Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talks It be
Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
Speaker 2: the information, all the debates.
Speaker 1: Off now the Layton Smith podcast powered by news Talks It.
Speaker 3: Be Welcome to podcasts number two hundred and sixty six
Speaker 3: for November twenty, twenty twenty four. Now I know I
Speaker 3: spend a lot of time on matters relating to education.
Speaker 3: It is because of the importance of schooling, and not
Speaker 3: just schooling, but universities and other forms of education in
Speaker 3: the interests of the individual and the country. It's much
Speaker 3: the same story over most of the world, but especially
Speaker 3: in Anglo speaking countries, the headwinds that have battered many
Speaker 3: lives and destroyed reputations. By that, I means schools and
Speaker 3: universities have been difficult to counter. The interview with doctor
Speaker 3: Michael Johnson is I think quite revealing and should be
Speaker 3: heard by a wide range of people. Please do not
Speaker 3: hesitate to send it to anyone you think come is relevant.
Speaker 3: And by that I mean parents, grandparents, teachers, kids, And
Speaker 3: it was hearing the intent of Donald Trump to eliminate
Speaker 3: the Department of Education in the United States that inspired
Speaker 3: by contacting Michael to invite him on, and he was
Speaker 3: only too happy to He has plenty to say. At
Speaker 3: the back end of two double six, we make reference
Speaker 3: to other matters that are of interest to most of you,
Speaker 3: that are of interest to most of you, the WHO,
Speaker 3: the World Health Organization, the trashing of Parliament being amongst them,
Speaker 3: an artificial intelligence, and democracy also. But next Michael Johnson.
Speaker 3: Education has been a battleground for as long as I
Speaker 3: can remember, a war zone between specifically left and right,
Speaker 3: socialism and freedom. Michael Johnson has had a lengthy career
Speaker 3: in education at all levels. He was when I became
Speaker 3: aware of him, he was at Victoria University. He is now.
Speaker 3: He leads the education work at the New Zealand Initiative,
Speaker 3: which is doing good things in spite of what you
Speaker 3: might read about it occasionally in well in the commentary
Speaker 3: from some of some of the media. Michael Johnson, we've
Speaker 3: had you on the podcast before, of course, you know,
Speaker 3: stranger to people on this particular platform, and I have
Speaker 3: to say it's always good to.
Speaker 2: Talk with you, and you it's great to be here.
Speaker 3: Now, would you disagree with anything I've said so far
Speaker 3: about education being a battleground.
Speaker 4: I think it is a battleground. To describe it as
Speaker 4: a battle between left and right to me kind of odd.
Speaker 4: I mean, it non pluses me to an extent that
Speaker 4: it is such a political battleground. And the reason I
Speaker 4: say that is, actually we have quite a wealth of
Speaker 4: evidence on what effective teaching looks like and how to
Speaker 4: teach children to read, for example, and how to teach
Speaker 4: them in general along the lines of understanding human information processing,
Speaker 4: human memory, human attention, this kind of thing, and also
Speaker 4: the necessity for children not to be stressed in order
Speaker 4: to learn best. There's all kinds of things that we know,
Speaker 4: and so why it needs to be a political battle
Speaker 4: is a little strange. And certainly why there is a
Speaker 4: conflict between left and right if indeed the distinction left
Speaker 4: and right really makes sense in the modern political context.
Speaker 4: So I think that's the only thing that I would
Speaker 4: question about your introduction, is what we mean by left
Speaker 4: and right and why things have turned out the way
Speaker 4: they have. I guess part of it is patch protection
Speaker 4: on the part of the unions. They tend to oppose
Speaker 4: things like charter schools. They oppose things like structuring teachers
Speaker 4: careers so that they get paids according to the quality
Speaker 4: of their practice rather than how long that been teachers,
Speaker 4: which is the current scenario. So there are certainly some
Speaker 4: specific things that the unions influence labor governments over which
Speaker 4: makes reform more difficult, But I think the fundamental ground
Speaker 4: of the battle is deeper than that. Arguably it goes
Speaker 4: back as far as philosophers like junjak Russo, who saw
Speaker 4: children as coming into the world more or less perfectly formed,
Speaker 4: and we messed them up when we've put them in
Speaker 4: formal education systems versus I guess a more pragmatic view
Speaker 4: of human beings, which is that there's there's a great
Speaker 4: deal of knowledge and disciplinary ideas that have to be
Speaker 4: inculcated in children and young people in order to make
Speaker 4: them effective citizens. So there is that disagreement about learning itself.
Speaker 4: But really pragmatically, I think that we actually have good
Speaker 4: evidence on how education systems best function.
Speaker 3: And okay, let me let me ask you. Let me
Speaker 3: ask you a question. Would you would you feel more
Speaker 3: comfortable with progressives versus conservatives?
Speaker 4: Well, it depends what you mean in their educational context.
Speaker 3: Levy. Let me let me take it a step further
Speaker 3: than you say that we know the best way to
Speaker 3: do things.
Speaker 2: We have very good scientific, scientific evidence.
Speaker 3: So so open classrooms. Where does that fall in that scenario.
Speaker 4: Well, open classrooms have no evidence space for them at all,
Speaker 4: and that turned out to be quite a catastrophe, and
Speaker 4: many schools are now trying to reverse the situation building
Speaker 4: walls to recreate cellular classrooms. Now, that whole thing was
Speaker 4: bizarre because it entailed spending a huge amount of money
Speaker 4: with no evidence space, against the will of many schools.
Speaker 3: But doesn't that forward of the category of progressivism.
Speaker 2: Arguably it does.
Speaker 4: The rationale that was used by the ministry for forcing
Speaker 4: schools to build these environments was a progressivist agenda. I
Speaker 4: think that's true. It was about, you know, child centered,
Speaker 4: child led education, and the idea that if we created
Speaker 4: these big barns and allowed children to roam around in them,
Speaker 4: that they would, you know, acquire the knowledge they need.
Speaker 4: And that is a very Roussouian sort of argument.
Speaker 3: That was going to be my next point. So let
Speaker 3: me move on then to teaching literacy. Yes, well, teaching
Speaker 3: teaching literacy the way that they adopted some time back, Yes,
Speaker 3: in this country.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's a very interesting story, and I wondered for
Speaker 4: a long time what the basis of the so called
Speaker 4: whole language approach was and where it went wrong. So
Speaker 4: just for listeners to be clear that the whole language
Speaker 4: method involves exposing children to books and enabling them or
Speaker 4: encouraging them to use what they call multiple cues to
Speaker 4: get the meaning of a word. So it might be,
Speaker 4: you know, the shape of the word itself, it might
Speaker 4: be some illustrations on the page, it might be the
Speaker 4: context of the sentence. And the trouble with that is
Speaker 4: that it disperses attension across all of these different cues
Speaker 4: instead of focusing it on the one that gives them
Speaker 4: the most information, which is the spelling of the word
Speaker 4: and the correspondence between that spelling and the sound of
Speaker 4: the word. And it also ignores the very great cognitive
Speaker 4: load that is imposed when a child is first learning
Speaker 4: to read. It is a very difficult task. And so
Speaker 4: just focusing them on the most important information is what
Speaker 4: builds fluency the quickest, and there's a huge amount of
Speaker 4: evidence for that. But to turn to the question of
Speaker 4: why the whole language method got going in the first place,
Speaker 4: it comes back to a confusion about the difference between
Speaker 4: oral language or spoken language, and literacy. So oral language
Speaker 4: is a human universal. All cultures have oral language, and interestingly,
Speaker 4: it seems to be a biological function in the sense that, well,
Speaker 4: anybody who has brought up a child themselves or been
Speaker 4: around very young children is amazed by the fact that
Speaker 4: a child acquires language in their second and third years
Speaker 4: of life at an incredible rate without anybody explicitly teaching
Speaker 4: them anything. And so there seems to be some sort
Speaker 4: of attemplate in the human brain that enables us to
Speaker 4: acquire language in that way. But literacy is not like that.
Speaker 4: Literacy is not a cultural universal. It's about three and
Speaker 4: a half thousand years old at most, and until about
Speaker 4: two hundred years ago, very few people were literate, and
Speaker 4: so literacy is actually better described as a technology rather
Speaker 4: than a biological function. And it's a big cognitive task
Speaker 4: to read and write, and so we need to take
Speaker 4: a structured, measured approach to how we teach it, and
Speaker 4: we do have very good scientific evidence now on how
Speaker 4: to do that, which is by focusing on the correspondence
Speaker 4: between spelling and sound.
Speaker 3: At first, well, let me go back to what I
Speaker 3: was really going to start with, but as usual I didn't.
Speaker 3: What is there about the New Zealand education system that's good.
Speaker 2: Jee, That's a tough one.
Speaker 4: At the moment, we've got quite the malaise in our
Speaker 4: education system. Our teachers are not well trained by universities
Speaker 4: and I liken it to some extent of committing untrained
Speaker 4: soldiers to a war zone. And that sounds dramatic that
Speaker 4: consider that we have something like a third of our
Speaker 4: teachers dropping out of the profession within their first few
Speaker 4: years of practice. And the roots of that is that
Speaker 4: the university programs for training teachers don't focus on classroom
Speaker 4: management nearly enough, and so our teachers start in the
Speaker 4: classroom not knowing how to establish order in those classrooms. Well,
Speaker 4: if you've got classrooms that are not well ordered, you've
Speaker 4: got no chance of teaching effectively. So that's the very
Speaker 4: foundations which are missing. Until now, we've had a curriculum
Speaker 4: that is very loose and doesn't specify very much at
Speaker 4: all in terms of what should be taught in our schools.
Speaker 4: That's changing with Minister Stanford's reforms and as of next
Speaker 4: year there will be new curricula for English and mathematics
Speaker 4: in our primary schools. That will be followed by more
Speaker 4: curriculum development over the next couple of years until we
Speaker 4: do have a knowledge rich curriculum. So I would say
Speaker 4: that's a good direction that we're going in to look
Speaker 4: for something nice to say about our education system. But
Speaker 4: you know, the other thing that we need to talk
Speaker 4: about is how our schools are organized. At the moment,
Speaker 4: they're all independent crown agencies and there isn't nearly enough
Speaker 4: cooperation between schools, and that drives I would say, increasing
Speaker 4: educational inequality over time. Because schools that are well provisioned
Speaker 4: with I would say parental resources in communities where their
Speaker 4: boards can bring on board lawyers and accountants and so on.
