Ben gives Paul a Civics lesson

Ben eats the apple provided while he thinks, and then decides to teach Paul the names of every New Zealand Prime Minister since 1935 in chronological order. He starts by asking Paul who he knows already, and Paul says Bill English, “obviously”.

They get to work, and Ben decides to sit on his chair backwards like a ‘cool’ teacher, while writing the names of all the Prime Ministers on strips of paper and telling Paul about them. He starts with Michael J Savage, their first Labour Party Prime Minister, and Peter Fraser, who was Prime Minister during the Second World War.

When they get to Mike Moore, Paul makes a pun about preferring “using a megaphone or a Mike [mic] Moore”. When Ben gets to Chris Hipkins, he decides to write his name as “Chippy Hippy”, to add a bit of fun to the lesson.

After writing down all of the names, the pair try to come up with a mnemonic to remember the order, which starts as “Mary Poppins Said, Wait (K)children, Jumping Never Works”, corresponding to the names Michael Savage, Peter Fraser, Sidney Holland, Walter Nash, Keith Holyoake,Jack Marshall, Norman Kirk, and (presumably) Wallace 'Bill' Rowling.

Paul also suggests the memory aid of coming up with a story involving their names. Ben responds that this is how he remembers it, using the story of the history of New Zealand.

Ben then tests Paul by asking him to place all of the written names into the correct order. He is able to do this using their mnemonic, which continues beyond what is written above to include a mention of “Jumping Jacks” (presumably corresponding to the names Jim Bolger and Jenny Shipley. Paul is able to correctly order every Prime Minister since Bill English without a mnemonic, since they are more recent.

Ben earns 5 points for providing a good lesson and actually testing Paul on his knowledge.

(Written by Will G and proofread by Karl Craven)

(Illustrations collected by JoGo & Will G and adjusted by David Fuller)