"We hope you will make the most of your years here, and will feel fully supported by the inclusive curriculum developed by our government partner, the Ministry Through the Looking Glass.
"Now, we see you have enrolled in two of our most popular courses: ‘What Makes That Happen?’ and ‘Why Does It Matter?’. Excellent choices.
"Sorry, what’s that you say? You were looking for a paper in science? Oh, goodness me, no, nobody talks about that kind of old-fangled thing round here any more. This is a university of the present, not one rooted in the past, we’re proud to say."
OK, you can wake up now. That was just a nightmare. Well, sort of.
This week we have learnt that moves are afoot to introduce a new school curriculum which skirts around the margins of science and what traditionally are considered the most difficult subjects, especially in the last years at secondary school.
Science teachers around the country are up in arms about an early draft of a school science curriculum which, alarmingly, fails to mention both the most basic of science disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, and biology, and concepts such as atoms.
Instead, the draft suggests pupils get their science knowledge for life by being put through 13 years of learning about four "contexts", namely the Earth system; biodiversity; food, energy and water; and infectious diseases.
Yes, physics, chemistry and other subjects like maths and statistics can be difficult.
They are not for everyone.
But it is vital that young people are educated, to as high a level as they can cope with, in such complicated science.
We note with fervent hope that this is said to be only an early draft, sent to just a few teachers for comment and then leaked.
That implies there is still plenty of time for common sense to prevail.
When it comes to science, basic principles haven’t changed for many decades. Science is science is science.
There is not a lot of room for wokeism here.
Science is meant to be a challenge. We want to ensure the brightest brains do the science which is going to keep the maximum number of people healthy and safe in future.
Teaching a meaningful context for the science you are about to learn is not a bad idea at all.
That should be encouraged, as long as the process actually goes on to include the science.
If you don’t get taught the fundamentals of science, it is harder to grasp new concepts so readily in the years to come.
Unfortunately, this draft curriculum of contexts does appear to be strongly veering teaching to the woollier end of science, so it is almost verging on social studies or geography.
The co-writer of the draft, Dr Cathy Buntting of the University of Waikato, says there is no intention "to get rid of physics, chemistry and biology" but the issue is modernising the curriculum to teach the subjects differently, not operate "in the silos that have been traditionally the structure of science education in secondary school".
At a time when we are more indebted than ever to science and technology, and facts and the truth, we shouldn’t be dumbing down our understanding of it even more than it has been in recent years.
What might the flow-on effects of such a school curriculum mean for universities?
Will lecturers have to routinely teach the basics missed by secondary schools?
Will it also dumb down higher learning?
And is such broad-scale meddling in the best interests of the education sector?
Teachers generally know what they are doing, and need to have the freedom to do it to the best of their experience.
Next time your life is in someone else’s hands — perhaps you are flying somewhere, or driving across a heavily engineered bridge, or undergoing some kind of surgery — think carefully.
Would you rather the person in charge actually knew their science or merely understood the contexts around it?
