To Willow-Jean Prime, 2026

by ELV

Click to hear Willow's maiden speech

Dear Willow-Jean,

I’m writing this from Te Tai Tokerau — from the place I always write from — close to our tamariki, close to real classrooms, carrying the ache that comes when education is mishandled.

I have been an educator for 26 years. Long enough to know that teaching doesn’t break people in one moment. It wears them down slowly — when care is overridden, when trust is eroded, when decisions arrive in classrooms already sealed and unquestioned.

I am tired, yes. But not in the way a holiday fixes. I am tired in the way that comes from carrying responsibility without agency — from explaining your worth, defending your professionalism, and watching decisions land on children who had no say in them.

The last few years have done something to educators that is difficult to undo. Not just practically, but relationally. This wasn’t a breakdown we chose. It came from decisions made about us, not with us. From being told, implicitly and explicitly, that speed mattered more than care. Trust didn’t just slip — it thinned, cracked, and eventually gave way.

I never entered teaching to engage with politics. I entered it to get better at my craft — to understand children, to respond well, to serve my community with care. For most of my career, I stayed well clear of politics and politicians. But over the past year, that distance became impossible to hold. Not because I wanted a voice, but because the consequences of silence.

That sense of responsibility is what led me to write publicly. I am, by nature, a very private person. I have kept a small digital footprint by choice, preferring the quiet work of teaching over public commentary. But the direction education has taken — and the way decisions made far from classrooms have landed in real lives — pushed me reluctantly into uncomfortable places. I wrote not for visibility, but because silence began to feel like a failure of care.

Much of that writing focused on the decisions made by the current Minister of Education and the very real impact those decisions have had on children, teachers, and communities like mine. I have now made a deliberate decision to stop writing about her — not because the harm has ended, but because it became clear that listening was not happening in any meaningful way.

I have noticed something different about you.

During your time in opposition, you have taken the time to listen to the sector. You have shown a willingness to hear educators speak as people, not as problems to be solved. You have been present in conversations where truth mattered more than positioning — where things could be said plainly, without theatre or defensiveness. I respect that.

For that reason, this letter is written to the future version of you — in the hope that if you ever hold the education portfolio, you remember what you once heard before power made it easier not to.

So I went back, despite my scepticism, and listened to your maiden speech from 2017, curious about what your younger self believed before the world of Wellington had a chance to shape how power behaves.

You opened with a waiata drawn from a letter written by Hōne Heke to Governor Grey — a warning about words spoken from afar, about messages delivered at a distance from the people they affect. You were clear then that you were not there to indulge in empty words, but to act with purpose, grounded in whakapapa, place, and responsibility.

That moved me.

Because nine years on, our education system is not well — despite the polished headlines offered to voters and parents, despite reports written at arm’s length by people far removed from classrooms and communities. One of the deepest wounds educators carry is the sense that decisions about our work, and about children’s lives, have been made from too far away — without us, and often without care for the relationships that make learning possible.

Educators are tired in a way that goes beyond workload. The relationship between those who teach and those who govern has been profoundly damaged. Trust has been eroded through constant reform, relentless pace, and changes imposed without genuine partnership. This has not just affected adults. It has affected children.

There are two things we need now.

The first is time to heal, and a public acknowledgement of the harm that has been done. Someone in power needs to say out loud — to the press, to parents, to the country — that what educators have experienced over the past three years should never be allowed to happen again. The damage to trust, the sidelining of professional voice, and the framing of educators as obstacles rather than partners must be named honestly.

This cannot happen quietly or internally. It needs to be said publicly, because the public narrative has mattered. Educators’ real, unpoliticised voices need to be gathered and listened to properly — not filtered through agendas already decided. From that acknowledgement must come protection. There need to be clear safeguards and legislation so that changes of this scale cannot be imposed again without a professional body that genuinely represents teachers and is involved from the beginning.

These decisions are not minor policy adjustments. They are not infrastructure projects that can be rerouted if they fail. These are children’s lives that have been interfered with — in classrooms, in communities, and in identities — without sufficient care.

The second thing we need is time to heal.

We need respite. We need a pause from the constant sense of crisis and drowning. We need time to take stock of what has already been implemented, to look carefully at what has helped and what has caused harm, and to undo legislation and policy that limits human intelligence, teacher autonomy, and community rights.

I know this is not the kind of plan that generates headlines or fits neatly into a budget. It will not please those who equate leadership with constant reform. But it is the most important work that could be done if there is any hope of restoring a relationship between power and education that is based on trust rather than compliance.

In your maiden speech, you spoke about being taught well — by your mother, your nana, your people, and your community — and about standing collected because of that teaching. Education, at its heart, is relational. It lives in moments of care, honesty, and shared understanding. It lives in remembering what joy feels like when learning is allowed to be human — simple, grounding, and unexpectedly nourishing. When those relationships are damaged, no amount of policy can compensate.

This letter is not a list of demands. It is a record. It is written with respect, and with hope. If you ever find yourself with the power to make decisions about education, I hope you remember your own warning about words spoken from afar, and your own commitment to act with purpose and integrity.

For my own part, I am choosing something different in 2026. I am choosing to stop writing about the current Minister of Education. That is my New Year resolution. Not because the work of justice is finished, but because my attention belongs elsewhere.

I want to love my job again. I want to teach and respond to my community with grace and honesty. I want my energy directed toward growing minds, not fighting battles that should never have had to be fought.

I want to protect the quiet joy of teaching when it is done well — the kind of joy that doesn’t shout or perform, but reminds you why you came in the first place. The kind that lets you drive home knowing your day mattered, that you met children where they were, and that you responded to what they needed. That balance — that grace — feels restorative. Like something simple and grounding after a long walk: a small moment of sweetness that steadies you again.

That is where I am placing my attention now.

When we have had time to heal, and when the joy of our work has been restored, then equity — true equity — can be taken up with the seriousness it deserves. Not as a slogan or a political performance, but as careful, relational work grounded in trust. Equity cannot be built on exhaustion. It requires educators who are well, who are listened to, and who have the space to respond to children and communities as they truly are.

That is why protecting the quiet joy of teaching matters. It is not indulgent. It is foundational. Only when educators are able to teach with steadiness, dignity, and care can we begin to do the deeper work equity asks of us — work that honours difference, context, and lived reality rather than flattening them.

I will continue to stand for justice, for my community, and for the deep love educators carry into classrooms every day. But I am also choosing to place my attention where it can do the most good — with the children in front of me, the relationships around me, and the future we are responsible for shaping together.

Ngā mihi,

Bee Thomas

Kaiako

Te Tai Tokerau