Bevan Holloway

@bevanholloway.com

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Teacher. Investigating anti-democratic curriculum reform in Aotearoa New Zealand. Writing about how learning might become democracy-sustaining.

Understanding the harm of the Stanford Curriculum in 142 words The Minister's "regressive, recolonising changes" include: • Removing $30 million worth of funding for teachers to learn Te Reo Mãori. • Removing resource teachers of Mãori who support Mãori language acquisition. • Removing the National Education Learning Priorities, which required educators to ensure schools were safe, inclusive, and free of racism, discrimination, and bullying. • Removing 27 junior readers that contain Te Reo Mãori and Mãori context from English medium schools. • Intending to take control of the Teaching Council, the independent professional body for teachers. • Removing the requirement for school boards to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. • Deprioritising Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the draft curriculum. • Appropriating Matauranga Māori within the draft curriculum. • Sanitising what learners learn about Aotearoa New Zealand histories and local Māori history in the draft curriculum. • Removing the requirement for school boards to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Aotearoa Educators Collective aec.org.nz
I've had parents call me exasperated that their child's education has turned into an eternal marae visit with karakia before every class and Mãori words littered through their maths questions. It is possible to respect and value the place of the Mãori language and culture without artificially inserting it into every part of life. We're fixing it. As announced this morning, the Education and Training Act will be changed so that School Boards will no longer be required to "give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, including by working to ensure that its plans, policies, and local curriculum reflect local tikanga Mãori, matauranga Mãori, and te ao Mãori" The changes will be introduced to Parliament this afternoon and passed before the end of the year. It is part of ACT's Coalition Agreement to make Educational Achievement the primary objective of school boards. Our future needs every taxpayer dollar spent on education to realise its full value. Focusing education on actual achievement is a critical part of that. Thank you to everyone who's supported ACT in this work.
Birds eye view of my old and tatty Blue Jays cap on my head.
A tattered old Blue Jays cap
Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Why did she claim that unions are bullying when it's educators who have voted to strike? Hon ERICA STANFORD: Those comments that I made this morning about unions who were bullying were in relation to conversations that I have had with teachers and principals who have spoken out in the media with a different view, and who have then had enormous pressure put on them by the union. In fact, that was backed up by a text message from a principal that I received after I made-[Interruption] SPEAKER: No, stop. Start the answer again, and people will listen quietly. Hon ERICA STANFORD: I made those comments in relation to a question that I was asked this morning, when the presenter, Ryan Bridge, made the comment that perhaps principals and teachers weren't speaking out because they felt like they were bullied, and I agreed with him. That was from a conversation that l've had with teachers and principals who have come out in the media with a different perspective on things and who have had enormous pressure put on them by the union. I would also say that that was backed up by a text message from a principal that I received after I made that comment, saying that my comments were so true-and the word "so" had about five "o"s on it.
Screenshot of a quote from Erica Stanford saying some union members have been bullied into supporting today’s strike.
An email from Rata to Seymour Dear David Having heard you use an example of auto-ethnographic research to illustrate the postmodern narcissism that has invaded our universities, I thought you might like a more recent example to refer to. This one combines auto-ethnographic method (!) with the much advanced move to indigenise the NZ university. The author of this masters' thesis (aka political manifesto) is Michael Steedman, the Kaiarataki, Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor Maori. His 'study' provides graphic evidence of the indigenisation/decolonising agenda. His position at the University of Auckland has enabled him to put this manifesto into policy and practice. The title is: "Waipapa Toit: Developing a cultural framework to privilege knowledge of people and place".
