Time for the state to take over Gloriavale’s school
Liz Gordon is a barrister and community activist from Christchurch.
OPINION: I seem to have been calling for the closure of Gloriavale school for half my life. When I launched a campaign a couple of decades ago to force the closure of the school, the most common response was: ”aww, leave them alone, they are not doing any harm”, etc.
For clarity, I was calling for the closure of the school because it taught a loony creationist curriculum including that boys and girls should leave school at 15 (below the statutory leaving age). Girls were educated to cook and do the laundry (plus baby-making, lots and lots of it) and boys to work on the farm. Both sexes were educated to be modern slaves.
I thought if the children could just go to their local state schools, they would be able to avoid the indoctrination into the “only” lifestyle in favour of choice. But sects such as Gloriavale do not like choice.
The Education Review Office was, at the time, as useful as a chocolate teapot in declaring that the school produced the education demanded by the school community and supporting its continuance. No thought for the children.
Times have fortunately changed. The Education Review Office has significantly altered its tune. At some stage that agency needs to be scrutinised – dare I say reviewed – for its dreadful historical position on what private schools may teach.
Oh yes, and at last a children’s commissioner is on board with closing the school. Only one generation has passed, so I suppose that is better than nothing.
On the various occasions I have called for school closure at Gloriavale I have been challenged for an alternative. My usual response was that the children should be bussed to the local primary school, where they have a right to go.
But I have changed my mind. Gloriavale has received many millions of dollars in state funding over the years, for education and many other things, and I think the proper solution is that Gloriavale has its school requisitioned by the state for educational purposes.
That is, the state should set up a state school in the school built by Gloriavale. The reasons for this is that currently, only about half of Gloriavale residents are sending their children to the school. There is a lot of home schooling. I have no idea what these children are being taught, but I do know what their parents were taught, and that is profoundly disturbing.
The false truths based on an abusive and misogynist cult must not be allowed to be passed on by any means to another generation. The new school at Gloriavale must be an open, inviting place for children. It will probably need to employ in addition a couple of home schooling teachers – ambassadors for the New Zealand curriculum who can work with families to get all the kids back to school, or at least have them taught an acceptable curriculum.
For all its faults, the New Zealand schooling system offers broad options for children and an expansive view of the world. Just what is needed at Gloriavale now.
But what I think is crucial is that this ends here. Our propensity as a nation to stand back and watch disasters happen, and even to condone extreme ideologies, has gone far too far in this case.
I don’t mind a community of people living together. But I do know – have always known – that the best way to beat the Gloriavale cult is to throw daylight onto it, and nothing does this like a good education. Time has proven my solution correct – now let’s do it.