A 15-year-old girl's sweeping criticism of her teachers would not normally be the stuff of nationwide debate. But it has been achieved by Anela Pritchard thanks largely to the reaction of her school, Napier Girls' High. In over-reacting to a classroom speech, it surrendered the high ground and provided ammunition for those eager to support her claims. There is a lesson for all schools in this. If they ask teenagers to speak on something about which they have strong opinions, they should be ready for outbursts that sometimes tip over from passion into insult and abuse.
The English teacher who heard Anela Pritchard's speech did not seem to be prepared. After it, according to the pupil, she "left the class looking rather sad". Some reports noted that the teacher was moved to tears. When Anela got home the next day, her father told her the school had said she was not welcome to return until he had met the principal. The school says she was never suspended or stood down. Perhaps technically that was so, but Anela and her father had every reason to believe this was the situation.
That gave them the opportunity to denounce the school in a manner that would not have been possible if it had declined to do anything that could be construed as disciplinary action. Anela was able to say, with some credence, that she was being denied an education. And to proclaim that "I thought New Zealand was a country with freedom of speech". If so, why had she not been allowed to say what she wanted about her teachers?
Part of the problem lay, of course, in the tone of her criticism, and the provocative way in which she subsequently emailed copies of her speech to teachers and posted it on her Facebook page. Such is the petulance of teenagers. Equally, much of what she said was clearly misguided. Not all teachers are perfect or always totally professional, but there is no merit in suggesting they needed to work harder rather than sitting around and doing nothing. Nor, clearly, do the vast majority set out to make students feel "useless".
A little more worthy of discussion was her belief she was being taught irrelevant information. "In high school, we should be learning about the real world - how to pay my taxes, apply for jobs, mortgage my house, buy a car - things that we will actually use in the future," she said. None of those things, however, supplies the knowledge and information that will enable her to get a good job and develop a worthwhile career. Further, the civic education embedded in the New Zealand Curriculum appears to prepare pupils well for their role as citizens. Certainly better than is the case in most other countries, according to International Civics and Citizenship Education Study Board research.
