What the Hekia?

This year sure is flying by! Term 4 already? I feel like I blinked during Term 2 and ended up here - scary!

Teaching has been keeping me busy but I thought the time was right for a spotlight on our esteemed leader; Hekia Parata. For anyone who doesn't know, Ms Parata is our current Minister of Education. She took over from Anne Tolley, who took the role in 2008 when National gained power. In 2011 Ms Tolley was suffering from a severe case of unpopularity with the public (she was often compared to Dolores Umbridge of Harry Potter fame). Despite this National successfully defended their position in that year's election and it was announced by John Key (National's leader and our current Prime Minister) that he had selected Ms Parata to take over the Education portfolio while Ms Tolley was appointed the Minister for Corrections and Police.  

Ms Parata has worn many hats during her professional life but primarily she has served as a public servant. She has not had any experience in teaching; she hasn't worked as a teacher or in any other capacity in a school. She has attended Waikato University and holds a Master of Arts. 

I teach children about leadership a lot. I teach them that leadership doesn't mean you're better than the people you lead, but that you are in charge of finding out how people feel and looking after them. You provide a clear direction for people to follow and you act with the best of intentions at all times. You understand the cost to people of doing things without caring what others want. When you make a decision that's unpopular you stand by your choices if you truly believe it's the right thing to do and you apologise graciously if you get it wrong. So how would we grade Ms Parata's card on the leadership front?

My first complaint is that Ms Parata won't front to many of our meetings. In fact, most National Party politicians won't. At a recent protest at the Bridge of Remembrance National was not represented at all. Nor were they in attendance at a public meeting regarding Charter Schools when the policy was first announced. However Labour and the Greens had representatives at both of these occasions. Now, I understand that it can be difficult to stand in front of a room full of people who don't like the decisions you're making and feel passionately about the subject, but simply not showing doesn't really fix that. Just today I read that Ms Parata is pulling out of a talk she was scheduled to give at the Teacher Education Forum of Aotearoa New Zealand conference next week. This, in addition to her penchant for implementing policies without consultation makes her unpopular from the get go.  

When we are lucky enough to be graced by the intimidating presence of Ms Parata she manages to get people even further off-side by speaking in such a condescending manner that even the most patient of teachers will begin to fume. At the recent Post Primary Teacher's Association (PPTA) conference Ms Parata shared her thoughts on one of the reasons why Pasifika and Māori children aren't achieving as well as we want them to; she feels that teachers aren't pronouncing their names correctly. Now,  I will put my hand up and admit that I don't always get it right when pronouncing unfamiliar names (not just Māori and Pasifika names either, Welsh and Celtic names can be tricky for me), but I do put in the effort to learn them, and I don't stop until I know I have it right. I have never met a teacher who didn't try their best to get names right. And frankly, for the minister to marginalise the entire issue down to this one point is ridiculous. Many children in New Zealand live in poverty, many come to school hungry and with inadequate clothing, and in Christchurch many don't know if their school will be open for them next year.  

Ms Parata seems to also be quite adept at putting her foot in it through her thoughtless actions. For example, at a meeting she had with principals recently Ms Parata felt it would be necessary to label the principals "unprofessional" when she found out they had not read a document online about National Standards. Bear in mind that the meeting was held on a Tuesday, the document went live the previous Friday, which was also the day that letters were due to be delivered to Christchurch principals advising them of the fate of their school. Later, possibly having realised her faux pas, Ms Parata decided the best course of action would be to deny ever having said that. However, Mr Mike Allen (principal of Aranui Primary, which is set to close and join the Aranui cluster) and Mr Paul Wilkinson (principal of Freeville School, which has been marked for a merger with North New Brighton School) were each quoted in the papers discussing Ms Parata's comments, which resulted in Ms Parata stating that Mr Allen's and Mr Wilkinson's quotes were "absolutely untrue". For those of you playing at home calling someone's statement "absolutely untrue" is a politician's way of calling someone a liar. Mr Allen and Mr Wilkinson are highly respected members of the education sector and probably wouldn't have appreciated that. I know I wouldn't have anyway.

The policies Ms Parata implements are often unpopular; but a few really stand out. National Standards and the Christchurch education "shake-up" (no pun intended) following the earthquakes have been particularly polarising. Ms Parata is sticking to her guns on these issues, despite there being a significant back lash on both issues. She did, however, back down on the issue of larger class sizes and requiring teachers to hold post graduate qualifications. This was seen as quite an about face, as this minister has a reputation for her stony resilience in promoting her policies. As it turns out I suppose the class sizes issue (she wanted to increase class sizes ratios to save money) was unpopular with parents/communities and teachers alike. As for the post grad requirement, I think this would have been too expensive and would have taken too long for the results to show through for it to be worth their while. Interestingly enough Mr John Key, leader of the National party was quoted by The Listener (a respected news outlet in NZ) as saying that his children go to private school because they have smaller class sizes and are generally better resourced than state schools. How embarrassing. Not good enough for your kids Mr Key, but good enough for ours, eh? Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like I want the Minister to stand by policies which are short sighted, not based in good research and are frankly stupid, but I think that as the person in charge of Education it is her job to ensure that anything she puts forth as a policy has been gone over with a fine tooth comb, makes sense in all the ways that matter (money sense, people sense...common sense) and is coming from a sound pedagogical standpoint. 

I could go on about Ms Parata and her pseudo-politics for hours but I think I've outlined the key points here, any questions are welcome in the comments. My next post is going to be focussing on the changes for Christchurch; so keep an eye out for that. Until then my lovely readers, stay warm, be kind to others and stand up for yourself if you are confronted with stupidity.

Nothing about us without us!