The Curriculum Roadshow: The Thunder They Didn’t See Coming

by ELV

Aotearoa’s educators, the storm that won’t be silenced.

Maybe that’s why the silence.

Because thunder doesn’t always arrive on cue — sometimes it brews underground.

While the Ministry was polishing its hashtags and prepping polite applause, teachers were busy building something stronger: solidarity.

The press might have missed the photo-op, but they didn’t miss the feeling. There’s a hum beneath this quiet — a pulse that says enough.

Educators are winning this round.

Not with strikes alone, but with courage.

With truth-telling.

With the simple act of refusing to nod along anymore.

The pushback is working — reaching the corridors it needs to reach.

You can feel it in the staffrooms, hear it in the union halls, see it in the cautious optimism of those still showing up.

The narrative is shifting.

The profession is remembering its mana.

Because when you strip away the PR, the fancy pull-up banners, and the slogans about "leading change,” you’re left with the people who are the change — teachers, principals, aides, and kaiako who know that education isn’t built from press releases but from relationships, trust, and belonging.

And that’s the irony Erica missed.

You can’t stage-manage thunder. 

It happens when the atmosphere itself decides to break.

The Hunted

Somewhere out there, between a cartoon of a confused Scooby-Doo and a group of passionate educators — Engaging Learning Voices — have become the hunted Banksies of the education world.

We didn’t set out to be found.

We set out to be heard.

We set out to be the voice of our teachers and tamariki — a conduit, nothing more.

Our purpose is education, not the limelight.

And now, journalists are calling.

Too many.

Not because we’re influencers or insiders, but because we said the thing everyone was whispering:

that the emperor’s new curriculum has no clothes, and the teachers are tired of pretending it does.

If the Ministry had thunder, we had echo.

If they had spin, we had the story.

And right now, teachers, leaders, support staff, and believers —it’s the story that’s winning.

Because every teacher who shares, every principal who nods in quiet agreement, every community that sees through the shine — 

that’s another crack in the façade.

It’s proof this isn’t just noise.

It’s movement.

Let the Real Thunder Roll

The silence after the Roadshow launch isn’t empty — it’s charged.

It’s the breath before the next wave of honesty.

It’s the stillness before a storm led not by policy,

but by people.

You can’t stop thunder with a press release.

You can’t mute the hum of awakening classrooms.

So here’s your move, Erica —the board is set, the journalists are watching, and the educators you underestimated have already started thinking three moves ahead.

You could stay silent, keep playing defence —or you could step out, flip the board, and finally make a move worth writing about.

So let the journalists chase the Banksies.

Let the teachers march.

Let the public ask why the nation’s educators had to become satirists to be heard.

Because the thunder Erica didn’t plan for —the rumble she tried to muffle —is already rolling through Aotearoa’s classrooms, and this time, it’s not going quiet.

Checkmate

We know how this game works: stay quiet and you stay protected.

Say nothing and you can’t be caught out.

But silence isn’t leadership — it’s camouflage.

So the question is — are you brave enough to front all of this madness?

To stand in the open while the profession you’ve exhausted still turns up for their learners? Or will you keep hiding behind the pawns, waiting for the noise to pass?

Maybe it’s time to step out, Minister. 

Make a move worth remembering — before the board flips itself.

The Miscalculation

And that’s where the miscalculation lies, Erica.

For someone with a résumé steeped in media, production, and spin —you of all people should know the power of story.

But you underestimated the wrong audience. 

You thought this was a PR problem to be managed, a headline to be controlled.

You forgot that the people you’re trying to pacify aren’t props in your narrative —they’re educators.

People with passion. 

With critical thought.

With research under their fingernails and hope stitched into their DNA.

When you give your life to education, it isn’t for fame, or politics, or photo ops —it’s for children, for justice, for truth.

It’s selfless. 

It’s sincere. 

It’s incorruptible.

And I fear, Minister, that you have seriously underestimated that intelligence —that fire — that unbreakable passion that will not be silenced, no matter how well-crafted the press release.

The Reckoning

And with your continued stubbornness — your silence in the face of our concerns, our exhaustion, and our justice —you don’t avoid the hard questions, Erica.

You just pass them down.

The public leans harder on us.

The media lean harder on us. 

You stay polished and untouchable while we become the story —the burnt-out ones, the “underperformers,” the weary faces that hold up your headlines.

You’re lucky we don’t need the media to tell our story anymore.

You’re lucky we’ve learned to tell it ourselves — raw, unfiltered, human.

Because this isn’t just about policy or curriculum or politics.

This is for every exhausted, abused, underestimated educator still turning up because their heart won’t let them quit.

And to the eduvators who sold that heart for likes and sponsorships — good luck.

The rest of us are still here: ink-stained, unpaid, and unstoppable.

An Ode to the Unbroken

This is for the teachers who still smile through the ache, who carry tomorrow in their pockets even when today feels too heavy.

For the kaiako who refuse to stop believing in children, even when the system stops believing in them.

For the principals who take one more call, the aides who give one more hour, the mentors who whisper “kia kaha” when the walls start closing in.

You are the pulse beneath the thunder.

You are the quiet before the change.

You are the reason the story still matters.

Because in the end —the thunder they didn’t see coming

was you.