Category: Education

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Doris Ferry and the phonics debate

The teaching of phonics, which had previously been mainstream, was now deemed heretical. I was exaggerating only slightly when I described Doris’s clandestine activity in teaching phonics as reminiscent of Resistance operations in Nazi-occupied France.


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We Don't Know How Unlucky We Are In NZ

Our small population size has fostered a social conformity that makes it hard to speak one’s mind. With two-degrees-of-separation, you cannot afford to burn bridges. And given our latent inferiority complex, we don’t publicly admit to our problems


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Election 2020 - final thoughts

It was Labour’s handling of the pandemic that has played a central role in creating the country’s worst economic outlook in nearly a century.


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The Key Election Issue

As we look to the election, a major question on the mind of most voters is which government will best manage New Zealand out of the current crisis – one led by Labour or National.


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Musings from Beirut: the new norm of e-learning

We have been hearing the expression “the new norm” for some time but it is only starting to sink in that this ‘norm’ may be – as the term implies – long-term.


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The March Towards Poverty

In the aftermath of the economic fall-out caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, the Labour Government must introduce the framework for policies which address the systemic weaknesses that have undermined our economy and society for so long, and which threaten our future.


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Labour's Dependency Trap

The only effective way to reduce child poverty is to ensure parents are in work, not on welfare. Policies that make welfare attractive risk deepening the dependency trap.


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The kids aren't the only ones who've had a guts full

What we have here is a slick manoeuvre by the current government to gain public approval for a community programme that will make them look good in election year...


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Shaping impressionable minds

The Prime Minister and the government coalition partners have opened the classroom door to vested interest groups to spread their propaganda. One of those groups is the Maori sovereignty movement. Another is the Greens.


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Why is the Government brainwashing our children?

The entire document is couched in the language of climate campaigners rather than that of scientists. It is a trashy and hopelessly unbalanced catechism of all the fashionable pseudoscience. It is pure propaganda, in the very best Goebbels tradition.