Speaker 4: Those schools that buy and large well governed and functional
Speaker 4: a lot better than schools that lack those resources. So
Speaker 4: I think we need to find a way to bring
Speaker 4: schools together into more functional communities of schools where those
Speaker 4: who are operating in better off communities can really share
Speaker 4: their resources a bit more with those who are not,
Speaker 4: and try to really get to grips with educational inequality,
Speaker 4: because not only do we have falling standards in things
Speaker 4: like literacy and numeracy, and that's been well discussed in
Speaker 4: the media. Also have some of the largest gaps in
Speaker 4: the world between the young people who do the best
Speaker 4: and those who are really being left behind, and that
Speaker 4: gradient is socioeconomic.
Speaker 3: Do you think there is a difference, a racial difference
Speaker 3: in the ability to learn and succeed. No, it's a
Speaker 3: trick It's not a trick question.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: I think there's no evidence for that at all. And
Speaker 4: I think that our focus on ethnicity, on you know,
Speaker 4: especially Mari kids not doing as well as non Mari
Speaker 4: kids and specifica kids not doing as well as others,
Speaker 4: is a misguided way to talk about it.
Speaker 2: By and large.
Speaker 4: Actually, the problem, as I said, is socioeconomic. If off
Speaker 4: come from a well off family, regardless of the ethnicity
Speaker 4: of your parents, they're going to have an educational background.
Speaker 4: Very often that enables them to support your education. They're
Speaker 4: likely to have well they by definition they have more
Speaker 4: economic resources to if necessary, higher tutors and help in
Speaker 4: other ways like that, you just have more economic and
Speaker 4: cultural capital backing you. And when the education system itself
Speaker 4: is not well structured, it means that those who are
Speaker 4: not who don't have the benefit of those kinds of
Speaker 4: resources get left more and more behind if the system
Speaker 4: itself is not doing its job well enough. So no,
Speaker 4: I don't think that there's any evidence for it being
Speaker 4: a racial or ethnic issue at bottom.
Speaker 2: The only cab out.
Speaker 4: On that that I would add, and I don't think
Speaker 4: this has got anything to do with race as such.
Speaker 4: It has more to do with culture is that our
Speaker 4: schools do need to meet children where they are. So
Speaker 4: I'm all in favor of schools taking account of the
Speaker 4: communities they serve and setting themselves up to serve those
Speaker 4: communities well. And if it's a community that has lots
Speaker 4: and lots of Mary kids, then representing Mary culture in
Speaker 4: the school is a good idea because it makes it
Speaker 4: a more welcoming place to them.
Speaker 3: I'd query that, and I have for a while. Let
Speaker 3: me go back though to the mid eighties, and I'm
Speaker 3: not looking for any honors, but I was interviewing it.
Speaker 3: I was interviewing a woman. She lived in Ponsonby, and
Speaker 3: she was renowned for her work with kids and schooling,
Speaker 3: and she didn't hold any positions. She was married, and
Speaker 3: she was very concerned about the way that things were hitting.
Speaker 3: And even though I can't remember her name. She was
Speaker 3: one of the most impressive people I've I've met to
Speaker 3: that point of my life. And I said to her,
Speaker 3: I would like to anonymously establish a scholarship for a
Speaker 3: married child. And she exploded, not angrily. She said, another
Speaker 3: scholarship or something along those lines is something we don't need,
Speaker 3: because that's not the problem. The problem was the background, etc.
Speaker 3: But my comment to her had led into this was
Speaker 3: that I don't believe that Mary or marry kids are
Speaker 3: any less intelligent than any others. I think all races
Speaker 3: are pretty much pretty much equal, even when it comes
Speaker 3: to when it comes to such things. And realizing at
Speaker 3: the same time that that I was stomping on Thomas Sole,
Speaker 3: who has written a couple of very good books like
Speaker 3: Race and Culture, and pointed out that there are differences
Speaker 3: in the talents of various countries, like Italians who go
Speaker 3: to South America and carry on with the specialty areas
Speaker 3: that they're renowned in. It was just one that's one
Speaker 3: that springs to mind. So they conquer that particular share
Speaker 3: of the market and they do very and they do
Speaker 3: very well, but it's not it's not or it wasn't
Speaker 3: for me. An IQ thing. It was just the cultural background,
Speaker 3: right or right?
Speaker 4: I agree, I think I think different cultures do have
Speaker 4: different orientations and things that they prepare young people for.
Speaker 4: And just to complete what I'm saying here, While I
Speaker 4: think it is entirely appropriate for schools to respond to
Speaker 4: the children that they have and take into account their
Speaker 4: cultural backgrounds, that doesn't mean that their mission, their ultimate mission,
Speaker 4: is any different. Their ultimate mission is to teach the
Speaker 4: universal disciplines or subjects derived from the universal disciplines, in
Speaker 4: order to set children up well with powerful knowledge. And
Speaker 4: by the universal disciplines, I mean things like mathematics, science,
Speaker 4: exposing them to the great literature of the world from
Speaker 4: all different cultures. These kinds of things are what builds
Speaker 4: the platform for young people to have successful lives, and
Speaker 4: so wherever they're coming from and whatever their backgrounds, that
Speaker 4: should be the aim. Now, there are different challenges associated
Speaker 4: with different children. You know, some children do come to
Speaker 4: school with particular learning needs and difficulties, and we need
Speaker 4: to address those.
Speaker 2: The children don't have the same.
Speaker 4: Cultural capital in their home background as others do, and
Speaker 4: that presents a particular challenge. But all of these things
Speaker 4: point in the same direction, which is that we need
Speaker 4: to use the methods of teaching that science tells us
Speaker 4: are the most effective, and that's the best way to
Speaker 4: address these differences, and to have education in being an
Speaker 4: equalizing force in our society rather than just reproducing the
Speaker 4: conditions that people start in.
Speaker 3: Let me approach that a different way, because I didn't
Speaker 3: quite agree with something you said at the beginning. When
Speaker 3: I came to this country decades ago, all the talk
Speaker 3: was well not all the talk, but much of the
Speaker 3: talk was with reard to marry and marry issues.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: In the time that I've been here forty years, it
Speaker 3: hasn't changed. It hasn't gone away, it hasn't been resolved.
Speaker 3: It's still the same mold, same mold as we witnessed
Speaker 3: in Parliament to an aggressive extent just last week. Now,
Speaker 3: if you're going to say that there are, if this
Speaker 3: is a marry dominated school, then making it feel welcome
Speaker 3: with culture, et cetera is appropriate. I can't disagree to
Speaker 3: a limited extent, but I not in danger of and
Speaker 3: are we not doing it locking them in to the
Speaker 3: past and to culture and into a culture that well
Speaker 3: prevents them from breaking free.
Speaker 4: Well not if we follow what I just said, which
Speaker 4: is that while that's the you can have that as
Speaker 4: a way to make them feel welcome and also to reflect,
Speaker 4: you know, what they're used to perhaps in their background.
Speaker 4: And in fact, I would say that we have an
Speaker 4: obligation to enable all people, regardless of their cultural background,
Speaker 4: to see themselves in the school system, because we can't
Speaker 4: shy away from the fact that school can be an
Speaker 4: intimidating institution. So that's the entry point. What we're aiming
Speaker 4: for is to have I mean, the ideal is that
Speaker 4: all young people, regardless of their background, leave school well
Speaker 4: educated in the objects derived from universal disciplines like science, mathematics, history, etc.
Speaker 4: Because that is what gives them the knowledge and based
Speaker 4: on that knowledge, the ability to think through ideas in
Speaker 4: a really coherent, disciplined way, and that's what sets them
Speaker 4: up for success in life. Now, in the senior years
Speaker 4: of school, I think we do need to think harder
Speaker 4: about the pathways that young people follow. Frankly, I think
Speaker 4: we send far too many young people from university to university,
Speaker 4: and we don't send nearly enough into apprenticeships and trades,
Speaker 4: and that's because we have this misguided view that a
Speaker 4: university education is somehow inherently superior to being an electrician
Speaker 4: or a plumber or a trades person. So I think
Speaker 4: that's a cultural issue we need to face up to
Speaker 4: and do something about. And I have some ideas about
Speaker 4: that too. But up until the senior secondary, all young
Speaker 4: people should be taught to read and write and do
Speaker 4: mathematics and learn about science and history and so on,
Speaker 4: and that should be a universal offering.
Speaker 3: So I've got I've got one more point to make.
Speaker 3: If you follow in school the approach that you just nominated,
Speaker 3: how does that then relate to the situation. The prime
Speaker 3: example I'll utilize, and obviously so is the bonfight at
Speaker 3: Auckland University a couple of years back, which still continues.
Speaker 4: I gather you're talking about the listener letter business. Well, well,
Speaker 4: I mean that was an appalling betrayal of the academics
Speaker 4: who wrote that piece, none of them, of course, wire racists,
Speaker 4: despite being accused of that by many, And they were
Speaker 4: thrown under the bus by their own vice chancellor who
Speaker 4: said that their letter had caused hurt, in dismay and
Speaker 4: all of this. What they were pointing out, of course,
Speaker 4: is simply that there are different knowledge systems in the world.
Speaker 4: Science is a particular one with unique characteristics, and if
Speaker 4: we're going to teach science, then it needs to be
Speaker 4: taught in terms of what it is, rather than trying
Speaker 4: to bring in knowledge systems like muttering amati that might
Speaker 4: have their own contribution to make, but which are not
Speaker 4: themselves science. So that was all they were saying in
Speaker 4: this letter.
Speaker 2: Now, if I'd been.
Speaker 4: Wanting to say those things myself, I probably wouldn't have
Speaker 4: tried to do it in a letter to the listener.
