August 2025

Being away from the hurly burly of the classroom, I still believe the government’s decision to remove the Maori learn-to-read book from classroom circulation shows a lack of understanding of the need for diversity in learning and how learning occurs.   The book, for five-year-olds, includes six Māori words – marae, karanga, wharenui, koro, hongi and karakia – which some officials argue sit uneasily within structured literacy . Professor Gail Gillon, who developed the wider Best Start Literacy Programme, told RNZ’s John Gerritsen there was “absolutely no evidence” that children found the reader confusing,  “And in fact, our data would suggest the opposite.” Even withRead More →

Much of my life has been in teaching. It started with Primary  Schools  in NZ, moved to Secondary then to Non-Formal Education  followed  by Radio Broadcast Journalism at a University and later still with  NGOs in Africa using media as a tool. These are the wisest words I have seen written on  education. “Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: ‘You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best weRead More →

The land of Palestine was not empty when the first Zionist settlers arrived there in 1882. This fact was known to the Zionist leaders even before the first Jewish settlers arrived. A delegation sent to Palestine by the early Zionist organizations reported back to their colleagues: “the bride is beautiful but married to another man.”1 Nevertheless, when they first arrived, the early settlers were surprised to encounter the locals whom they regarded as invaders and strangers. In their view, the native Palestinians had usurped their homeland. They were told by their leaders that the locals were not natives, that they had no rights to theRead More →

If you had to invent an ending for Trumpian America, what would it be? I think it would be impeachment – which, in my view, would be a good ending. I would love to see him retired, let’s put it that way. The bad ending would be that he gets a third term and takes things over completely. It’s a horror story either way. Trump is a horror story, isn’t he?Read More →

‘Somewhere over the Atlantic,’ wrote Robert, ‘there is a giant glass curtain through which Americans view the Middle East, which utterly distorts their vision.’ Embedded in that view is an arrogant colonial attitude that only the West and Europeans truly appreciate democracy. The West offered the Middle East democracy in the form of military operations – overt or covert, either directly or with the help of its regional allies – but no one should expect the people in these countries to fully understand or value democracy because they were not Europeans. Fisk, Robert. Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East (p. 537).Read More →

It is  so hard to see the people we elect as leaders .  The American FBI has now formally established an office in Wellington. Our leaders show they understand the art of vagueness. Winston Peters said the new office was “a really serious utility added to our crime fighting capacity in the Pacific, and crime and drug dealing and narcotics is an awful scourge, and we’ve got to get on top of it, so it’s great news”. He said the subject of China had not been raised in their meeting. “We never raised that issue, we talked about the Pacific, what we could do toRead More →