According to NewstalkZB journalist Sophie Lowery and Professor Jack Vowles, Civic education in New Zealand schools needs to be “edgy.”
Yeah, just the kind of thing that could happen with committed Collectivist Hekia Parata in charge.
Apparently the lack of enthusiasm for voting in the last general election is down to poor civics instruction in schools. I thought it was down to a menu of poor political choices and left media’s conspiracy to stifle debate on real issues. But what would I know?
I know that if you don’t like the food at a restaurant, you don’t go there.
Political sociologist from the University of Exeter, Professor Jack Vowles, says the effectiveness of civic education depends on its content.
“Just teaching kids at school about what parliament does isn’t necessarily going to do the job,” he told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking.
“Civic education that seems to work is the kind that’s more edgy, that actually gets into political issues, gets into controversy.”
Professor Vowles acknowledges it can be risky for schools to cover civic education in their curriculum and content must be non-partisan.
Non partisan??? Oh yeah, just like it is now. FFS, can you imagine what these commie bastards molesting our children’s minds would do if they had license to make civics more “edgy”??? The kids would be singing The Internationale every morning to the raising of the red flag.
What’s that? They already do that? Sorry, obviously I’m way behind the times.
TrueblueNZ 
13 responses to “We Need “Edgy” Civic Instruction Like We Need Fidel Castro As Supreme Leader”
Civics education would ensure that the population voted predictably. It would be a real boon for those who wanted to maintain the status quo in Government and would ensure that parties such as the Conservative Party never got a look in.
I’m sure National will look at implementing it.
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Of course we want to be “partisan”. Like “guerilla conservative” only partisan conservative” means the same thing really.
And “conservative partisans” have been few and far between: Andrew, Bruce, Scott come to mind in the last few years. Real conservatives – and real partisans.
The question is: should anyone who is not strongly conservative partisan be permitted to teach civics – or anything else – in public or private schools in NZ? of course not!
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Hmmm, very similar in style to that last person I disagreed with on this blog that ended up being the catalyst for a link from the Dim Post…
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LM, isn’t it fun having Sinner 2.0 around 🙂
Oh, and for what it’s worth I actually think the teaching of civics to high-school age children is vitally important. And it needs to be, if not “edgy” then at least interesting for them.
If it isn’t interesting and relevant to the yoof what we will get is endless mindless drones who vote the way the current drones do. The stupid ones who think they’re ever-so mainstream and grown up vote for one of the two major leftist parties (NatLab), and those who think they’re rebels vote for the watermelons.
The challenge will be to find adults able to teach a full-featured, genuine civics lesson and not some parrot who will reinforce the communist propaganda they’ve been fed since kindergarten.
The only way it might happen in the current environment is similar to the Bible in Schools programme where someone who actually knows a little about the topic is brought in specifically to teach it.
Slightly O/T, but can you imagine a classroom where someone who actually understands a little about history uses Che t-shirt some ‘rebel’ is wearing as a catalyst for a discussion about what that terrorist prick actually believed and did? And how the watermelon policy platform will kill half the people on the planet? FFS the kids might actually learn something!
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And as if on cue, this from John Howard:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/howard_attacks_schools_of_warming_faith
If kids were taught (or at least if they were taught civics) in a way that enables them to think, analyse and investigate, the climate change con would never have gotten legs.
That’s why it was so important for the communists to first capture the education system (followed closely by the “civil service”). Can’t have the chillens thinking for themselves now, can we?
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Nope, and that is the first clue that socialism will not work/ is a bad idea in that they have to indoctrinate children to get it into the mainstream rather than argue their case with rational adults.
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Gantt,
That sort of thing can’t be taught in school. The very nature of school tends to train that out of a child.
The thing with civics being taught in Government schools is that once it is in place, then the Government will ensure that the type of civics that is taught perpetuates the existing ruling class.
World view (including politics) should come from the family. The stories I could tell you about what my 14 year old boy was taught in Philosophy class – by the Principal of the school, no less! After just about every lesson he came home and related it to me and we talked through how wrong it was. Civics would go the same, I’m positive. No matter how it starts, it will be subverted.
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Of course that begs the question, Lucia, what were you thinking letting your son take philosophy in the first place? Just another title for “Godless humanism” if you ask me.
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Kris,
I had the same reaction as you when I saw it was part of the curriculum for this year. But I thought he’d be fine and he was. I presume I could have raised a fuss and withdrawn him from the class, but decided it would be interesting to know what sort of stuff they were teaching, and it wasn’t as damaging as sex-education (which I did withdraw him from – he was the only one out of 260 kids).
Actually it was pretty damn close to godless humanism – they did one lesson where the teacher tried to convince the class that monkeys were persons. Another one where the class had to choose from a list of 12 bios the 7 people that would live – scenario was 12 made it to a nuclear shelter and it could only fit 7. For my son, it was incredibly educational about the moral bankruptcy of a large number of people, including his whole class who would steal stuff if they had the power of invisibility.
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“including his whole class who would steal stuff if they had the power of invisibility.”
Is that true?
The whole class?
That is disgusting.
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“That is disgusting.”
Sure is, and just goes to show how there is no such thing as absolute morality in the minds of most of today’s youth. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ are just relative terms depending on the situation one finds oneself in. Not that dissimilar to the whole “consenting adults” BS argument.
And it’s damn scary when you consider these kids are the building blocks of the future. They’ll have no qualms about euthanising the elderly, the handicapped, the sick, or even those who have simply retired from the work force. May as well go and top myself now …
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Red,
Yes. The boys said they’d steal money and the girls said they’d steal clothes.
This explains why three brand new named school jerseys of my son’s have just disappeared.
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What a disgusting decline in moral standards we have had to suffer as socialist governments struggle to steal children from their parents.
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