Speaker 4: I don't think that that affords enough scope to do
Speaker 4: issue justice, because you really need to explain what science
Speaker 4: is because very few people people actually understand that it's
Speaker 4: not just any old system of finding out about the
Speaker 4: natural world. It's been refined over literally millennia. I mean,
Speaker 4: we could go back to ancient philosophers like Aristotle to
Speaker 4: start to see the first terms of scientific thinking back
Speaker 4: in the ancient Greek world. But it developed over many,
Speaker 4: many centuries. It brought in knowledge from the Middle East
Speaker 4: and India and many different cultures, and it's really not
Speaker 4: until the twentieth century that it really formed into what
Speaker 4: it is now, which is the most powerful system we
Speaker 4: know for testing theories about the world. And the reason
Speaker 4: it's so powerful is because it has at its core
Speaker 4: the idea that, first of all, there is an objective
Speaker 4: reality the way things are, but we always will have
Speaker 4: imperfect access to that, and so all we can do
Speaker 4: is build theories and try to knock them down with evidence.
Speaker 4: And it's the trying to knock them down part what
Speaker 4: Carl Popper called falsification that makes a scientific theory scientific,
Speaker 4: and that is a unique approach to the testing of
Speaker 4: theories with evidence, and it's built the prosperity that we
Speaker 4: have in the world now, has given us the technologies
Speaker 4: we have. I think it's also got a lot to
Speaker 4: do with democracy. I don't think it's any accident that
Speaker 4: Carl Popper, the greatest philosopher of science in history, in
Speaker 4: my opinion, was also a philosopher of democracy and open society,
Speaker 4: because there's a lot in common.
Speaker 2: And at the core.
Speaker 4: It's the ability to discuss ideas, to argue about ideas
Speaker 4: backed by evidence in a civil way without wanting to
Speaker 4: kill your opponent and instead seeing a disagreement is a
Speaker 4: chance to improve everybody's ideas just.
Speaker 3: For the sake of everybody. When you say an open society,
Speaker 3: and Papa believe in an open society. What sort of
Speaker 3: open society? Can you give us a definition?
Speaker 4: Well, open society would liberal democracies are open societies. That
Speaker 4: is to say, we have a quality of political rights,
Speaker 4: We have free speech, we have the idea of free elections,
Speaker 4: which are a way of ensuring that everybody has a
Speaker 4: say and who governs them. In other words, we have
Speaker 4: government by consent and not just some feudal overlord telling
Speaker 4: us what to do or some tyrant but ultimately it's
Speaker 4: underpinned by a particular culture, and that culture is one
Speaker 4: in which we're prepared to tolerate difference of opinion and
Speaker 4: to use our free speech to resolve disputes. And so
Speaker 4: you know, a democratic legal system is another pillar of
Speaker 4: an open society, where disputes and criminal matters are resolved
Speaker 4: on the basis of evidence in courts, and we have
Speaker 4: things like juries and so on. That's an open society.
Speaker 4: And it contrasts with tyrannical societies, with their feudal or
Speaker 4: fascist or communist in other words, where all of those
Speaker 4: what all of those have in common is authority figures
Speaker 4: just telling people what to do by dictat and threatening
Speaker 4: them with violence if they don't.
Speaker 3: Indeed, there is a certain billionaire in the United States
Speaker 3: who spends more than anybody else on election buying, So
Speaker 3: I'm talking about George Soros. Spends megabucks and his intent
Speaker 3: is to change America then anywhere else he can to
Speaker 3: his so called open society, which.
Speaker 4: Is interestingly he was a student associated, yeah with Karl
Speaker 4: Popfer in the past. But I agree with you that
Speaker 4: he's deviated from Popper's ideas fairly dramatically. But look, in
Speaker 4: the end, open societies will always be threatened in various ways.
Speaker 4: They're precarious things and we have to bear that in mind.
Speaker 4: And I guess to bring the conversation back to education.
Speaker 4: That is why I think we need young people to
Speaker 4: be educated in the disciplines that give them the ability
Speaker 4: to think critically. Now much is made of critical thinking
Speaker 4: in our current curriculum, but what has missed is the
Speaker 4: necessity for critical thinking to be built on a base
Speaker 4: of knowledge. Without quite sophisticated knowledge, which critical thinking is
Speaker 4: just not possible. And it's not just the knowledge of
Speaker 4: the facts of the world or the facts are important.
Speaker 4: In addition to factual knowledge, we need knowledge of systems
Speaker 4: of thinking that enable us to get better representations of
Speaker 4: truth over time. Whether it's in history or science or mathematics,
Speaker 4: these are all disciplines that have methods for weighing evidence
Speaker 4: and for resolving disagreements using that evidence. We never get
Speaker 4: to a perfect understanding of how things are, which is
Speaker 4: why it's always a work in progress. And it's that
Speaker 4: endless contestability, which is the essence of the versal disciplines
Speaker 4: as well as democracy.
Speaker 3: Can I go back to the education and the schools
Speaker 3: at least momentarily. Yes, mentioned that having the schools working
Speaker 3: together in the same region is ideal. My thought is
Speaker 3: usually and it is in this case. I mean, if
Speaker 3: there is a local agreement because people like each other
Speaker 3: and they get on well with the other principle or whatever,
Speaker 3: they can help out sometimes that's fine. But isn't competition
Speaker 3: even between schools worthy of pursuing.
Speaker 4: Yes, it probably is, But I don't think that competition
Speaker 4: and cooperation are mutually exclusive things. And I think we
Speaker 4: do need a mechanism by which we can propagate good
Speaker 4: practice across schools rather than simply having them all set
Speaker 4: up in just pure competition with one another. Because a
Speaker 4: pure competitive model is always going to leave schools in
Speaker 4: less advantage communities not as well off. So I think
Speaker 4: there is a place, So let's think of it like this.
Speaker 4: I think that the education system schools need to be
Speaker 4: accountable to the country for doing a good job, and
Speaker 4: for that they need feedback. That means we need to
Speaker 4: measure how they're doing and for that to be known,
Speaker 4: and that in a sense becomes a mechanism of competition
Speaker 4: because you get to see what is functioning better than
Speaker 4: what else. But I don't think that having schools cooperate
Speaker 4: is actually a barrier to doing that, and I think
Speaker 4: we can set things up and I'm just thinking through
Speaker 4: this now. I'm going to write a report about it
Speaker 4: next year. So the ideas are not yet fully formed.
Speaker 4: But we already have communities of schools. They're called kahuiaco,
Speaker 4: but they're not very well structured or resourced. And I
Speaker 4: think we have this strange situation where we have a
Speaker 4: kind of megalithic ministry of education that just keeps growing
Speaker 4: and growing over time. It's got thousands and thousands of
Speaker 4: public servants working for it. It's also got regional offices,
Speaker 4: so there's a massive bureaucracy and then we've got basically
Speaker 4: nothing between that and individual schools. So what I'm thinking
Speaker 4: of is a way of organizing our schools into groups,
Speaker 4: and I would set them up such that the primary
Speaker 4: schools and secondary schools that were working together tended to
Speaker 4: have children who passed through the primary schools into the
Speaker 4: secondary schools and the same group, so you have a
Speaker 4: more connected up view of the children as they passed through,
Speaker 4: to have a mix of socioeconomic circumstances within them, so
Speaker 4: that the resources were able to be shared across different
Speaker 4: kinds of communities. And critically, I think that these organizations
Speaker 4: should be owned by the schools themselves and become the
Speaker 4: units of accountability. So if you have to some extent
Speaker 4: a competitive element that might take place within these communities.
Speaker 4: But also you'd have the different communities across the country
Speaker 4: and we could compare how well each we're doing.
Speaker 3: You've you've just given me an idea. Yes, we've got
Speaker 3: a shortage of math teachers. We do, We've got an
Speaker 3: even bigger shortage of good math teachers. So what about
Speaker 3: sharing math teachers. You've got a part of the idea.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about what these communities might do. First,
Speaker 3: and foremost, I think it is the sharing of good practice.
Speaker 3: So you could have a situation where you know, it's
Speaker 3: a really good maths teacher was the condo for a
Speaker 3: couple of years to work for this community and to
Speaker 3: lead professional development across a range of schools, and that
Speaker 3: way you spread that good practice across schools instead of
Speaker 3: having it all focused and where that teacher is working.
Speaker 3: And for sure that school then loses that teacher for
Speaker 3: a couple of years, but they're making a wider contribution
Speaker 3: there was I was thinking, though, I was thinking more
Speaker 3: of the same teacher teaching it. I mean, that's their
Speaker 3: specialty maths at level three or whatever, and they've got
Speaker 3: a couple of classes, classrooms, they're dealing with the school
Speaker 3: that they're at, but they've got plenty of time up
Speaker 3: there sleeve. I'm guessing. I'm guessing, why can't they work
Speaker 3: out with another local school that this teacher is shared
Speaker 3: between them and they do both schools at that level.
Speaker 4: So that's certainly a possibility, especially for smaller school so
Speaker 4: that they could share teachers like that. I mean, you
Speaker 4: would find that a maths teacher at a large secondary
Speaker 4: school would be working full time just at that secondary
Speaker 4: school teaching maths, so they wouldn't have a lot of
Speaker 4: spare time. But my point, my point is that why
Speaker 4: just let them be an excellent teacher in isolation. Why
Speaker 4: not enable them to share their expertise and bring other
Speaker 4: teachers up.
Speaker 2: In expertise.
Speaker 4: So professional development is one thing that these centers could do.
Speaker 4: Another would be teacher education. So instead of having teachers
Speaker 4: trained at university, have them trained in the classroom, and.
Speaker 2: Then you know, you have a community of.
