21 September 2018
You never asked to have your parental authority suppressed...and the government suppressed your authority as parents.
At a referendum, nearly 90% of you demanded that the law restricting parental authority be thrown out...and the
government blatantly ignored you.
This government believes that they are better than you at raising your child. Shutting down educational freedom,
persecuting innocent families, encouraging a violent environment all points to the truth...that the government should
not be trying to replace parental authority with state authority. And now even teachers must accept state ideology.
“It’s time for bureaucrats to back off and let teachers teach,” says New Conservative Leader, Leighton Baker. “The
current situation where teachers have been rendered impotent, and must allow violence and intimidation within the
teaching environment, is untenable and unacceptable.”
A NZ Herald article yesterday outlines the near impossible position teachers find themselves in, being forced to adhere
to the Ministry of Education's no-restrain ‘guidelines’. The article highlights the fact that there are situations where
reasonable force is required to protect children from severe escalations, both those being victimised and the escalated
child.
Allowing teachers to be abused means a significant loss in teaching time, increased anxiety, and increased group
escalation, and having classrooms be vandalised based on a failed ideology is actually stupid and needs to stop for the
benefit of all concerned.
7 out of 8 parents understood the importance of immediate cause-and-effect for children at certain times when asked for
their opinion in 2009. By taking the freedom away from not only parents, but also those who are entrusted to educate our
young people, we deny them a vital tool in overall educational outcomes.
A child who does not have an awareness of consequences, becomes an adult who does not have an awareness of consequences.
New Conservative calls for the wellbeing of all students to be considered and not just those with behavioural issues.
“Teachers must be allowed to use reasonable force to protect their students, themselves, and school property,” says
Leighton Baker, “and New Conservative will work with frontline teachers to set sensible, practical rules that will work
in the real world.”
ends