What Actually Happened on the Curriculum Roadshow? A Knowledge-Rich Love Story

by ELV

​​We’ve all been waiting, haven’t we? For someone — anyone — from Camp Roadshow to step forward and tell us what really went on. Not the soundbites, not the policy gloss, but the actual story behind the speeches, the data, and the packed rooms.

Well… Erica decided to let someone speak on her behalf. Not a kaiako. Not a principal. Not even a New Zealand education leader.

No — she let her overseas admirer take the mic.

Last night, RNZ’s Emile Donovan sat down with former UK Minister Nick Gibb for The Detail — a calm, considered lowdown on the recent New Zealand education roadshow. Gibb was here to share highlights, insights, and a vision built on “knowledge-rich” learning.

Nick was impressed — he said the rooms were packed at both events. About 400 people filled each venue.

Now, I’ve given keynotes with Russell Bishop in Tai Tokerau during a cyclone — in a tiny school, mid-pandemic — and we still pulled more than 400 people. So when Gibb calls that number “packed,” I have to ask: packed with who?

That’s like two primary schools joining for a sports day. Is that really packed? Or just a well-lit room full of PLD providers, union reps, academics — anyone but the kaiako who’ll be expected to turn this theory into practice?

Because while Gibb might have been bowled over by Erica’s “brilliant” speech, what matters isn’t who dazzled whom — it’s who wasn’t in the room.

Gibb was clear: the purpose of school is to ensure young people know things. Not explore. Not question. Not connect. But to know — preferably facts, and lots of them. According to him, the science is in: to think critically or creatively, you first need a long-term memory stuffed with information.

Apparently, cognitive science has “shown” us this. Copious amounts of knowledge must come first, and then you can think.

But here’s a thought: if storing vast amounts of knowledge is what leads to creativity and critical thinking, then ChatGPT should be an artistic genius and a philosophical powerhouse by now. It isn’t. It can give you grammar tips and cite Shakespeare, sure — but it doesn’t dream. It doesn’t disrupt. It doesn’t know what it feels like to be unheard in a classroom or mispronounced every day of your school life.

Knowledge alone is not the answer. Especially not the kind of knowledge selected, transmitted, and assessed through a narrow, Western academic lens. Especially not when it erases the lived realities, identities, and strengths of our learners.

At one point, Gibb let slip his gold standard: “The Great Literature and The Great Music.” That’s what will make students creative, he claimed. Not lived experience. Not identity. Not cultural grounding. But Bach, Beethoven, and Shakespeare — the so-called “giants” we must all stand on.

Except… whose giants?

Because I’m 100% certain Nick Gibb has never been immersed in an Indigenous world — one where knowledge is shared through waiata, whakapapa, pūrākau, and whenua. Where creativity isn’t something you extract from Western classics but something you live, breathe, and inherit.

Gibb speaks as if the only valid legacy worth standing on is European. And if you can’t be “bothered” to stand on that kind of knowledge, well — you won’t be able to solve problems.

That bias seeps into everything he says — even when he tries to be inclusive. Yes, he said students need to know the history of their country. But again, I have to ask: whose history? Whose version? Whose power? Whose bias?

Because you don’t need to memorise every date in the textbook to think critically about how history is told. Many of our rangatahi already do that — not because they’ve been taught to “know,” but because they’ve learned how to see.

Gibb spoke with certainty — the best way to acquire knowledge is by paying attention and concentrating. It's all about transmission. The teacher holds the knowledge. The student absorbs it. Simple, right?

Except everything we know — everything Russell Bishop has researched and taught — tells us that for Māori and marginalised students, this method is not just ineffective… it's harmful. It ignores identity. It erases culture. It assumes power sits at the front of the room and that learning is a one-way street.

Still, Gibb doubles down. Even when asked about how reading is taught, he says bright children will “just pick it up.” Wait — what happened to transmission? If knowledge has to be carefully deposited into the long-term memory, how are some children magically absorbing it?

It’s contradiction after contradiction. But when the spotlight is on, certainty sells better than curiosity.

And that brings us to Erica — the knowledge-rich champion from our side of the world. Gibb was utterly bowled over by her. Spoke of her speech with admiration, even awe. It was, by all accounts, love at first sound bite.

Here’s the thing: their friendship grew not because of shared values, but shared vanity. He saw in her a mirror of himself. She offered a shortcut to reinforcing his ideology, and he offered her international validation. A union not of minds, but of echo chambers.

Together, they speak of data and literacy checks and phonics screenings — as if ticking the right boxes will transform learning. As if creativity, connection, and community are irrelevant when there’s a spreadsheet to complete.

At one point, Gibb insists that children need exposure to rich vocabulary to learn how to read.

Sounds promising — until you remember this is the same philosophy that supports removing te reo Māori words from school texts because they’re “too hard.” So which is it? Do we want children immersed in rich, diverse language, or just the kind that’s comfortable for the coloniser?

It’s the same selective reasoning that runs through much of the interview.

When Emile Donovan (who was excellent, by the way) presses him on evidence, Gibb begins to unravel.

He talks about brain scans. MRIs. As if learning lives only in neurons, not in people. When asked what kind of research could challenge his claims, he admits — some other research might prove me wrong. But when asked how we find that research? He flounders. There’s no plan. Just a vague hope that “evidence might emerge.”

This isn’t evidence-based reform.

This is belief-driven policy.

Belief rooted in a school experience that, by his own admission, wasn’t great. A time when “progressive” teaching arrived and he no longer felt exceptional.

And maybe that’s it. Maybe his insistence on knowledge, order, and “transmission” is his attempt to rewrite his own story — to regain a sense of control, a gold star he didn’t get, a voice he felt he lost.

But our tamariki are not here to fix a Minister’s childhood trauma.

Near the end of the interview, Gibb turns to behaviour.

He calls it “warm strict.” A model where teachers maintain tight control, with kindness. Because, as he says, “teachers want kids to behave so they can do well.”

Of course they do.

But let’s flip the question: have you ever met a child who didn’t want to do well at school? One who woke up thinking, “I’m going to be defiant today because I definitely don’t want success in my life”?

Because I haven’t.

What I have seen — time and time again — is tamariki labelled as “defiant” when they’re actually disconnected. Not because they lack discipline, but because the system hasn’t recognised who they are, where they come from, or what they carry.

This isn’t about warm strictness. It’s about warm relationships. It’s about whanaungatanga, manaakitanga, and culturally sustaining practice that sees each learner as more than a behaviour to be managed.

The real tragedy of the Nick Gibb Roadshow is not just the imported ideology or the misplaced confidence. It’s the assumption that we need to be saved by it.

That our educators — our kaiako — don’t already have the insight, wisdom, and heart to lead transformative change right here, on whenua that speaks back.

Let’s stop mistaking white-coated research for truth, or charisma for credibility. Let’s listen to the voices in the room that too often go unheard — and more importantly, let’s ask why those voices didn’t show up in the first place.