Speaker 4: Schools that has a critical mass that enables a really
Speaker 4: strong teacher education program to be put in place. Is
Speaker 4: going to have much more practical focus. There's going to
Speaker 4: be more of an alignment between the kind of course
Speaker 4: work element of the program and what teachers actually need
Speaker 4: in the classrooms because schools are nothing if not pragmatic
Speaker 4: and practical. They've got huge challenges and they know what
Speaker 4: teachers need to learn better than universities do. So there
Speaker 4: would still be a place, a strong place for teacher educators,
Speaker 4: but let them be employed by the schools themselves. Let
Speaker 4: the communities of schools have their own qualification. And look,
Speaker 4: there's already a model for this taking place with the
Speaker 4: community of schools in Auckland that has got a teacher
Speaker 4: qualification that they run and they train teachers in schools,
Speaker 4: and I think that this is the way ahead with
Speaker 4: teacher education. So it'll take a while to ratchet up
Speaker 4: something like that, but I think that the remodeling of
Speaker 4: the education system along the lines that I'm talking about
Speaker 4: would really help. Other things that these communities could do
Speaker 4: is instead of you know, if you need an educational
Speaker 4: psychologist to assess a child for dyslexia or ADHD or
Speaker 4: whatever it is, you don't have to wait months for
Speaker 4: the ministry to allocate one to you. Instead, you have
Speaker 4: a cadre of specialists working for your community who circulate
Speaker 4: around the schools and do the work that needs to
Speaker 4: be done. And that's going to result in a more
Speaker 4: efficient allocation of resources like that as well. So I
Speaker 4: think these communities could take on a lot and that importantly,
Speaker 4: they would also be the center of accountability. So at
Speaker 4: the moment, we have almost no feedback from schools to parents,
Speaker 4: to government, to the state, and that's because we just
Speaker 4: don't collect enough data and report it. Schools run assessments,
Speaker 4: but they keep those data to themselves.
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons for that.
Speaker 3: It should be public knowledge.
Speaker 2: Yes, it should be public knowledge. Why is it not? Well?
Speaker 4: Schools fear reporting data because they fear being exposed basically,
Speaker 4: and that's an understandable fear. It's not acceptable situation. But
Speaker 4: what's the way around it. If we made the community
Speaker 4: itself the locus of accountability, then the schools that belong
Speaker 4: to that community would collect data and report it to
Speaker 4: their community and let me finish. Then the community itself
Speaker 4: would aggregate that data and report it to the center,
Speaker 4: and that would be It would be the community as
Speaker 4: a whole held accountable for those data.
Speaker 2: So then the schools.
Speaker 4: Within that community would have a strong incentive to help
Speaker 4: one another improve and no one school would have to
Speaker 4: feel so exposed. And I think that might be a
Speaker 4: way to solve our data problem. That idea does need
Speaker 4: a bit more thinking through, in particular what to do
Speaker 4: when you've got a whole community that isn't functioning well,
Speaker 4: But I think it would take the heat off individual
Speaker 4: schools as well as building an incentive structure for the
Speaker 4: schools to help one another more for schools that we're
Speaker 4: doing well, say in literacy, to be able to help
Speaker 4: ones within their community that we're not doing so well
Speaker 4: because they've got a collective interest in the data that
Speaker 4: they're reporting to the center.
Speaker 3: Of the well. The main reason that triggered this conversation
Speaker 3: today is something that I picked up a few days
Speaker 3: ago with regard to the American election. Let me quote you.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's vision for education revolves around a single goal
Speaker 3: to rid America's schools of perceived wokeness and left wing indoctrination.
Speaker 3: You can tell already that the word perceived before those
Speaker 3: two is hinting at the angle that the article has
Speaker 3: taken from AP News. The president elect wants to forbid
Speaker 3: the classroom lessons on gender identity and structural racism. He
Speaker 3: wants to abolish diversity and inclusion officers. He wants to
Speaker 3: keep transgender athletes out of girls' sports. Throughout his campaign,
Speaker 3: the Republican depicted schools as a political battleground to be
Speaker 3: won back from the left. Now that he's won the
Speaker 3: White House, he plans to use federal money as leverage
Speaker 3: to advance his vision of education across the country. Now,
Speaker 3: in so doing, he's vowed to disengage the Department of Education.
Speaker 3: And you talk about the thousands of people in the
Speaker 3: department in this country. It made me wonder if there
Speaker 3: was a similar approach that maybe we could look at.
Speaker 3: But it's not. It's not easy because he's going to
Speaker 3: send it back to the States. We've got the States
Speaker 3: to send it back too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So have we have a simpler system and easy
Speaker 4: it's sort out because it's not so huge and doesn't
Speaker 4: have the complication of states as America and Australia do.
Speaker 2: So we do have it. So a couple of things
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 4: First of all, the kind of approach that I'm talking
Speaker 4: about with establishing these communities of schools, they would need
Speaker 4: resources that I would say, they would need physical premises.
Speaker 2: Now, how do we fund that?
Speaker 4: Well, we take a whole lot of functions off the Ministry,
Speaker 4: basically turn it into a smallish policy shop in Wellington,
Speaker 4: and instead of having all these regional offices, give the
Speaker 4: resources to the to the schools themselves to use more locally.
Speaker 4: I think that would be a more effective approach. So
Speaker 4: that's the answer to that part of the question. I
Speaker 4: would downsize the Ministry greatly and reallocate the resources to
Speaker 4: the communities of schools for which they would have to
Speaker 4: be accountable that's an important part of it, making sure
Speaker 4: there is accountability for how those resources are used. And
Speaker 4: at the moment, the ministry isn't really held to account
Speaker 4: for presiding over twenty bus years of educational decline. So
Speaker 4: I think it is time to try something different. To
Speaker 4: turn to what Trump is saying about education. There's a
Speaker 4: lot in that which I agree with. I think it
Speaker 4: is true that education systems across the world have become
Speaker 4: captured by certain ideological ideas, and that is not good
Speaker 4: educational practice because, to use a bit of a cliche,
Speaker 4: we need to teach children how to think and not
Speaker 4: what to think. Having said that, lightly worried that Trump
Speaker 4: might implement ideological ideas of his own, and so that
Speaker 4: to me would be not fixing the problem, but just
Speaker 4: changing the problem.
Speaker 3: I don't have that for you.
Speaker 2: I hope you're right.
Speaker 4: I mean, so, if you take the question of gender
Speaker 4: identity or whatever, I don't think there's any problem in
Speaker 4: teaching about that. But all ideas need to be contestable.
Speaker 4: So you put the idea on the table, is it
Speaker 4: possible for a boy to become a girl? Well, let's
Speaker 4: look at that from all different angles and bring the
Speaker 4: evidence to bere what does biology have to say about that,
Speaker 4: and what's the difference between sex and gender? And if
Speaker 4: we could have open discussions about that in our classrooms
Speaker 4: that were not dominated by ideologies, then we would be
Speaker 4: using that issue as which is, you know, obviously of
Speaker 4: contemporary social interest, because it's all over the place at
Speaker 4: the moment. If we could have open discussions about it
Speaker 4: in the light of evidence, then people would be taught
Speaker 4: to draw their conclusions based on evidence instead of ideology.
Speaker 3: What place does the World Health Organization have in the classroom?
Speaker 2: Very little place as far as I can see. I
Speaker 2: don't know why it would.
Speaker 3: Have the place, well, because it chooses.
Speaker 2: To Can you elaborate? I'm not quite sure what you mean.
Speaker 3: I can. I could elaborate in great details, except we
Speaker 3: don't have enough time even in this podcast, however. Hugh
Speaker 3: McCarthy is a retired as a head teacher after twenty
Speaker 3: three years in that role. He also lectured in postgraduate
Speaker 3: leadership course at the University of Ulster. And there's more
Speaker 3: detail about this about this guy who has written a
Speaker 3: twelve page missive Look who's in the classroom? Look who
Speaker 3: who is in the classroom? Right the process to legislate
Speaker 3: the amended Form of Relationship and Sexuality Education RS into
Speaker 3: the school curriculum has seen the divers the diversion of
Speaker 3: much needed administrative and teaching time and resources away from
Speaker 3: education fundamentals such as reading and numeracy, the standards of
Speaker 3: both of which have fallen alarmingly. The decline in reading
Speaker 3: and numeracy standards caused by the impact of COVID related
Speaker 3: policies has seen the UK achieve its worst standards since
Speaker 3: two thousand and six and the US the worst in
Speaker 3: the history. Anyway, I won't go on, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see what you're saying. Now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, whether it's the WHO or other organizations in the background,
Speaker 4: I think there are some influences in our classrooms on
Speaker 4: things like the Healton Sexuality curriculum. There are definitely some
Speaker 4: interests that have been influencing our schools.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: This is actually one other very good argument for a
Speaker 4: much stronger curriculum than we've had, because if we have
Speaker 4: a really strong and full curriculum, then that specifies what
Speaker 4: teachers are obligated to teach, and they're not going to
Speaker 4: have much time to do these other things.
Speaker 3: Some of them, from my information, would do anything to
Speaker 3: continue with it because there is a.
Speaker 2: They might do.
Speaker 4: But if they're held accountable for teaching a really robust
Speaker 4: and knowledge rich curriculum, then if they choose to spend
Speaker 4: time doing these other things, then they might fail to
Speaker 4: deliver what's expected of them, and there needs to be
Speaker 4: ultimately consequences for that.
Speaker 3: Well, we certainly agree on that. You mentioned the word
Speaker 3: bureaucracy before when you were talking about them at headquarters.
Speaker 3: Basically i'd use the word autocracy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean it's interesting.
Speaker 4: Our school system is actually incredibly devolved, and I think
Speaker 4: that has become part of the problem that we just
Speaker 4: have all it's highly fractured. Indeed, so in some sense
Speaker 4: the Ministry doesn't do enough at all to preside over
Speaker 4: the education system. Having said that, I wouldn't trust the
Speaker 4: ministry to preside over it, and I think we need
Speaker 4: a different way of structuring it, which is what I'm
Speaker 4: thinking through now. And the ideas that I've laid out
Speaker 4: today are actually the first public airing of them. I'm
Speaker 4: not the only one have thought along these lines, of course,
Speaker 4: but I do think we need to think very carefully
Speaker 4: in terms of the ministry being an autocracy. Well, in
Speaker 4: some ways it probably is, but I think in ways
Speaker 4: that it needs to assert a bit more control. It's
Speaker 4: actually left things way too up in the air for
Speaker 4: a long time.
