Radio New Zealand strikes again. A swing and… a miss. Again. Their article highlights a ‘rise in extremist views within classrooms’ … ‘according to the PPTA’. Yes, apparently some students have expressed extreme views such as Holocaust denial, flat earth, faked moon landings…, some even say things like, ‘I don;t like you because you ahve an iPhone’. When I was at school, extremism was when someone said they didn’t like Massey Ferguson tractors – it was a long time ago and in a region far, far away.
Etreme views are fairly normal stuff for children and teenagers. It may come as a shock to RNZ ‘jornalists’ but I hope the PPTA members would know that chidlren and teenagers are not fully-formed and well-educated humans. Not yet, wor in progress, you know. This is the main reason for going to school, you know, to be educated. It’s what schools and teachers do.
But the PPTA has announced that it’s hiring an expert to develop guidelines and curriculum-adjacent tools to combat the issue of rising extremism. Whaaaaat? (Firstly, what are ‘curriculum-adjacent tools’? Hammers and sickles?
When did it become the job of a trade union to dictate educational content and curriculum strategy?
OK, RNZ journaists, listen… the story here is not that kids have extreme views, it’s that the PPTA are off their rocker, again.
The primary, indispensable mandate of a trade union is to advocate for its members’ working conditions, employment rights, workloads, and fair remuneration. New Zealand secondary teachers face numerous pressures, not the least of which is the falling real (inflation adjusted) salaries – which has been THE issue for teachers for about 35 years – thanks in no small to the ineffective PPTA which likes to think it’s the writer of curriculums and the conscience of the nation and the guardians of the universe instead of being the guardian of teachers’ working conditions. They frequently whine about teacher shortages and therefore workloads BUT had they kept salaries high (attarctive) as they used to be, there wouldn’t be a teacher shortage now. If they had supported teachers in the face of silly political correctness (a.k.a. wokeism) instead of abandoning them, more people would want to be teachers and there’d be no teacher shortage and the nation would be better educated and we’d never have any Green MPs elected because everyone would see through their silliness – and we’d have never lost the Rugby World Cup.
When the PPTA steps into the realm of developing educational guidelines and defining how teachers should navigate complex ideological issues in the classroom, it oversteps its boundaries in two significant ways: (1) It duplicates and undermines the Ministry of Education, and (2) It neglects the core mandate of union representation.
Curriculum development, pedagogical strategy, and resource provisioning are the responsibilities of the Ministry of Education and official educational bodies. As noted in the RNZ report, the Ministry already has frameworks within the refreshed curriculum designed to teach digital literacy, misinformation awareness, and critical thinking, alongside established partnerships with organizations like Netsafe. Overweight union reps aren’t qualified to do this stuff. Otehrs are onto it because it’s their job – and Union people should do their job.
If the current curriculum or ministry resources are failing to support teachers on the ground, the PPTA’s role should be to pressure the government to do its job better, not to bypass the ministry and create an ad-hoc, parallel curriculum framework of its own.
A union functions best when it speaks with a singular, unified voice on universal worker issues: pay, safety, hours, and conditions. The moment a union begins hiring experts to draft guidelines on highly sensitive political, cultural, and ideological matters, it risks alienating segments of its own diverse membership. Curriculum matters are inherently subject to rigorous public debate, academic scrutiny, and democratic oversight. A trade union simply does not possess the mandate or the neutrality required to arbitrate these issues for the wider educational sector. AND, they are mis=spending their members’ fees, so there may be a legal dimension to this. PPTA people shuld be careful not to cross the legal and ethical line of spending members’ fees on non-union stuff or Mr Serious Fraud Office might come knocking.
The PPTA SHOULD protect its members, the teachers, and not try to direct the curriculum or the Ministry. It definitely must not misapproriate members’ funds because that might be illegal.
Let’s be clear: protecting teachers from online harassment, deepfakes, unsafe working environments, snarky Principals, and grumpy parents – that’s union work. If a teacher’s health and safety is compromised, the PPTA must step in with its hammers and sickles and fight for their members and demand protection from Principals and Boards and the Ministry.
BUT kids expressing extreme views is not a health and safety issue.
The high school teachers’ union must step back from social engineering and ideological indoctrination and focus 100% of its effort on what it was built to do: fighting for the respect, compensation, and manageable workloads that secondary teachers need.
What do YOU think? Are you a high school teacher? Have you been hurt by a students’ extreme views? Who’s in charge in your classroom? Leave a comment below?
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