The Wire with Sara

Stella speaks to Shrutika, from Able, about their stunt with TVNZ today celebrating Global Literacy Day (today!) where all children’s programming has automatic captions, to celebrate the fact that kids watching captioned content improves their literacy.

Today marks 50 years since the Maori Language petition was delivered to parliament, with more than 30,000 people calling for te reo Māori to be taught in schools.

This Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori, Education union NZEI Te Riu Roa is calling on the government to increase funding for te reo in schools. 

To get insight into these calls, as well as to discuss the importance of using te reo in education, Emilia spoke to President of NZEI Te Riu Roa Liam Rutherford.

Aotearoa’s education system has been criticised recently for taking a one size fits all approach one it comes to accommodating for neurodivergent students. 

Students dealing with dyslexia, autism, and ADHD amongst other conditions have been struggling under the current numeracy and literacy standards that don’t work with their forms of thinking.

Activists have recently been highlighting the negative effects this can have on students long term, seeing aspects of their mental health diminished and rates of anxiety and depression heightened. 

To learn more, Liam spoke to Anton Ashcroft from Divergent Thinking NZ about what needs to be changed. 

The Cuban Missile Crisis is often framed in terms of the significance of interactions between the then Soviet Union and United States. However, Cubans have agency and a story to tell about the events that occurred in their own state. Stella speaks to Cuban Ambassador to New Zealand, Mr. Edgardo Valdés López, about the Cuban perspective and the sanctions that the US still hold against Cuba to mark the 60th anniversary of the event.