What is art? Wellington's thousands of Education Ministry Bureaucrats have given your children a (wrong) definition.

In 2023 our Ministry of Education employed 4,311 people, up from 2,630 in 2017 when Ardern, Robertson and Hipkins first came to power. How have they defined "art" to our youth? The NZ Curriculum states on page 20:

"What are the arts about? The arts are powerful forms of expression that recognize, value, and contribute to the unique bicultural and multicultural character of Aotearoa New Zealand, enriching the lives of all New Zealanders".

Since when are the arts tied to a single nation? Since when is art only art to the extent it "values" one nation's unique character? Since when should artists have any interest at all in the nation in which they live? Doesn't much art transcend national boundaries & can be appreciated by humans the world over since it gives expression to fundamental human truths & the nature of reality? Do Wellington Ministry staffers live in a world so closed, so parochial that they've now mislead our children into thinking art is so limited, so chokingly parochial that unless it is connected to "valuing" NZ culture then it cannot be art. Is our Education Ministry's conception of art the bucket fountain on Cuba Mall?

Picasso is quoted as saying, "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth". How does his definition value NZ's "unique" character? Oscar Wilde said, "Art is the most intense mode of individualism the world has known". Maybe valuing the life of the country in which they live is the last thing on the mind of an artist? Da Vinci stated ‘art is the Queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all generations of the world’. Even centuries ago he had the insight to realize that art was not about valuing & recognizing just Italy. Abolish the Education Ministry for putting in writing a definition of art that is enough to turn NZ school children off art and close their minds to its soaring influence on all of humanity.

Sources:

https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum

Have 308 people in the Education Ministry's Curriculum Development Team spent over $100 million on a 60 page paper of shallow nothingness?

In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Education Ministry employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. This past week it was announced 202 were being laid-off. When you look up "The NZ Curriculum" on the Ministry of Education's Website, it says, "We're preparing to close this site as we transition to Tāhūrangi" but if you click on that site you get an incoherent jumble of chaos. At least it is amusing - there is a "unit" that helps "students develop an understanding of the financial challenges faced by superannuitants in their local community". That must get the youth of NZ excited out of their minds. As for the NZ Curriculum document, it contains the flimsiest, shallowest, lightest-of-weights 60 pages of silly blurbs & patronizing clichés, mostly in bullet points, mixed with waffle, with 30 pages focused on specific subject aims. Even those are full of funny lines like, "Key Competencies - Thinking ..". The shambles is introduced with a line, "It is my pleasure to introduce this revision of the NZ Curriculum" by the Education Secretary. After you've read it, you are left wondering, "So where is the NZ Curriculum? Did I miss something?".

The odd feature of the document is that its "Published in 2015 by the Ministry of Education" & was "First published for the Ministry of Education [in] 2007". But that pre-dates the Ardern government. So what have the 308 staff working in the Curriculum Centre been doing these past several years? Were the 202 staff just made redundant mulling over changes to a 60 page document? Maybe how to change font size & color? If the paper called "The NZ Curriculum" was submitted as a Year 12 school project, it would fail. If you multiply the 308 staff by an average salary of $80,000, a conservative number given Wellington pay-scales, you get about $25 million dollars per annum. Has the Kiwi Taxpayer been billed that amount of money year after year - that is, over $100 million - for 60 pages of PR, marketing & comms-inspired glossy pages of nothingness? The "NZ Curriculum" as published by the Education Ministry is worth no more than one weeks work by one competent person.

Sources:

https://assets.education.govt.nz/public/1-OIA-releases/Appendix-A-v7.pdf

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/514542/ministry-of-education-plans-to-cut-565-roles

https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum