Students, teachers and historians are welcoming the government's announcement that New Zealand history will be taught as a compulsory subject in schools by 2022.
Curriculum changes are expected to include a national framework supporting all schools and kura in the country to teach our past – such as the arrival of Māori in New Zealand, first contact with European peoples, the Treaty of Waitangi, the New Zealand Wars and cultural changes during the 20th century.
But there are concerns about whether this is too big a task for our schools to achieve within that period, and also how to build a curriculum that serves students, rather than vested interests.
Rangi Kipa swings a purerehua (Māori musical instrument) at the Taranaki settlement of Parihaka ahead of the Crown's 2017 formal apology for the military invasion of 1881. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
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The campaigners for change
Northcote College students Ruby Brown and Xavier Walsh were among the 12,000 people who signed a 2016 petition for compulsory teaching of New Zealand history in schools.
The pair say they’ve been studying 19th-century New Zealand history all through this year and look forward to learning more.
“We have a very extensive course here at Northcote College ... I can’t wait to learn about more things like the prophet movement and other things that we haven’t touched on yet,” Xavier says.
Learning about New Zealand’s past is essential for understanding current and ongoing political discussions that relate to iwi and land, adds Ruby.
She says everybody deserves a chance to have this knowledge – Xavier agrees.
“I believe that a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunications of Māori-Pākehā relations stem from the fact that people don’t understand the history of New Zealand and where these issues have arisen from,” he says.
Instead of just being taught facts, Ruby and Xavier say they also get to have in-depth conversations about the past in class, and, even more importantly, the various perspectives on what took place.
“When historians write history it is always going to be coming from their own point of view, so we sort of acknowledge that within our essays … and the prejudices, we take that into account,” Ruby says.
Resistance and avoiding a ‘grand narrative’
For a long time, the teaching of New Zealand history has been dependent on teachers who are willing and committed to telling these stories, says sociologist associate professor Joanna Kidman.
That hasn’t happened evenly across the country, and hence the change in curriculum is crucial, she says.
“We have a lot of students in New Zealand, a lot of young people leaving schools, who don’t have that knowledge. And so they don’t have that wisdom about the origins of their country and their own nation and without that knowledge, it’s very difficult to plan forward.”
However, the announced change hasn't received applause from everyone.
Some are resisting the idea, anxious that it may provoke more problems than it’ll solve, Joanna says.
“For some people, there is an anxiety that the hostilities that have taken place in the past, the terrible violence that’s happened in some areas, is going to stir up a lot of bad feelings.
“However, having said that, the silences about the past haven’t actually resolved the issues, so I think what we’re hearing from young people, like Ruby and Xavier and Leah Bell [history student petitioner] and others, is that they want to know about this stuff.”
Joanna agrees with Ruby and Xavier that it’s important the new history curriculum doesn’t solely focus on factual content but also gives students the ability to link what they learn to wider historical contexts and debates.
“We have people already thinking along those lines about how there are no grand narratives of history, that different places in New Zealand have different histories, and that these histories can be linked to the wider debates,” she says.
“But also the passion that I see coming through for a lot of starting history teachers is exactly for those controversies, they’re excited about getting their students involved with thinking about the disagreements and controversies and getting them fluent in the language of uncertainty around them.”
To avoid ending up with a ‘grand narrative’ telling of NZ history lesson, iwi need to be involved in creating the new curriculum, Joanna says.
“That’s partly because those stories haven’t been told in the curricula before, one of the things we do need to be wary about is excluding those voices. So what needs to happen first is the relationships with iwi need to be built … but I think it would be tragic if iwi were not deeply involved in this.”
The huge task ahead
Historian Michael Belgrave concedes that three years might not seem like much time in which to develop and get everyone on board with a new school curriculum.
“This is a major exercise and just to put this in context, Xavier and Ruby are actually very privileged, they’re among the very small group of New Zealand students who actually do get an intense experience of New Zealand history.”
“For the vast majority of students, there’s no accountability for what is taught about New Zealand at all. So to run this from Year 1 in primary school right through to Year 13 is a huge task in professional development and developing the knowledge skills.”
If the new curriculum also aims to inform students of different perspectives, it will probably require more resources than the Ministry of Education has considered, Michael says.
“It’s going to involve the universities, the museums, iwi, schools, there’ll be a series of national things … but when this works itself out it’s going to be very much the responsibility of local schools to be able to put things together that makes sense for them in their communities, and the very different stories that they have to tell … and then there’s the resources that are needed to support that teaching.”
The discipline of history has the rigour and tools to ensure that a new school curriculum will not open doors for influence on certain groups - as some fear, Michael says.
“But remember we’re not trying to get people to know stories. I mean, they need to know stories, but they need to have the tools – both teachers and students – to be able to understand the context of those stories and also evaluate them.
“I think it’s really important that all New Zealand kids see their own histories even the newest migrants, this is part of our history – the transformation of the 20th century, even in the last 30 years that New Zealand has existed – all of it has to be there.
“I don’t think we can narrow this down to some 19th-century exercise because even those 19th-century events have repercussions that continue to the present in terms of the Treaty settlement and the likes.”