Tena koutou katoa
In a review published in 2010, where ERO evaluated67 primary schools and 42 secondary schools on how they were using the eight principles in the curriculum document, the Treaty of Waitangi was identified as one of the least enacted principles.
Their Recommendation: Schools should gain an Understanding the Treaty and its implication for school policy, organisation and planning AND
Consult with Maori
Robert Consedine has long been a proponent of knowing and teaching NZ history as it is.
He also laments the lack of support for teachers and senior leaders, including principals at schools.
How will those leaders and teaching staff be given the opportunity to deal with their own racism, prejudice, attitudes behaviours and worldviews which may be affecting what and how they and their staff view, implement or teach the Treaty of Waitangi ? And what about the HIDDEN CURRICULUM?.
Consedine (Consedine, 2001), in their survey of age group of teacher education students, provide a staggering reality check. It is reported that 88% had never heard of the New Zealand Declaration of Independence (1835), 61% were aware of the differences between the Maori and English versions of the text of the Treaty of Waitangi, and 80% were not familiar with New Zealand’s Native Land Legislation.
What is the point of raising a generation knowledgeable and skilled in numeracy and literacy if they have no identity and cannot relate to where they come from and therefore who they are.
The purpose for teaching social studies in New Zealand schools is to enable students to explore the unique bicultural nature that derives from the Treaty of Waitangi (Education, The New Zealand Curriculum, 2007). They learn about cultures, histories, economics, people and geographical places within the country and beyond as they consider the wide and heterogeneous worldviews, in order to connect with others despite different perspectives, values and viewpoints. Yet their own perspective is muddied through lack of teaching who they are and where they come from.
Propaganda thrives in a vacuum
Sensationalism thrives in a vacuum
Without context(history) we create false memory, we romanticise the past, we adopt false contexts/replacement contexts
Saul Ralston. On Eqilibrium
Our history is a taonga/ an incredible gift
Our history is unique
In the international arena history curriculum designers have typically placed national history at the centre of the history programme. In NZ this is not the case. Mark Sheehan, noted author and historian concurs as does Cormac ODuffy, education researcher from Limerick, Ireland who spent some time teaching here in NZ. He says this:
Surely students would have to learn about the history of their land and be able to plot the chronological events that have helped shape modern history? What about being able to name the regions towns and cities of their country?
I’ll briefly give you a Laidlaw example : I lecture in the Social Sciences at Laidlaw College. It is a third year 15 credit paper. Each year I have an amazing, albeit historically and geographically challenged group of students. One particular year there was amongst them an American exchange student who made these comments as he explored his rationale for teaching the social sciences in pre-primary classes:
He writes
As I critique the New Zealand educational program, I do so with very little prior knowledge or experience. BUT I have come to the conclusion that New Zealanders need to become more aware of their own geographic surroundings. Having lived in the country for just over several weeks I find it astonishing, and several college classmates of mine have told me, that they have never been taught in the classroom, about the location of their own cities, rivers and mountain ranges. I find this fact very startling, as these students are in their final year of university, and will be teaching their countries’ youth after graduation. As educators how can we expect to teach our youth to the best of our ability, if we do not even know understand the world around us?
These students graduated 3 months later with as SOUND knowledge as I could give them in a 4 week block course. Far from ideal but what came out of it was spectacular!
Their question was: What now? Now that we know, what do we do, how do we do it? And I suppose I am still on that journey of providing the how and perhaps today is a step towards answering that question.
They realised that with knowledge comes responsibility.
Professor Henry Reynolds puts it this way in his book
We can know a great deal about the history of indigenous-settler relations. But knowing brings burdens that can be shirked by those living in ignorance. With knowledge the question is no longer what we know but what we are now to do, and that is a much harder matter to deal with.
Henry Reynolds in Why Weren’t we Told?
I had the privilege of meeting Prof Piet Meiring in 2011 when he spoke at Laidlaw College. He worked closely with Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and has also been very active in reconciliation talks in Canada and also in Australia.
At lunch he looked at around the table of predominantly Pakeha academics “So who do I speak to in NZ about reconciliation?” To my shame I said nothing, I wanted to jump up and shout something but was put off by the blank looks, shrugging of shoulders and curious shaking of heads that ensued. The question fizzled and was dismissed. These were academics and theologians! Peacemakers… I ran over to him much later before he left and explained, with tears in my eyes that few Pakeha folk understood that there was even a problem in NZ never mind that reconciliation was something worth discussing.
However, I digress.
Knowlegde brings responsibility. It also opens wound and can create victims and guilt where these have no place.
So my answer to my students was this:
Teach it justly. Be even-handed. Treaty is not just a day that occurred on 6 Febr1840. Treaty is our modern history. Therefore alongside knowledge must come the teaching of the value of reconciliation. Why? Because knowledge can open wounds. What can reconciliation look like?
Simply put: I have done wrong
I am sorry, will you forgive me. Can I make it up to you?
Accompanied by
I agree you have done wrong. I accept your apology and I forgive you.
Notice I did not say forget!
Nietzsche agrees and says: ’ No deed can be annihilated: how could it be undone … even ’ by a penalty. ‘
RECONCILIATION IS A TWO SIDED MATTER. IT IS ABOUT EMBRACE.
Miroslav Volf, Yale professor and practitioner of forgiveness and reconciliation, puts it this way He talks in his book Exclusion and Embrace about some wonderful human principles, values if you like:
· adequately naming what transpires between people (being truthful in love) .
