
Teaching Council Chief executive Lesley Hoskin
Hoskin also claims Tangata Whenua are disadvantaged because of their race; a sweeping generalisation Maori could find offensive.
But I get the point: the challenge from the educational hierarchy is to indoctrinate teachers with the concept of racism out of control and expect them to go away and indoctrinate their students. It’s an easy sell when teachers are not obliged to tell the truth but, unfortunately, children and parents trust them to do exactly that.
The hope is one day racism won’t exist in this country, it will be intolerable. Teachers are called to action – we invite, we implore you to help us make this change.
Teaching Council NZ
Of course, one day racism won’t exist, but it won’t be because kids moved through the Teaching Council’s three knowledge base action plan listed below (my comments in brackets).
- Identify racism (it’s everywhere, if you miss it you’re an idiot)
- Confront racism (kids will leap on the opportunity to accuse someone of outright racism whether it’s true or not)
- Dismantle racism (this will never happen because students won’t move past the very empowering [and divisive] points 1 & 2).
They [teachers] are certainly in a unique position shaping the hearts and minds of the next generation.
Our job is to support them [teachers] so they can then teach.
Teaching Council Chief Executive Lesley Hoskin
Call it what you want – communism, Marxism, social restructuring – not allowing teachers to think for themselves is exactly what is happening here. The government will do the thinking for us.
What’s wrong with waiting until students are at an appropriate age to debate racism and whether racism is sustainable? Spoiler alert: it’s not; when unsupported, racism tends to die a natural death.
Hoskin urges teachers to wade into unteaching racism because during Covid they “stood up and led”. This is news to me. Teachers were part of the happy crew working spasmodically from home in their pjs and enjoying it so much that any excuse to carry on working from home today is jumped on.
Unteaching racism is well underway in New Zealand schools, and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner is heavily invested. The report released in 2018 “personally affected” Hoskin. which makes perfect sense on an emotional level, particularly when you realise the information in the report was compiled from children’s observations.
This popular technique of using children’s observations to form educational policy is deeply flawed when the answers are taken at face value to support the latest whacky scheme (which is my assessment of unteaching racism).
One question asked was “if people at school are racist to me”. It most likely prompted a “yes” response from children who are unable to differentiate between bullying and racism. A 2019 study found nearly half of primary school children and a third of teenagers reported being bullied in the past month.
Hoskin approached the Human Rights Commission which, she says, “have the mandate to, if you like, dismantle racism”. I’d be very interested in knowing exactly how they intend to dismantle racism – do they force different races to live together and fine or imprison people for non-compliance?
Unteaching racism also works with the Human Rights Commissioner, Paul Hunt, infamous for reprimanding the Wellington protestors who reached out to him with claims of human rights violations. Hunt rewrote the law, telling them to think again, the greater good of the community surpasses individual human rights.
There is ample evidence that our system of vaccination mandates and passes has kept many people safe. It has saved lives and reduced suffering. Everyone who has contributed to this enormous achievement deserves great credit.
Paul Hunt
Hunt should rethink his “facts” because none of the government interventions that he authoritatively lauds actually worked.
If parents don’t want to ask their child’s teacher if they are “unteaching racism” they could simply wait for the child to display the “judgey” finger-pointing attitude the Ardern government promoted so well. What a legacy, aye?
Any teacher in any school can sign up to become part of the unteach racism programme. The Teaching Council is after as many teachers as possible to support the cause.