Speaker 3: Yes, but the people are the people capable of doing that,
Speaker 3: actually holding down positions.
Speaker 4: There are some There are some really good people in
Speaker 4: the ministry, for example, the crew that do the international
Speaker 4: testing work. I think they're really good statisticians and they
Speaker 4: provide good information.
Speaker 2: There are pockets of good.
Speaker 4: Work happening in the ministry, But as a whole, it's
Speaker 4: a highly dysfunctional organization. It's it's faction written and it
Speaker 4: is yeah, not using it as a resource as well.
Speaker 3: Shall we say, look, we we must before we terminate,
Speaker 3: we must touch on one other thing. And this could
Speaker 3: take as well. You can have as long as you like.
Speaker 3: But AI now before you go. AI is something that
Speaker 3: I'm intrigued with, but not so much. In fact, i'd
Speaker 3: put AI in a parallel position to what Bitcoin was
Speaker 3: when we first started talking about it a few years ago,
Speaker 3: and I put my neck on the line and said
Speaker 3: it'll collapse, it'll never go anywhere. Was totally wrong. So
Speaker 3: the question is is AI in a similar similar category?
Speaker 3: Is it a danger as much as it could be
Speaker 3: a positive. How do you I know how you see
Speaker 3: it because I've read I've read your articles, but take
Speaker 3: it from where you want.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So the way I started my reporter on AI was
Speaker 4: to think back to the nineteen seventies and eighties, when
Speaker 4: handheld calculators were finding their way into the pockets of
Speaker 4: young people, and the idea was that now maybe we
Speaker 4: don't need to teach them arithmetic anymore because they've got
Speaker 4: these calculators to do it for them. And of course
Speaker 4: the flaw in that is if they don't learn to
Speaker 4: do arithmetic to the point of what we call cognitive automaticity,
Speaker 4: which is to say, you know, you know your times
Speaker 4: table's cold, and you know how to add numbers together
Speaker 4: using an algorithm pretty straightforwardly and without much effort, You're
Speaker 4: just not going to have the cognitive resources to take
Speaker 4: further steps in mathematics. So everything that arithmetic depends on,
Speaker 4: which is just about all of the rest of mathematics,
Speaker 4: you're never going to be able to learn with any fluency.
Speaker 4: So fast forward to AI. The same kind of argument
Speaker 4: applies to learning to write. If you have an AI
Speaker 4: producing writing for you, and there are some people who
Speaker 4: have commented on the potential for AI to obviate the
Speaker 4: need for children to learn to write themselves. Because they
Speaker 4: can get AI to compile the facts and write a
Speaker 4: reasonably cogent, if not exactly inspired piece, then they can
Speaker 4: spend their time thinking critically about what the AI has produced.
Speaker 4: Trouble with that is that, first of all, as I
Speaker 4: said before, to think critically, you need a lot of knowledge,
Speaker 4: and so just outsourcing knowledge production to AI is not
Speaker 4: going to teach you knowledge. And secondly, writing is itself
Speaker 4: a tool of thinking. So when we write, if we're
Speaker 4: writing fluently and well, we are able to compile our ideas,
Speaker 4: rearrange our ideas. In other words, we can get out
Speaker 4: of our heads onto the page, as it were, our thoughts,
Speaker 4: and then that gives us the kind of headspace freed
Speaker 4: up to be able to think through those ideas properly,
Speaker 4: to self criticize our ideas, and to rearrange them to
Speaker 4: improve our arguments. So writing is itself a really important
Speaker 4: tool of thinking, and we mustn't allow AI to subvert
Speaker 4: the necessity for young people to learn to write and
Speaker 4: to think and to acquire knowledge of their own. I
Speaker 4: think there are some opportunities that are offered by AI educationally,
Speaker 4: but it's much more in the category of feedback to children.
Speaker 4: So you can imagine young people perhaps producing a piece
Speaker 4: of writing of their own and then feeding it to
Speaker 4: the AI, which doesn't just sort of rewrite it for them,
Speaker 4: but says there are some problems with the way you've
Speaker 4: structured this sentence and that sentence, and maybe even have
Speaker 4: you thought about this counter argument to this idea. So
Speaker 4: in other words, it's it's acting more as a coach.
Speaker 4: It should also always be under the supervision of a
Speaker 4: skilled teacher. We shouldn't just let AI take over in
Speaker 4: the classroom.
Speaker 3: Is it being actively used the moment in the classroom.
Speaker 4: I think it's starting to be yes, And I don't
Speaker 4: have a good handle on how it's being used at
Speaker 4: this stage. I suspect it's very ad hoc because there
Speaker 4: hasn't been any sort of central effort to introduce it
Speaker 4: in a way that has any principles behind it. I
Speaker 4: think a lot of teachers will intuitively understand that it's
Speaker 4: a bad idea to let AI do writing for young people,
Speaker 4: but I wouldn't be surprised if there's some of that happening.
Speaker 4: Is there, apart from anything else, that's quite hard to
Speaker 4: control what young people do with it?
Speaker 3: Well, we found that out yep. Is there any danger
Speaker 3: that it could be captured and used illicitly?
Speaker 2: Can you explain what you mean a bit more?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I don't know how it works. I
Speaker 3: don't pretend to and at this point I don't really
Speaker 3: have any great interest in the mechanics of it. But
Speaker 3: as there is misinformation abroad in volumes, is there any
Speaker 3: reason why AI can't be programmed to behave badly misleadingly misleader?
Speaker 4: There is no reason at all that it can't be
Speaker 4: programmed to do that, And I would say that there
Speaker 4: are probably engines that are like that already. So you
Speaker 4: do need to understand a little bit about how AI
Speaker 4: works to understand this. Essentially, AI doesn't know anything at all.
Speaker 4: AI artificial intelligence is actually a bit of a misnomer.
Speaker 4: I would say it's not intelligent. What it is is
Speaker 4: a huge network which is trained using vast amounts of text. Now,
Speaker 4: the text that you train it on will determine the
Speaker 4: kinds of responses it gives you. So you could train
Speaker 4: it on a whole bunch of documents from a particular
Speaker 4: ideological perspective, and if you did that, the responses that
Speaker 4: produced would be from that ideological perspective. And I think
Speaker 4: there is already an extent to which the AI engines
Speaker 4: are trained in something of a biased way. There's a
Speaker 4: research called David Risado from Dunedin who has done some
Speaker 4: really great work showing how various AI engines are politically biased.
Speaker 4: And he does that by giving them questions from things
Speaker 4: like the Political Compass test and seeing where they pitch up.
Speaker 4: And most of the AI engines have a fairly pronounced
Speaker 4: left wing bias, and one might suspect that they've been trained.
Speaker 5: To be like that. And well, exactly, yes, you have
Speaker 5: very valid concern. Then well you've got to the core
Speaker 5: of my question right perfectly. There is something else I
Speaker 5: just want to raise with you. Welfare.
Speaker 3: The welfare system is I think, not just partly but
Speaker 3: hugely responsible for a lot that's wrong with this country.
Speaker 3: Now I could go into explanation, but if you do
Speaker 3: agree with what I've just said, what's your thought.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not an economist and welfare isn't really my
Speaker 4: area of central expertise, but what I would say is that,
Speaker 4: and we're at ABTZ education is that we need these
Speaker 4: systems to left people out of bad circumstances and not
Speaker 4: keep them there. So a welfare system that promotes into
Speaker 4: generation or dependence is not good. There are situations in
Speaker 4: which people need welfare. We should always be looking to
Speaker 4: improve their capabilities so that they don't have to stay
Speaker 4: on welfare and stay dependent, because that's not a recipe
Speaker 4: for a meaningful life. Education has a really important role
Speaker 4: to play in that for families that perhaps have been
Speaker 4: stuck in a welfare trap for more than one generation.
Speaker 4: It's pretty bad when a child has never seen an
Speaker 4: adult who has a full time job, for example, and
Speaker 4: we need to find a way out of that.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what triggered that you write something on
Speaker 3: New Zealand needs a clearer pathway to apprenticeships. Yep, and
Speaker 3: I read you the first paragraph. Every year in New Zealand,
Speaker 3: around sixty two thousand young people leave school, just six
Speaker 3: percent of them enter apprenticeship training. Nearly double that, eleven
Speaker 3: percent neither gain employment nor enroll in post school education.
Speaker 3: That comparison points to a serious waste of human potential.
Speaker 3: In contrast, I agree with you entirely. In contrast, under
Speaker 3: the German dual training system, fully half of school leaders
Speaker 3: take up apprenticeships. Now, the reason it got my attention
Speaker 3: was because a number of years ago I met two
Speaker 3: young Germans who were visiting Australia. My father was married
Speaker 3: to a German and one of them was related to it.
Speaker 3: So I found out the bit of detail they were
Speaker 3: on the doll and they were traveling the world and
Speaker 3: if memory serves me correctly, they could do that for
Speaker 3: two years without repercussion.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, I'm not aware of that scheme, but
Speaker 4: I do know that half of their school leaders do
Speaker 4: go into apprenticeships, and there's a really well coordinated system
Speaker 4: whereby they go through particular kinds of secondary schools, and
Speaker 4: in fact they divide their kids at age ten into
Speaker 4: different tracks, which I think is too young. But what
Speaker 4: they do really well is when they leave school they
Speaker 4: can be employed as an apprenticed by a company. They
Speaker 4: don't have to pay for apprenticeship training because the companies
Speaker 4: actually pulled the resources and fund a system whereby they're trained,
Speaker 4: they work several days a week in the company, and
Speaker 4: then they're studying with a tertiary provider.
Speaker 2: The rest of the time.
Speaker 4: To teach them the general skills of the trade that
Speaker 4: they're preparing for, and when they qualify that they become
Speaker 4: a master trades person, they can go on to be
Speaker 4: a trainer themselves, which is a highly respected position in
Speaker 4: German society. A lot of it comes back to culture.
