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Re-education camps, anyone?

As I warned in Eve's Bite, liberal politicians in Western countries appear to be gearing up for a new push into the bedrooms of citizens via indoctrination of youth.

Similar things are in train in NZ already as part of sex and "values" education programmes approved by the State or in the process of being implemented.

The key issue is whether elected politicians (or unelected bureaucrats) should have the power to socially engineer a society according to their own values. After all, isn't this what the Left raises as the bogeyman of living under a theocracy?

The way I see it, the liberal left's stalking horse is simply a more insidious and dangerous theocracy, hiding under a disguise of alleged secularism simply to throw less intelligent voters off the scent.

A State-backed, anti-family, anti-God agenda is a religion. Nothing more, nothing less.

Words of gold from the head of a private boy's school

Anyone who has a boy will know that this Headmaster speaks the truth.

Bubble-wrapped boys are missing out on crucial rough and tumble in a "feminised" school system that doesn't allow them to let off steam, a headmaster says.

Ross Scrymgeour, head of private Hereworth School, Havelock North, says the banning of physical games like bullrush and murder-ball illustrates a "softly softly" approach to education that does not suit boys.

His boys-only school's "play rough" philosophy made pupils more attentive in class and taught them about physical boundaries.

This quote comes from a Dominion Post story titled appropriately enough: Boys missing out in 'feminised' schools - headmaster.

My boy Nik is 15 now.   When he started secondary school, two years ago now, we moved him to a boys only school.  the best move we ever made. He is flourishing. And this is for the very reasons articulated by Ross Scrymgeour in the story.

Nik is a keen cricketer, as were some of schoolmates at primary school, a school with only one male teacher incidentally.   And they would have liked to  play impromptu matches during breaks in school time.

But this required getting the teacher on playground duty to unlock the "sports shed" and get out the plastic cricket balls and bats. Using their own gear was verboten.  Far too dangerous!

Playing rugby, or the schoolyard version scrag of course was nearly a capital offense.

The only formal team sport the school offered was T-Ball, with mixed teams and handicaps applied.

As we all know and the statistics reinforce boys are missing out academically in the brave new world of feminised education.  There is little doubt in my mind that this goes part way to explaining it.

There are other factors in the decline of boys in the upper echelons of academic achievement   but that may be a post for another time.

In the meantime the chances of New Zealand  winning the Cricket or Rugby world cups in the future are dependent  upon educators like Ross Scrymgeour continuing to run their schools the way they are doing and speaking out.

Are New Zealand women really this trivial?

This was in the Sunday Star times and is a report on a TVNZ investigation into the sexual behavior of New Zealand women, a follow up to the infamous Durex survey which purportedly  shows Kiwi girls are the most promiscuous in the world.

TVNZ Sunday correspondent Janet McIntyre said there was anecdotal evidence from the five women on the show that the Durex survey findings were valid.

"There's a new kind of mating ritual sex is the point of entry into the relationship."

If the first-up sex wasn't any good women weren't prepared to waste their time progressing the relationship.

"There's no dating culture any more." In candid interviews about their sexual experiences some of the women who are all in their twenties felt empowered by having sex and wanted to celebrate and enjoy it.

McIntyre said all the women who had experienced one-night stands had been affected by alcohol, a term described by at least one expert in a report as "getting pissed and hooking up".

If the sole criteria for a relationship is "good sex" rather than a package deal that involves companionship, shared values, mutual understanding and shared experiences, as well as the sexual aspect of course then there is not much to look forward too for these women. All they will have in their future is childlessness and loneliness as their sexual allure fades, as it will.

Hopefully all this represents is the banality of the makers of New Zealand documentaries because if this is truly representative of modern  New Zealand women our culture has no future whatsoever and nor do our young women (and men). 

Canes are cheaper than cops

Headline from NZPA:  Cops to be based at South Auckland schools

Has it come to this? My goodness. Looks what happens when you don't let teachers give a miscreant student a tap on the backside with a cane.  Things get so out of control you need to station police at schools to maintain order.

Post Script

In point of fact I oppose corporal punishment in schools for a variety of reasons, not the least being that there are sexually deviant teachers out there who get their rocks off by physically discipling the children in the care.

As we all know.

What the teacher told me

A friend who is a teacher attended a teachers only day the other day.

And was given the latest spiel from the ivory towers of the Wellington beltway on how to raise our kids.

In particular this surprising view of the official languages of New Zealand

Te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) are official languages of New Zealand. English, the medium for teaching and learning in most schools, is a de facto official language by virtue of its widespread use. For these reasons, these three languages have special mention in The New Zealand Curriculum.

In other words English is no longer an official language of New Zealand, according to the pointy heads of the Ministry but has to be used (unfortunately?) only because it is the one the majority of people speak and understand.

How long until Arabic joins the official list I wonder?

Update

The comment thread on this post thus far suggest that this is a storm in a teacup.

Perhaps the excerpt in the post just illustrates that our educational establishment is illiterate and the use of de facto is  a  malapropism  when they actually meant default.

Here is wikipedia's take on de facto languages versus de jure languages and interestingly enough they use New Zealand as an example suggesting that English is indeed a de jure language along with Te reo Maori and New Zealand sign.

According to this Government website

Official languages

New Zealand has three official languages,  English, Māori and sign language. Māori became an official language in 1987. New  Zealand sign language became a third official language in April 2006.

And Ruth Dyson also agrees that English is an official (de jure) Language as in this press release.

Perhaps English is not enshrined in Law unlike the other two and we have all just assumed it is (i.e. it is a de facto language as written above). What opportunities does that present to those who would remake New Zealand in their own image?