· perpetrators confess, forgive themselves, receive forgiveness and healing.
· practical action that promotes and enables healing, forgiveness, restoration, reconciliation, hope and a future
· victims and perpetrators who ‘remember rightly ‘ .
He talks about each making space for the other in oneself…
An interesting example of reconciliation played out here in NZ just last year. It did not get publicised much, did not even make the papers as far as I recall. It nearly did not make our daily bulletin! And Laidlaw is the largest private institution of its kind in NZ.
A member of Laidlaw’s Runanga had been asked to go over to London to talk about reconciliation. A very large interdenominational group met at Westminster chapel to consider Britain’s historical involvement in, amongst other things, colonisation. Part of this group then asked if the Runanga member would allow them to accompany him back to NZ. The short story is… this group of Brits and Maori drove down the length of the North Island, stopping at strategic areas, the Brits adequately naming what transpires between people (breaking of treaty promises, land wars, confiscations) and asked for forgiveness on behalf of the Crown ).This was received with grace by a group of Maori present. Some may say ‘How dare they?’
I hear others saying ‘About time my Pakeha brother. Let our mokopuna see a different day.’
There is a Maori saying:
Let us give them Knowledge and a vision
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga ka ngaro te iwi
I suggest the following as a starting point and I do this with my students too who are training for Pre secondary teaching.:
Teach about the treaty –both versions
Teach them about not keeping the treaty and the consequences and hurts that go with broken promises.
Teach about Maori-their traditions, yes but also their hardships. Remember to teach about the settlers their traditions and hardships-many came from harsh backgrounds with a promise of land only to have hopes dashed. How did they cope? How did Maori help them? At Port Nicholson as they called Wellington in 1840.
Teach about colonial government,laws, Grey, Vogel and Prendergast and Maori land loss, disease, language loss and loss of mana. The land wars, assimilation.
Include the heroes of that time:Hone Heke, Te Kooti and Parihaka, Princess te Puia, Wiremu Tamihana, King Potatu,
Teach about the Maori Battalion, urbanisation, Bastion Point, the haka, Rugby,The Waitangi Tribunal,The local Marae, Volcanoes and Earthquakes and immigrants (When I say the word teach, I use it loosely!)
Teach about sealers, miners, whalers, Cook, Tasman, Kate Sheppard, Edmund Hilary, Helen Clark if you want to but balance it out and broaden it out over the years so that Waitangi day fatigue does not set in but rather becomes an expression of our intent to be bi-cultural. Becomes simply the springboard for our modern history! Equip our children.
A quote from one a Laidlaw Student
It is understandable that some teachers avoid teaching the history around Maori and Pakeha disputes, however, what sort of message does this send to our childern? Even though certain parts of history inflict in us a sense of guilt, we need to redeem what has been done, by being bold and courageous.
A practical example now of a practicing ex Laidlaw student: Let’s call him Jay
One of the wonderful students that graduated one recently asked if he may borrow some of my resources for the beginning of the year as he would be teaching THE TREATY in February (no surprise there) to a year year 3 class. I recently caught up with him and asked him how it went. He had shared as much as one can with a year 3 class-they had had very little exposure to any previous knowledge(except the basic DATE , DAY AND YEAR!) or so it appeared. Near the end of one of his lessons, one of his children asked: So, are all the Maori dead now?
The place that Maori had in NZ as far as that young learner was concerned, was negligible if not zero. And apparently up until then in school too. Apparently there was one Maori child in the class-not that this should matter in our bi-cultural country…
So we are left with this:
So how do you manage diversity of opinion, resistance and prejudice, disinterest and Waitangi fatigue syndrome. I get it all the time! From colleagues, from students. Dare I say this…at home!
Peacemaking, reconciliation, telling it like it is not easy. But keep doing it. Just keep doing it.
The failure of our SS programme to teach both sides of our national story has left a legacy of Treaty Illiteracy. The people have no knowledge.
This leaves people clinging to myths, slanted media reports and basic ignorance because they have been exposed to no other alternative.
George Orwell puts it like this
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
We know that nothing is more emotive than education. The quality of our children’s schools affects every aspect of their life, shaping the child’s personal destiny and the society’s capacity for creativity and economic development. This rightly can make school system reform the major focus not just for educationalists but also for political leaders, employers, academics and others. Often, because of the magnitude of what is at stake-especially with ingrained values and fears that pre-exist, passions run high and debate is heated. But We can no longer afford to sit around and debate and allow children to be ignorant. The future of this country depends on how we will teach our history. So regardless of government policy, or which Treaty they uphold (or not!)get some support from within your school(even if it is one person) , get professional development or read good resources. I recommend some at the end. Approach your your marae, runanga, social science departments at universities and high schools, the Auckland Regional Migrant Services. Start somewhere and get the job done. Empower yourself. Only when we face the truth as a broken nation and actually start doing something, can we move forward as a reconciled, whole nation. This is for the common good.
Act as soon as you feel equipped. Everything must be biased towards action and learning rather than, as is traditional, endless planning before acting. Some planning is certainly necessary, but the ‘size and prettiness of the planning document is inversely related to the amount and quality of action, and in turn to the impact on student learning’ (Reeves, 2006). Pfeffer and Sutton (2000) also . emphasize this theme when they talk about the dangers of using planning as a substitute for action.
This last quote is taken from the McKinsey Report on How the World’s Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better, 2010.