Speaker 4: The Germans have a very long standing respects for the trades.
Speaker 4: In some sense, it goes back to the medieval guilds.
Speaker 4: Be very difficult to reproduce their system in New Zealand,
Speaker 4: but I think there are elements of it that we
Speaker 4: could adopt. And really what I'm focusing on at the
Speaker 4: moment is what we can do in the senior secondary
Speaker 4: school to make the trades pathway much more visible and
Speaker 4: much more accessible to young people so that we don't
Speaker 4: end up with twice as many going on the doll
Speaker 4: as we have leaving school and becoming apprentices If we
Speaker 4: could even capture you know, that eleven percent and go
Speaker 4: from six percent going into apprenticeships to something like fifteen percent,
Speaker 4: that would be a really good start.
Speaker 3: Indeed, and speaking of the word start, we might call
Speaker 3: a finish no worries. So, Michael, it's great talking with
Speaker 3: you and very productive.
Speaker 2: I think it's very latent. Thanks have always a good
Speaker 2: conversation with you.
Speaker 3: Thanks kindly and we'll talk again.
Speaker 2: Take care fine now, Layton Smith.
Speaker 3: Leverix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to the highest quality.
Speaker 3: Leveris really use hay fever and skin allergies or itchy skin.
Speaker 3: It's a dual action antihistamine and has a unique nasal
Speaker 3: decongestent action. It's fast acting for fast relief and it
Speaker 3: works in under an hour and lasts for over twenty
Speaker 3: four hours. Leverrix is a tiny tablet that unblocks the nose,
Speaker 3: deals with itchy eyes, and stops sneezing. Leverrix is an
Speaker 3: antihistamine made in Switzerland to the highest quality. So next
Speaker 3: time you're in need of an effective antihistamine, call into
Speaker 3: the pharmacy and ask for Leverrix l v Rix Levrix
Speaker 3: and always read the label. Take us directed and if
Speaker 3: symptoms persist, see your health professional. Farmer Broker Auckland. Here
Speaker 3: we are in two double six, that is Podcast two
Speaker 3: double six with the mailroom and missus producer. How are
Speaker 3: you feeling after your beach walk?
Speaker 6: Lighton who couldn't feel fabulous?
Speaker 2: On?
Speaker 6: A day like this, life is good.
Speaker 3: You realize that when people hear this it may be
Speaker 3: bucketing down.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but every day's fabulous, really, isn't it.
Speaker 3: What if you're breathing?
Speaker 6: We know that.
Speaker 3: So for two double six, lead the way I shall start.
Speaker 6: Lynn says. I am an ordinary New Zealander seventy seven
Speaker 6: years of age. I find what happened last Thursday appalling,
Speaker 6: of course, but I have seen a lot of political actions,
Speaker 6: stunts and protests over my life. But this, this is
Speaker 6: something sinister. This is not a protest. It is a
Speaker 6: serious attempt to disable an elected government and dispense with
Speaker 6: democracy and even the rule of law. They are blatantly
Speaker 6: breaking the law and yet relying on the same law
Speaker 6: to allow them to keep doing it. It is a
Speaker 6: well established tactic of groups such as these to go
Speaker 6: the government or establishment into taking the sort of action
Speaker 6: that could allow them to I foul and act hurtful
Speaker 6: and indignant. Also, schools and teachers are breaking their contracts
Speaker 6: with the Ministry of Education. As public servants, they are
Speaker 6: obliged to be seen as politically neutral. Yet twice last
Speaker 6: week I saw the pupils and teachers of the two
Speaker 6: local schools in my area marching around holding Mauri flags,
Speaker 6: and teachers and pupils alike wearing red hats with white
Speaker 6: feathers on them. So children as young as five are
Speaker 6: indoctrinated into this. These children will no doubt be included
Speaker 6: in the inflated figures reported by mainstream media. Equally upsetting,
Speaker 6: says Lynn. Is Chris Luxen going to take any meaningful action?
Speaker 6: I feel he should be supporting his coalition partner. I
Speaker 6: know he has reiterated ad nauseum his feelings that he
Speaker 6: doesn't like the bill, which I take to mean he's
Speaker 6: wanting a quiet life. With all due respect, he should
Speaker 6: be better than that, and I intend to make him
Speaker 6: aware of my thoughts for all the good that that
Speaker 6: will do. I will stop my rant later, as I
Speaker 6: know abler pens than mine will be writing to you
Speaker 6: on this subject, but I had to express my feelings
Speaker 6: of fear about this. The Treaty Principle's bill is doing
Speaker 6: no more than maintaining the principle of one man, one vote,
Speaker 6: and lind says, I use man in the genetic sense,
Speaker 6: as in mankind. Change it if you don't want to
Speaker 6: risk cancelation. Another sinister aspect another sinister aspect of life
Speaker 6: now and she says, thank you for your time. That's
Speaker 6: from Lynn Linda.
Speaker 3: At the end of the mail room, or before the
Speaker 3: end of the mail room, I've got a comment to
Speaker 3: make which I think you should hear from Chris. Thank
Speaker 3: you for the US election debrief with Patrick Masham. Totally
Speaker 3: worth the effort and the weight. I was one of
Speaker 3: those people who called the election for Trump. During this election,
Speaker 3: I was most interested in the way election processes were
Speaker 3: handled post twenty twenty A note that quite a few
Speaker 3: states in private entities instituted measures to counteract voter fraud
Speaker 3: prior to the last week to well, he says, to
Speaker 3: last week's elections. Honestly, on the day, my main interest
Speaker 3: was how the timings and results from the seven swing
Speaker 3: states were progressing, and I was not disappointed. However, in
Speaker 3: the wake of Trump's win, the Republicans and supporters were
Speaker 3: quick to credit success to their campaign activating voters to
Speaker 3: the GOP cause. This may be true, but if we
Speaker 3: put some context around the popular vote, things look slightly different,
Speaker 3: although still great from a GOP perspective. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: Trump received sixty three million votes and Clinton sixty point
Speaker 3: one million votes. In twenty twenty, Trump received seventy four
Speaker 3: point two million votes and Biden eighty one point three
Speaker 3: million votes. Really, in twenty twenty four, Trump has seventy
Speaker 3: three point six million votes at the time I write
Speaker 3: this email, while Harris has sixty nine point three. This
Speaker 3: will increase slightly without thinking too deeply. In comparison to
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty election, Harris has lost eleven million votes,
Speaker 3: while Trump's vote count remained roughly the same. The red
Speaker 3: wave looks in reality to be a receding blue tide.
Speaker 3: Has something more sinisterive been exposed by this outgoing tide
Speaker 3: of Democrat votes? I wonder, and then it break it's
Speaker 3: without evidence. I wonder, without evidence, if we are seeing
Speaker 3: a relatively clean twenty twenty four election where voter fraud
Speaker 3: has been effectively stymied, and the twenty twenty overcount is
Speaker 3: now obvious, or at least obvious enough to need openly
Speaker 3: explaining both for and against arguments would be welcome. Please
Speaker 3: keep up the great work, Chris. I sent that off
Speaker 3: to to Patrick actually with a question. I don't think
Speaker 3: I have a reply at this point, but I'll keep
Speaker 3: you in touch if I do.
Speaker 6: Latent John says, I've just this afternoon being speaking to
Speaker 6: a retired and knighted justice. As you know, not all
Speaker 6: retired judges get gonged. He must remain nameless, But he too,
Speaker 6: is very concerned with this partnership concept and where it
Speaker 6: might inevitably lead. A great majority of the electorate really
Speaker 6: needs to wise up to the probable disastrous outcome. A
Speaker 6: grab bag of kcs have come out and supported some
Speaker 6: of this radicalism. They tend to be the newer bunch,
Speaker 6: notable absences of endorsement from the older appointees. There are
Speaker 6: arguably too many cass now the currency of the honor
Speaker 6: has been devalued. When I started as a lawyer late
Speaker 6: nineteen sixties, there were only a handful of QC's in
Speaker 6: New Zealand. Now we're overrun with them. But I digress.
Speaker 6: I fear we're hurtling down a slippery slope. Don't think
Speaker 6: I'm overstating things, do you? If we have twofold systems,
Speaker 6: how does anyone with very mixed genes determine where they stand?
Speaker 6: Auckland's Asian population, for instance, becoming a high percentage of
Speaker 6: the populace they and other more recent mixed heritage immigrants.
Speaker 6: What for them? Seymour is courageous and absolutely correct. A
Speaker 6: huge amount of discussion needed. Too many second rates in
Speaker 6: the media who need to be given a wake.
Speaker 3: Up proud that's from John John very well put and
Speaker 3: I thank you late and missus producer. I hope you're well,
Speaker 3: miss a producer. Are you well?
Speaker 6: Very well? Thank you whoever's asking.
Speaker 3: The I'm a clip on short and sharp email expressing
Speaker 3: my and views of many others I speak to. The
Speaker 3: Seymour bill is not contentious, Just what radical illogical MARII
Speaker 3: don't want to hear the gravy train and misrepresentation of
Speaker 3: the treaty written in English by colonials at the time
Speaker 3: and translated by the same into Mari doesn't suit their agenda.
Speaker 3: I would be so bold as to suggest most New
Speaker 3: Zealanders are sick of their bleeding and devisive, hateful retrick.
Speaker 3: They are an embarrassment to this nation. Yes they are.
Speaker 6: Layton Mel says, love your podcasts, both yousus producer, Thank you, Mel.
Speaker 6: It's all Layton, I'm telling you, it is all Laton.
Speaker 6: My parents used to listen to you on talkback radio.
Speaker 6: Years ago, and as a kid, I used to roll
Speaker 6: my eyes and think how stupid and boring it was
Speaker 6: to listen to talkback. I don't know how many times
Speaker 6: I heard Layton said. Now I find myself listening to
Speaker 6: talkback and podcasts all the time. I guess I grew
Speaker 6: up anyway. Late in your podcast two five seven with
Speaker 6: mister Paul Merrick mentioned a book that Amazon band and
Speaker 6: is no longer available. He mentioned that he would send
Speaker 6: you a PDF of the book, So I'm wondering if
Speaker 6: I can have a copy of that pdf to read.