Language is an important part of culture - that is surely recognized so when our educators downplay the one we universally use it is worth pointing out.

Try looking in the mirror

Schoolyard sex inquiry

What do we teach the young to hold in honor and respect?

What do we honor and respect ourselves?

Our children are a reflection of us.

Related reading: School for scandal

                           Six Education

Judging a book by its cover

Jane Austen is in fashion at the moment.

English TV companies are adapting her novels and getting high ratings for them.

"Becoming Jane" a story of a romance she had with an Irishman before becoming famous was released last year. Not that I saw it - its really a chick flick as are the adaptations of her books.

Still she has contributed to English literature and with the resurgence of interest in her, publishers  Wordsworth Editions are reissuing a memoir of her life written by her nephew. J.E. Austen-Leigh.

And since there is only one undisputed portrait of Jane Austen in existence this will be used to illustrate the book.

But  since the publishers think Jane Austen is  - well shall  we say  not seemly to the eye they have decided in true pledge card fashion to fix her up a bit by doctoring the portrait.

So the cap she is wearing in the portrait is removed, she is given hair extensions and   makeup applied to her face.

I don't know if this will sell any more books but quite possibly it will given the   incumbent New Zealand prime minister is who she is, the one depicted on the pledge card in modified form.

In both cases I prefer genuine substance over airbrushed image so the pledge card did little for me.

But maybe the marketing people know what they are doing.

Which is OK when it is about selling books but somewhat troubling when it comes to picking prime ministers.

A quizzical retrospective of a thirty year anniversary

Thirty years ago this month New Zealand legalized abortion.

In today's SST Rosemary McLeod  looks back  and ponders the results.

Nobody anticipated a steady rise in abortion figures, or that abortion would become a backstop contraceptive measure for some women. We thought the procedure would be too unpleasant to bear repeating, but we were wrong about that, too, and we would have ridiculed anyone who predicted our current abortion statistics. Our abortion rate now exceeds Germany, the Netherlands and Finland. Only the United States and Australia carry out more.

We've done our best, surely, through education to minimise the number of abortions. It's a brutal solution, after all, physically and emotionally hard on women, even if you sidestep the ethical problems it raises. Contraception is now freely available to even underage children, and sex education starts at primary school. But the number of 11 to 14-year-old girls having abortions has increased 144% in the past 15 years, and among 15 to 19-year-olds by 74%. Teenage pregnancies make up nearly 25% of all abortions. We don't seem to know enough about why.

Well perhaps a major part of the problem is that "sex education starts at primary school " and that the focus of "sexuality" education is on the wrong things.

We live in an odd culture, we worry endlessly that the Arctic may melt 100 years from now but seem unconcerned that we are not producing the  future generations who will be alive to see this prediction not come to pass.

The sad thing is that we place little value children and parenting  and that is the real reason that more than 17,000 New Zealanders are slaughtered each year before they are even born.

They are just little people who would get in the way of the pursuit of personal fulfillment.

Sunday Schools become "early childhood development units"

Well I suppose under the convoluted 21st bureaucratic language they might meet that definition.

But this means they have to register with the Government and become licensed. And this of course requires meeting all the regulations pertaining to "early childhood development units" covered by statute. Whatever they are now and whatever they may become in the future.

How long before some bright spark secularist requires equal time for "other religions" alongside Christianity in a Church Sunday school?  After teaching children of Christ's ascension into Heaven it will be mandated that a similar event from Mohamed's, his convenient ascension from Temple Mount in Jerusalem   be given equal time.    

Perhaps safe sex indoctrination may become a requirement  in the near future. Because this would directly contradict the teaching of many Churches  it would probably see the end of Sunday Schools and Catechism classes in those churches.

And that may well be the endgame.

Further reading:  Family Party Opposes Sunday School Licensing

                          National Party Statement from Paula Bennett   as highlighted  by John Boy in a comment

Postmodern education in New Zealand

Helen Clark was at Hutt  Valley High  School yesterday to launch the new New Zealand school curriculum and with much fanfare did so.

The Dominion Post  reports   

The Treaty of Waitangi - dumped from a draft curriculum just months ago then reinstated after protest - is to become a guiding principle in the way New Zealand children are taught.

It will join reading and writing as core subjects, along with issues such as ecological sustainability and climate change.

They are key parts of a new curriculum launched yesterday in the first complete overhaul since its introduction in 1993. 

Ms Clark's speech contains all the usual platitudes of the secular left

That vision sees young people being confident, well connected, active participants in society, and becoming life long learners. (We all share that vision - Andrei)

To realise that vision, the curriculum is based on clear principles. It supports, for example, high expectations for students, inclusion of all, the acknowledgement and valuing of our nation’s bicultural foundation and our current diversity, and a focus on the big issues of the future.

The curriculum is also underpinned by clear values. Students are encouraged to value excellence; to think critically, creatively, and reflectively; and to value fairness, diversity, participation, sustainability, and integrity.

And all this really is is the religion of secular leftism writ large. Although the ideals of free and independent thought are paid lip service, in reality a lot of this curricular seems to be pure propaganda.

And of course it is easy to see that special interest groups have all had a finger in the pie in developing this document - each one ensuring that their particular agenda is catered for.

Michael Drake has kindly sent  me Carey College's view on the new curriculum.  Alas the points raised in this document will not get a wide airing.  For although we hear a lot of blather about multiculturalism and diversity, there is one cultural heritage  not considered worthy of  too much consideration That is the Judeo-Christian heritage  shared by the majority of New Zealanders. And which underpins our society, even secular leftism itself.

But by a postmodern rewriting of history, that heritage has become an embarrassment.