David Seymour <David.Seymour@parliament.govt.nz> Wednesday, 14 August 2024 11:53 am Elizabeth Rata Re: Your interest in auto-ethnographic research - an example to use Dear Elizabeth, That is tragicomical. I've been meaning to call you, can you please let me know if you have a spare five minutes? From: Elizabeth Rata Date: Tuesday, 13 August 2024 at 2:20 PM To: David Seymour Subject: Your interest in auto-ethnographic research - an example to use Dear David Having heard you use an example of auto-ethnographic research to illustrate the postmodern narcissism that has invaded our universities, I thought you might like a more recent example to refer to. This one combines auto-ethnographic method (!) with the much advanced move to indigenise the NZ university. The author of this masters' thesis (aka political manifesto) is Michael Steedman, the Kaiarataki, Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor Maori. His 'study' provides graphic evidence of the indigenisation/decolonising agenda. His position at the University of Auckland has enabled him to put this manifesto into policy and practice. The title is: "Waipapa Toit: Developing a cultural framework to privilege knowledge of people and place". (2022) Here is his Abstract which provides some great quotes. Abstract: This research is an auto-ethnographic study of the ongoing process of developing and embedding an Indigenous Framework in a non-indigenous organisation - the University of Auckland. The Framework, named Waipapa Toit, aims to reset the institutional narrative, informed by a Mãori lens. I document some of my key ideas and experiences as I consider a unique framework to inform institutional change, based on mãtauranga -iwi and mätauranga a-whenua within a Mãori ontological frame. This work is undertaken alongside both the use and critique of the two concepts of 'indigenising' and 'decolonising' framed by Kaupapa Mãori and decolonising methodologies (Smith L., 2021). This dual focus is critical because (1) it foregrounds an indige…
The cover of the book Russian Roulette: The inside story of Putin’s war on America and the election of Donald Trump.
Dog asleep next to lamb resting in a crate
8 day old orphan lamb standing on a dog’s basket looking directly at the camera
Quoting Margaret Bethell “we are betraying our own professional knowledge and expertise by helping to construct a framework for language learning which is indefensible in educational terms, inimical to learning, and merely supplies politicians with the machinery for making simplistic judgements of the effectiveness of teachers and schools – at the expense of good learning.”
A text exchange between Erica Stanford and Michael Johnston, where Erica asks for an explanation about the science of learning.
Screenshot of a section of an OIA letter “The document also states that the English and mathematics & statistics learning areas were being reviewed and rewritten by the MAG, but the MAG was not responsible for rewriting the curriculum documents. Following the delivery of the MAG’s report, the Ministry of Education established curriculum writing groups to progress work on the English and mathematics & statistics learning areas per the agreed MAG recommendations”
A screenshot of an email sent to Erica Stanford’s personal email account by Michael Johnston. It is about science learning objectives that have also gone to the MOE.
A screenshot of a quote from Guy’s talk, which reads: Explicit teaching, as it's become known, is good for relatively short term retentions of relatively exam type knowledge. If that's your overriding goal, then that's a reasonable way of teaching. It's not ineffective, but if you also care about the development of collaboration, of intuition, of imagination, of self-rescuing, of resilience, of curiosity, if those are also on your list of valued outcomes, then it's far less clear that explicit teaching is the optimal pedagogy. And so it's up to us, isn't it? It's up to us in terms of what we what we value, to be first very clear about that. And only then start making decisions about the optimal forms of pedagogy. Dean's Lecture Series - Prof Guy Claxton on the Science of Learning= YouTube
Hand drawn example for students. Key at the top with associations, lines linking to other parts of the film, then lines linking down to a cartoon me and thoughts.
You don't have to be loud to be courageous. Quiet, principled leadership holds the line.
English pointer lying next to the bed. The sun is streaming in the room and Pluto is lapping it up.
A quote from Paulo Freire on yellow background: "Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people — they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.”
A photo of relief instructions. It is handwritten, with drawings and pointers to combining music with activity. It emphasises creativity and imagination and care.
An example of the Imagination card, showing the front with a description of it and what it looks like in learners, and the back with strategies teachers can use to stretch it.
The seven positive learning dispositions: curiosity, persistence, imagination, attention, communication and collaboration, thinking, and craftsmanship.
Cover of The Circle by Dave Eggers.
An email detailing the curriculum writing work the MAG are doing
A sample of the cards, showing the Imagination one. What it is and looks like on the front, how to grow it on the back.
At the post shop, report sitting on the desk ready to get folded and stuffed into an envelope.
Screenshot of the q2 plan highlighting #19. 19. Pass legislation to allow businesses to make pay deductions in response to partial strikes
A photo of two records: Music has the right to children by Boards of Canada, and Reb Fountain’s self titled album.
An article reading: Apr 7, 2025 1:04 PM RNZ Live Trump says he's fielding calls on tariffs from tech execs and world leaders, who are 'being very nice' President Donald Trump says he has been fielding calls on tariffs over the weekend from tech executives and world leaders, who are "being very nice". "I've spoken to many countries. ..Every country is calling and being very solicitous, very, very nice," the President told reporters aboard Air Force One as he travelled back to Washington from Florida. Trump's comments come as stock futures are tumbling ahead of Monday's opening bell, setting the stage for another week of volatility - after two sessions of sell-offs that wiped away more than $5.4 trillion in market value. The President, who has long fashioned himself a dealmaker, has left the door open to cutting tariff deals with countries. More than 50 countries have approached the White House to talk about lowering tariffs in the aftermath of Trump's announcement last week, officials said on Sunday.