Speaker 6: I'd also like any information on treating COVID short and long.
Speaker 3: And that's from mel Well. I don't believe he has,
Speaker 3: but I've got his contact, and there was another reason
Speaker 3: why he may not have. But I'll see what I
Speaker 3: can do. Let you know, that's two commitments I've made
Speaker 3: so fast.
Speaker 6: I was going to say, if you remember, you need
Speaker 6: to write down, so you need to make the note.
Speaker 6: Make the note.
Speaker 3: I have been disturbed by the mainstream media outright attack
Speaker 3: and blatant misinformation on RFK the last few days. This
Speaker 3: article explains the media's complicit behavior and total lack of
Speaker 3: balance reporting Kennedy is and has been for decades, calling
Speaker 3: for transparent and actual studies of childhood vaccines in particular,
Speaker 3: then a list of four points. Number one studies of
Speaker 3: BAX versus unbacked kids. Second, the same stringent clinical trials
Speaker 3: as applied to all pharmaceutceutical drugs to be applied to vaccines. Three,
Speaker 3: the removal of legal indemnity for vaccines I reckon number four,
Speaker 3: the studies of vaccines versus an actual placebo. Then, in
Speaker 3: Brackett's the placebo used is either a neurotoxic EG aluminium
Speaker 3: or another vaccine on the childhood immunization schedule. It would
Speaker 3: appear these are reasonable requests that surely any parent considering
Speaker 3: vaccinating their child would want. Instead, all they receive is
Speaker 3: gaslighting behavior by their gp that all childhood vaccines are
Speaker 3: safe and effective. The media asks no questions. Worse, they
Speaker 3: attack anyone who raises concerns. Shame on them. No wonder
Speaker 3: people are switching off from mainstream media. One can almost
Speaker 3: smell the death throws of a desperate, captured, paid off
Speaker 3: media cheers Caroline, Very aggressive, Caroline, But I know there
Speaker 3: is much sort along those lines.
Speaker 6: Layton Serlda says, just a quick note to say how
Speaker 6: much you are appreciated. Full of stimulating interesting subject matter.
Speaker 6: I especially liked your coverage of Trump as he cleaned
Speaker 6: up in the election. And that's from Zelda.
Speaker 3: Zelda well said all from Roger. Roger writes from Sydney.
Speaker 3: Harker erupts in New Zealand Parliament over controversial bill. Good
Speaker 3: to see that New Zealand is as batty as ever
Speaker 3: and by the look of this, Roger is an accountant.
Speaker 3: Just say, what do you think of this? Bearing in
Speaker 3: mind the Waitaki Council has recently been found to be
Speaker 3: overdosing the water supplies there, don't you think an assurance
Speaker 3: from the Director General of Health would be appropriate? But
Speaker 3: she won't front up. Surely as a public servant she should.
Speaker 3: This is a highly toxic chemical and I am extremely
Speaker 3: concerned that this is going unchecked as overdosing too especially
Speaker 3: babies and young children is toxic. Can you please investigate this?
Speaker 3: The US is going to ban this chemical in all
Speaker 3: their drinking water on the twentieth of January twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Israel banned in twenty fourteen, saying it was dangerous. The
Speaker 3: warnings on fluoride toothpaste as they do not swallow. So
Speaker 3: how does the Ministry of Health know everybody is getting
Speaker 3: the right dosage? Unless they can prove this one hundred percent,
Speaker 3: they should immediately stop. Strangely, I can't even get a
Speaker 3: reply from either Shane Ready or Diana Safati on this.
Speaker 3: Perhaps you can, Linda. What's going to take place in
Speaker 3: the US I think is yet to be refined. But
Speaker 3: if they followed this path, then isn't Australia going to
Speaker 3: do something as well? I think? But I either way, anyway,
Speaker 3: this needs to be looked at. My mind has been
Speaker 3: cast back to a period of time when we had
Speaker 3: the Prime Minister's scientific chief were laying on the law
Speaker 3: that this wasn't going to change because it's perfectly safe.
Speaker 3: I've pondered that ever since. To be honest, let me
Speaker 3: finish with this. One English writer and defender of Western civilization,
Speaker 3: Douglas Murray, has something to say that is very pertinent
Speaker 3: to New Zealand and the situation we are in today.
Speaker 3: He does not hold back. Mister Murray's words give rise
Speaker 3: to the question why is there no one in New
Speaker 3: Zealand defending our developed culture with the same kind of
Speaker 3: zeal The narcissist mister Whititty exercises in his drive to
Speaker 3: return us to pre European culture. In my humble opinion,
Speaker 3: Seymour's Treaty Principles Bill is doing something quite minor compared
Speaker 3: to what really should be done. For just a few examples,
Speaker 3: the defunding of all government race based departments, the closure
Speaker 3: of the Waitangi Tribunal, and the removal of taxation concessions
Speaker 3: for all so called murray enterprises. Mister Whiteitty is welcome
Speaker 3: to what he perceives as his own culture if he
Speaker 3: wants it so badly, but he should not be robbing
Speaker 3: every other New Zealander in pursuit of that objective. Neither
Speaker 3: should he be making a mockery of our Parliament. There
Speaker 3: should be far greater sanctions applied for his barbaric behavior
Speaker 3: this week. Now, that brings us to the end of
Speaker 3: the mail room. But I have reserved a commentary for
Speaker 3: following up immediately, well very shortly, that I wanted to
Speaker 3: spend a little time on, So I'm not including it
Speaker 3: in the mailroom because missus producers got things to do,
Speaker 3: no late, and I love being here, but you still
Speaker 3: have things to do. I got a lot of driving
Speaker 3: to do. Yes, I do so, thank you. We shall
Speaker 3: see you next.
Speaker 6: Week lovely, Thanks later and look forward to him.
Speaker 3: Now here's the letter that I said i'd read after
Speaker 3: the mail room, and I think you'll note for appropriate reasons.
Speaker 3: But before I do, I just want to make reference
Speaker 3: to Matt Walsh, who is well it's going to be
Speaker 3: explained in a moment, but I've seen the video. I
Speaker 3: saw it before the before the letter arrived, and I
Speaker 3: was going to include it, and then I thought, well,
Speaker 3: let's do both together. So here is the letter American
Speaker 3: political commentator Matt Walsh dedicated nearly twenty two minutes of
Speaker 3: his recent podcast to New Zealand. When the famous star
Speaker 3: of What Is a Woman? And Am I Racist? Dedicates
Speaker 3: nearly one third of his entire podcast to New Zealand politics,
Speaker 3: you can be sure that New Zealand has either done
Speaker 3: something extraordinarily good or in this case, catastrophically bad. In
Speaker 3: his podcast, Matt Lambastard, the Teparti Mariri, the Marry Party
Speaker 3: inmates who turned out Parliament into a political asylum. The
Speaker 3: caption on his YouTube video says Parliament in New Zealand
Speaker 3: descended into tribal stone age grunting on behalf of so
Speaker 3: called indigenous rites. This is a preview of what our
Speaker 3: country could look like if we keep apologizing for our history.
Speaker 3: What a shameful indictment of the state of New Zealand politics. Furthermore,
Speaker 3: local YouTuber Fonga Ray Tim never heard of him, but
Speaker 3: now you have had a funnier caption saying New Zealand's
Speaker 3: low IQ special needs primitive MPs perform a Marie Harker
Speaker 3: war dance when they don't like the vote. Close quote
Speaker 3: that young to Party Mary MP, who violently tore Act's
Speaker 3: Treaty Principle's Bill in Parliament and started the Harker in
Speaker 3: defiance of the Speaker should be fired, jailed and rehabilitated,
Speaker 3: or maybe just jailed. She is categorically unfit to be
Speaker 3: an Why the majority so silent on these parliament terrorists?
Speaker 3: In the recent Free Speech Union agm held in Auckland,
Speaker 3: Professor Nigel Bigar suggested that the problem lies with a
Speaker 3: mild risk averse majority who often wants to keep out
Speaker 3: of trouble. As a result, they inadvertently allowed the aggressive
Speaker 3: noise of the minority to intimidate the majority. In this case,
Speaker 3: says the author, I believe the majority of New Zealanders,
Speaker 3: especially white New Zealanders, have been conditioned to self censor
Speaker 3: on all matters pertaining to Mary, for fear of being
Speaker 3: labeled racist by actual racists like Willie Jackson. Well, for once,
Speaker 3: I hope whatever is happening in America will happen in
Speaker 3: New Zealand, because we too need to fight, fight, fight.
Speaker 3: It was slightly more aggressive than I read, and to
Speaker 3: be honest, so I self sent a little bit now
Speaker 3: to respond to Linn's letter and be put it this way.
Speaker 3: The detritus there was witnessed in part of it last week.
Speaker 3: It has a source. It goes back a long way.
Speaker 3: It's the result of a great deal of cowardice, or
Speaker 3: if you prefer, an unwillingness on the part of governments
Speaker 3: on both sides of the aisle to take action, to
Speaker 3: take firm action to resolve issues, and well as the
Speaker 3: saying goes, kick the can down the road. It falls
Speaker 3: into a similar category as printing dollars, printing money the
Speaker 3: future generations paid for, and the most recent labor administration
Speaker 3: has shown us how to do that big time and
Speaker 3: screw the country now I've made reference. Oh Now, if
Speaker 3: you want to get the Matt Welsh piece the video,
Speaker 3: just do a search on Matt Walsh's en Z clip
Speaker 3: Matt Walsh's end z clip and you will find it. Now.
Speaker 3: I've made reference recently to Robert McCulloch from Auckland University,
Speaker 3: professor of economics, and part of the reason was because
Speaker 3: I discovered him and he was writing for his own
Speaker 3: blog and I really liked what he said, except did
Speaker 3: I say it again, it's got an overrider that he's
Speaker 3: had to go with a couple of people who who
Speaker 3: I'm familiar with, put me in a precarious position. However,
Speaker 3: on the seventeenth of November he wrote the following, Now
Speaker 3: we know how New Zealand's economy became broken. The Judiciary
Speaker 3: wrote a communist style constitution without consultation, without people knowing.
