A rise in reports of far-right extremism in the classroom has prompted a teachers' union to seek expert advice for its members.
By Penny Smith of RNZ
The Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) is hiring someone to develop guidelines for teachers due to reports of a growing prevalence of extremist views being expressed by some students.
These include homophobia, anti-Semitism, racism, "trad wife" and misogynistic views.
The union said students were engaging with harmful ideologies that undermined respectful relationships, inclusive values, and their learning and development.
"PPTA members believe that teachers and schools should not be left to face these challenges alone. The education sector needs tools, training and resources necessary to equip both educators and students to navigate digital culture as safely and as critically as possible," it said.
The PPTA's president, Chris Abercrombie — a history and social studies teacher — told Checkpoint teachers were experiencing and seeing a rise of neo-Nazi symbols, neo-Nazi language, Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and misogyny.
"I've had students... deny the Holocaust in class when we're talking about it. I've had students write essays about that kind of stuff, talk about not everyone deserves human rights, those kind of things there, and it's increasingly becoming more and more common. I wouldn't say it's in every school and every student, of course, but it's more common and we're hearing about it more and more," he said.
Abercrombie said misogynistic behaviour was also a concern.
"Our women's committee did a submission [about the Deepfake Digital Harm and Exploitation Bill] and it talked about young boys taking upskirt photos of students and teachers. So this is becoming a significant issue. The online fakes, all of these things fall into that online extremist behaviour," he said.
Abercrombie said students were learning extremist views online.
"The algorithm's a powerful thing and it pushes these young people in certain directions. I mean, I talked about my YouTube — I often watch documentaries, I'm a history teacher, and my YouTube algorithm, when I watch documentaries about World War II, suggests some really quite unpleasant things for me to watch," he said.
Abercrombie said teachers needed urgent help to deal with the issue.
"My concern is we're going to see what's happening like we see overseas. There was a recent survey of German teachers. You know, half of them had seen their students do neo-Nazi symbols in class.
"Nine percent had been physically assaulted by students espousing far-right views. You know, and 14% of teachers in Europe said they don't want to talk about democracy because they are getting pushback from their far-right students and their parents," he said.
Police say they’re receiving 10 concerning tip-offs involving extreme hate speech a week. (Source: 1News)
The Ministry of Education said it was still considering the union's report on extremism and it recognised concerns raised by teachers about the impact in classrooms of harmful online content.
The "refreshed curriculum" included tools to help students recognise misinformation and extremist content, understand its impact and to make informed decisions.
The ministry said it also supported schools through a range of partnerships such as Netsafe, Network for Learning and Bullying-Free NZ.
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