A still from the comedy show Miranda showing her mother sitting on Miranda’s couch, eyes closed and hands emoting, in the middle of saying her catch phrase, Such fun!
The email from Apple tells me that Apple invites is here.
If freedom is negative, then politics becomes the practical work of clearing away the junk of the past: in the jargon of the 1980s and 1990s: deregulation, privatization, welfare reform. Economics or nature is expected to do the rest. The conception of freedom as negative led Americans to give bad advice to east Europeans: privatize as quickly as possible; portray the welfare state as a communist defor-mation; ignore culture. It also led the United States to some dreadful domestic policies in the 1990s, such as the prison industrial complex and wealth hoarding.
Adult English pointer at the beach, nose in the air.
To slow a beast, you break its limbs. To slow a nation, you break its people. You rob them of volition. You demonstrate your absolute command over their destiny. You make it clear that ultimately it falls to you to decide who lives, who dies, who prospers, who doesn't. To exhibit your capability you show off all that you can do, and how easily you can do it. How easily you could press a button and annihilate the earth. How you can start a war or sue for peace. How you can snatch a river away from one and gift it to another. How you can green a desert, or fell a forest and plant one somewhere else. You use caprice to fracture a people's faith in ancient things - earth, forest, water, air.
My trusty yellow Avanti road bike, equipped with panniers at the bike rack outside a supermarket. There is another similar bike with panniers behind it, and a painting of Kāpiti Island in the background. The horrendous southerly wind is invisible in this picture.
A headshot of David Seymour with weird sticky-out lips.
An email on 25 July from Prime maths to the Minister asking for an update
Cricket wickets in the foreground. Team warming up in the background in front of the pavilion. The sky is blue and the grass is a beautiful green.
Text that reads: ‘And another woman: "Everything already just feels really expensive, especially if they're asking us to come into the office more." Would it change how much she worked from home? "Probably. I would definitely take it into account."’
In this response, the Minister also acknowledges an awareness of some of the suppliers invited to tender. Remember, a knowledge of resources already working well in schools influenced who was invited. Did she make even a casual comment of this nature to MoE staff about any of the eventually successful tenderers? I think it would be naive to think that a comment by the Minister regarding something she's seen working well, given her prominent role in shaping the public perception of the need for these changes and their urgency, would not have an impact on who the MoE considered.
The closed-tender is problematic, and fits a pattern of questionable procurement practices under this Minister. (You will recall an opt-out procurement process was used to recruit people to the curriculum writing groups and it caused significant disquiet among the MoE procurement team at the time.) There are very clear procurement rules that Ministries must adhere to, and they set out when an opt-out, closed-procurement may be utilised. I am not sure that this, or the curriculum writing groups, meet the threshold for a closed procurement process.
Surely, for a problem of the scale she identified, what is required is an approach anchored in evidence and tailored to our kids? This is especially problematic when you consider that: • Oxford University Press, one of the chosen suppliers, has never been used in NZ before. So they weren't approached because they were already working well in schools. • There is zero evidence anywhere of any of the textbook schemes working well in schools - none have been independently assessed.
Incorporating the science of learning seems to have been a criteria for selection. As Guy Claxton's webinar for the AEC made clear, there is no 'the' when it comes to learning science. There are many learning sciences, and recent advances in cognitive science ask deep questions about our assumptions about what school should do. Indeed, the version we are having mandated by virtue of it being written into the heart of the revised curriculum is heavily culturally loaded, reflecting cultural notions of how a learner should behave and the kinds of learning that is valued. I think it is no accident it reflects very strongly the images of learning in an English public school.
The Singapore MoE develops their own resources for teaching and carefully tests them. So, if she was genuine in her desire to model our approach on a top performing jurisdiction, one would think that slow and rigorous approach, led by the MoE, would be what she invests in. Instead, we have sourced commercial textbooks with minimal tweaks, all of them from companies based off shore, purchased in a rush. Not only that, the money to pay for them - $30 million - has been taken from the Te Ahu o te Reo Maori program. Millions of dollars of public money is going off-shore.