Speaker 3: The treaty debate is great. We've just found out, courtesy
Speaker 3: about King's Councils, what has broken the economic of this nation.
Speaker 3: It has only just been revealed, thanks to their letter
Speaker 3: to the PM, that the Judiciary invented their own set
Speaker 3: of treaty principles, the main one of interests to economists
Speaker 3: being the requirement of equitable outcomes, which are our fully
Speaker 3: part of our constitution, so much so that the councils
Speaker 3: call them settled constitutional law, unable to be adjusted by Parliament,
Speaker 3: let alone upstarts like Acts Seymour and the likes of
Speaker 3: whom they swat by referring to as being part of
Speaker 3: the government of the day. It's sort of a throwaway
Speaker 3: and part of the government of the day. According to
Speaker 3: the lawyers, we the little people, just vote for day
Speaker 3: to day administrators, whereas the profound, unalterable constitutional principles governing
Speaker 3: us in an enduring sense are written by people with
Speaker 3: bigger minds, our judges. Most of us have heard about
Speaker 3: the principles before, but until the treaty debate was opened recently,
Speaker 3: we had no idea that they were so embedded into
Speaker 3: our constitutional arrangements. Many countries have affirmative action programs. However,
Speaker 3: I know of no country, he writes, no country that
Speaker 3: has a constitutional requirement of outcomes not opportunities being equalized
Speaker 3: amongst the citizenry, other than maybe a few commoner states
Speaker 3: that failed and no longer exist. The reasons are obvious
Speaker 3: to economists, but not to our judiciary. Now that's only
Speaker 3: a little that's half of it. Maybe because he doesn't
Speaker 3: write long pieces, which makes it much easier to punch
Speaker 3: through more of them. I suggest you have a look
Speaker 3: at it, and you want to know how to get it. McCulloch,
Speaker 3: Robert McCulloch m a double CUBLC and you'll come across
Speaker 3: his lot. It's worth it's worth keeping in touch with now.
Speaker 3: Another thing I mentioned was AI and democracy because we
Speaker 3: discussed AI at the end of the interview that we
Speaker 3: had with Michael Johnson. And this is an alternative approach.
Speaker 3: Shall we say how AI threatens democracy? The explosive rise
Speaker 3: of generative AI is already transforming journalism, finance, and medicine,
Speaker 3: but it could also have a disruptive influence on politics.
Speaker 3: For example, asking a chatbot how to navigate a complicated
Speaker 3: bureaucracy or to help draft a letter to an elected
Speaker 3: official could bolster civic engagement. However, that same technology, with
Speaker 3: its potential to produce disinformation and misinformation at scale, threatens
Speaker 3: to interfere with democratic representation, undermine democratic accountability, and corrode
Speaker 3: social and political trust. Like we need more of it.
Speaker 3: This essay analyzes the scope of the threat in each
Speaker 3: of these spheres, and discusses potential guardrails for these misuses,
Speaker 3: including neural networks used to identify generated content, self regulation
Speaker 3: by generative AI platforms, and greater digital literacy on the
Speaker 3: part of the public and elites alike. Just a month
Speaker 3: after its introduction, a chat GPT, the generative artificial intelligence
Speaker 3: AI chat bon hit one hundred million monthly users, making
Speaker 3: it the fastest growing application in history. For context, it
Speaker 3: took the video streaming service Netflix, now a household name,
Speaker 3: three and a half years to reach one million monthly users.
Speaker 3: But unlike Netflix, the meteoric rise of chat GPT and
Speaker 3: its potential for good or ill spark considerable debate. Would
Speaker 3: students be able to use or other misuse the tool
Speaker 3: for researching or writing? Would it put journalists and coders
Speaker 3: out of business? What it's hijacked democracy? As one New
Speaker 3: York Times up head put it by enabling mass phony
Speaker 3: inputs to perhaps influence democratic representation. And most fundamentally or apocalyptically,
Speaker 3: could advances in artificial intelligence actually pose an existential threat
Speaker 3: to humanity? And these are things I had in mind
Speaker 3: when I will raise it with Michael. If you want
Speaker 3: to read the entire discussion. Search how AI Threatens Democracy?
Speaker 3: Simple How AI Threatens Democracy got two authors. Sarah Krepps
Speaker 3: is a professor in the Department of Government, adjunct Professor
Speaker 3: of Law, and the director of the Tech Policy Institute
Speaker 3: at Cornell University. Doug Kriner, the second author is the
Speaker 3: Clinton Rossiter, Professor of American Institute in American Instituts in
Speaker 3: the Department of Government at Cornell University. So the both
Speaker 3: at Cornell. George Freeman dot his degree at Cornell. I'm
Speaker 3: just throwing for interest. Take now, there is one other
Speaker 3: thing that I want to mention. I raised the subject
Speaker 3: of the who again with Michael, and there were parts
Speaker 3: of it that I wanted to dive into, but I
Speaker 3: left them out until now because they're sensitive to some people.
Speaker 3: But after all, we're all adults and we can or
Speaker 3: should be able to cope with such things. Look Who's
Speaker 3: in the Classroom? Written by Hugh McCarthy. Now you'll find it,
Speaker 3: I think I might have mentioned you'll find it on
Speaker 3: Brownstone Institute. Here's Hugh McCarthy's a bio. He retired as
Speaker 3: a head teacher after twenty three years in that role.
Speaker 3: He also lectured in a postgraduate leadership course at the
Speaker 3: University of Ulster. Hugh has served as a director of
Speaker 3: two of Northern Ireland's major educational and currently serves as
Speaker 3: a ministerial appointment on one. He has fifty years of
Speaker 3: experience in education. He lives just outside Belfast, married to
Speaker 3: Lorraine and made all this but nevertheless and has three sons.
Speaker 3: Hugh holds a master's degree in distinction in education financial
Speaker 3: management and an honors degree in chemistry at a BA
Speaker 3: in public administration over educated if anything now in reference
Speaker 3: to the WHO at its interference in education in the
Speaker 3: next section zo page four. In the next section, the
Speaker 3: who's approach to sexuality education is discussed. It is summed
Speaker 3: up by the statement a child is understood to be
Speaker 3: a sexual being from the beginning. The basis for this
Speaker 3: is explained in the section entitled Psychosexual Development of Children
Speaker 3: and argues the need for an early start to sexuality education. Psychologies,
Speaker 3: especially developmental psychology, they claim, purports to show that children
Speaker 3: are born as sexual beings, whatever that means. This approach
Speaker 3: is then transferred into education school and the classroom via
Speaker 3: the guidelines offered to teachers. Now where it gets sensitive,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to include it because I think it's important.
Speaker 3: The guidance given for ages six to nine recommends a
Speaker 3: curriculum content which includes six to nine, remember sexual intercourse,
Speaker 3: gender orientation and sexual behavior of young people, enjoyment and
Speaker 3: pleasure when touching one's own body, masturbation, self stimulation, orgasm.
Speaker 3: Then from nine to twelve, the curriculum content includes how
Speaker 3: to enjoy sexuality in an appropriate way, first sexual experience
Speaker 3: and then covers off the pleasure, masturbation and orgasm just
Speaker 3: for good measure now. Whilst in the International TechEd Guidance,
Speaker 3: the learning objective for five to eight year olds state
Speaker 3: that learners will be able to identify the critical parts
Speaker 3: of the internal and external genitals and describe their basic function,
Speaker 3: and from night to twelve year old learners they'll be
Speaker 3: able to describe what sexually explicit media, pornography and sexting are,
Speaker 3: and male and female responses to sexual stimulation. Knowledge in
Speaker 3: brackets explain that many boys and girls begin to masturbate
Speaker 3: during puberty or sometimes earlier, comes under the heading of knowledge. Again,
Speaker 3: the guidance also refers to teaching the material in an
Speaker 3: interactive way. I am at a loss, he writes, to
Speaker 3: know how this can be done without graphic images and
Speaker 3: the lead discussion taking place. It clearly establishes a culture
Speaker 3: and sets out a norm for what is acceptable to
Speaker 3: teach young children, and the guidance goes further. It also
Speaker 3: provides detailed guidance for the teaching of RSC. So what
Speaker 3: is RSC RS is relationship and sexuality education. Now I
Speaker 3: shall now just refer to his conclusion. Well, actually maybe
Speaker 3: I won't because fairly long, but the beginning of it.
Speaker 3: It is right that schools pass on broad moral and
Speaker 3: spiritual values. These values will include respect, tolerance, and caring
Speaker 3: for others. It seems to me, however, that the RSSE
Speaker 3: issue appears to be the driving culture in some schools
Speaker 3: to the marginalization of more vital components to the roles
Speaker 3: of schools. Children are being forced to accept this culture
Speaker 3: which surrounds the actions of the school. Much guidance from
Speaker 3: the authority speaks of promoting the culture. This is far
Speaker 3: removed from providing information. And there's quite a bit more.
Speaker 3: This is the who now. By the way, if you think,
Speaker 3: if you're thinking, doesn't happen here, you're deluding yourself sadly,
Speaker 3: or maybe just not in a possession of information. I
Speaker 3: dealt with this briefly, fairly recently with a high profile
Speaker 3: school in this country, a high school, high profile school
Speaker 3: of the private nature, when I had communication from parents
Speaker 3: and they were disgusted and they were basically told to
Speaker 3: bugger off. And on that unsavory note, I will say
Speaker 3: if you would like to write to us latent at
Speaker 3: newstalks ab dot co dot nzid or Carolyn news Talks
Speaker 3: of dot co dot nz. We shall return in a
Speaker 3: few days as always with podcast number two hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty seven. Until then, thank you for listening and we'll
Speaker 3: talk soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for more or from News Talk set B.
Speaker 1: Listen live on air or online, and keep our shows
Speaker 1: with you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio