The government is to be lauded for recent changes to the Mathematics and English Curricula, and for additional literacy initiatives. There is already evidence of a lift in teaching practice and of improving standards. These new initiatives have been moved quickly, in some cases there have been speed wobbles, but by and large, given the desperate need to lift achievement quickly, the roll out has gone well. The case for hitting these two curricula first was sound.
The History Curriculum should be the next cab off the rank.
When asked to define the new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories Curriculum AI responds as follows.
The Aotearoa New Zealand's Histories curriculum, a compulsory part of the refreshed Social Sciences learning area, is being implemented in schools across New Zealand. It became compulsory for Years 1-10 in 2023 and focuses on Māori history as the foundational history of New Zealand, colonization, power dynamics, and relationships between people.
This definition is helpful, it defines the three primary drivers of the curriculum, and therein the three reasons why this curriculum must be replaced or significantly reworked.
For clarity, this document focuses heavily on the following concepts/arguments:
1. Maori (indigenous) history is the foundational history of New Zealand
2. Colonization had a largely deleterious effect on the evolution of modern New Zealand
3. Power dynamics is the primary driver of our postcolonial past
I trained initially as a history teacher. I would consider all three of the foci above as worthy of exploration. discussion and argument, but this is not the objective of the document in question. The History Curriculum as it still stands takes a narrow lens. It makes no effort to open debate on these foci, and nor does it invite the wider lens that would make an authentic debate balanced, or even possible.
Its key positions are presented as largely definitive - i.e. they are presented as uncontestable baseline assumptions. Each of the three foci above are taken straight from the critical theory play book and are highly contestable. History is contestable by its very nature, and that's what makes it an exciting discipline. But good historians are careful to avoid dogmatism, especially at the ontological level (i.e. at the level of primary assumption).
Get it wrong at this level and you get the rest wrong too.
As an example, the curriculum presents the pursuit of power as the primary driver of New Zealand's colonial and post-colonial past'. It is far too simplistic to attribute human action to one overarching cause, and this cause in no way coheres with well established psychological paradigms relating to human action and motivation.
Secondly, the non-consideration of wider historical and societal contexts and tensions pre (and post) 1840 make many of the subsequent assumptions questionable. Every historian worth their salt knows that context is everything.
There are many other deficiencies in the document, but I present these as just two examples, although very critical examples.
Not much is being said at this stage, but hints are that the History Curriculum is in for a significant revision. One would only hope so. It was disappointing at the inception of the current curriculum to hear a spokesperson for the History Teachers Association say that the proposed curriculum invites critical thinking.
This curriculum does anything but that!
It has also been disappointing more lately to hear a "steady as she goes" message from officials on this curriculum in the interim ... immediate withdrawal of the Aotearoa History Curriculum should have been enacted as has been done in the past with some curricula.
Care needs to be taken to open, and not shut down, critical analysis. Every assertion needs to be contestable and subject to scrutiny before it is believed.
It is pretty clear that the Aotearoa New Zealand History Curriculum was intended to be much more than a history curriculum, it was intended to be a pivotal centrepiece for the Labour Governments wider curriculum revision. As such its intention was to place critical theory (and decolonisation in particular) at the centre of the curriculum as a whole, and as a justification for its primary (and dogmatic) assumptions to spill into, and across, the wider curriculum.
It has not been my intention to dissect the efficacy of the three founding foci, this is being comprehensively done elsewhere, but to simply draw attention to the importance of getting the history curriculum right, so that it does not become a primary vehicle of indoctrination, and so that it does not impinge on the integrity of the wider curriculum.' A good first step might be to ensure that actual historians are involved in its re-write and that those responsible for the current document are kept at arm's length.
Marx's dialectical materialism enabled him to create an illusory world where his extreme views could garner an undeserved credibility. That they persist today in the form of critical theory (and its variants) has proven how malleable ideas can be when their baseline assumptions are, well, baseless.
Perhaps most of all, to train our young people to think critically, to be open to multiple sides of an argument, and to question the ideological premises of a particular perspective, helps to inoculate them from those whose intention is to misinform and misrepresent.
Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.
17 comments:
The best teachers and academics do not look through any lenses. Lens academics are not intellectually curious and are usually those who are a bit bitter....
As one who made a submission on the history curiculum I was keen to read others. But as I recall the exercise was carried out by consultants and the responses not released
The country's name is not Aotearoa New Zealand. It is New Zealand until the citizens vote otherwise. If children are to be taught this is the name of our country, then a referendum needs to be held and a majority support decision ratified. Although I doubt a majority would support this name change. Politicians and part-Maori citizens don't have superior rights to the rest of us. If they did, the history curriculum would be the least of our concerns.
Like the writer, I am completely flummoxed as to how the 3 main headings for the history curriculum can be taken seriously. The blindness and hubris of whoever came up with the topic headings are beyond comprehension. Worst of all is the idea that maori history is foundational to New Zealand. A history of war, slavery, cannibalism and overall duplicity, before the settlers arrived. What is to be proud of there? I cringe at the thought that such a savage and amoral way of life should be considered foundational to this country. The technology, rule of law and civilized behaviour brought by the colonists can only be seen as good things. What really gets up the maori activists collective nose is that the power balance they had by force of arms against other tribes has been replaced by civilized forces they neither have the ability to overthrow nor sensibly argue against.
"1. Maori (indigenous) history is the foundational history of New Zealand"
NO - Maori are NOT indigenous. They arrived here in canoes, being indigenous to Taiwan.
2. Colonization had a largely deleterious effect on the evolution of modern New Zealand.
NO again. Bringing running water, metal tools, clothing, housing, education, and ending inter tribal savage wars, slavery and cannibalism. This is NOT deleterious.
3. Power dynamics is the primary driver of our postcolonial past.
Word Salad. Translation please !!
When I studied history at Kapiti College back in the 60's we were taught about real history - Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian, etc.
A warning from across the ditch.
I recall choking when I saw the Queensland school history curriculum over 20 years ago. It was obviously intended to see Aus history 'through an Aboriginal lens'. The bit that brought about my violent initial reaction was being told that the 1606 landfall of the Dutch ship 'Duyfken' in Cape York (she got lost in a storm on the way back to Batavia) was an (wait for it) INVASION. Now in reality those guys on that small boat would have been exhausted and probably ill as well. Armed with a few 16th-century muskets and a cutlass or two, they could hardly be considered an 'invasion force'.
Once this bullshit takes hold, we move rapidly to absurdities that we are supposed to teach kids as being 'history'. Where can I puke?
When are we going to wake up to the fact Progressive education never ever had a desire to produce independent thinkers , full of unbiased knowledge who can contribute to the growth of society not believing they are victims because they are Maori or guilt -ridden because they are European.
The academic elite in their arrogance have forced Marxism on us , believing they are working towards a better society for us all . We are not to object because we are ignoramuses who only deserve contempt for having a different world view. Where has Marxism produced a better society or improved humanity ? I see only examples of tyranny and bloodshed. Already we have students indoctrinated into becoming activists and a large of number mentally
unstable youth as products of our abominable education system.
Yessss, here we go on a typical blind ignorance of REAL WORLD HISTORY. Please get rid of the egos pushing Critical Race Theory. Do they even know what that is? !! It is demolishing western society.... and civilisation. A warning. Not gonner be my problem - got no kids.
Well said Barend !!!
History cannot be seen through any particular lens primarily because it is as it is written.
Those that recorded it, wrote it how it was seen by them. We can analyse history but not 'view' it differently....to do so is plainly ignorant of how it happened as the people who recorded it saw it.
What NZ has today are historians/academics and teachers et al that wish to use techniques like socio-political and cultural bias, presentism and selectivism and levels of strawmanism and personal bias rather that forensic evidence or archaeoligcal truths to distort history to fulfill their own narratives. These are not serious historians and should be ignored. Sadly some are very well known to us.
I do recall reading an article about the current history curriculum during its review and seeing many prominent, knowledgable, competent people who dared to criticise it for exactly what it became (per this article) as being referred to a 'yesterday men'. That was of course from the very socio-political and culturalyl bias activated, presentist very selectivised folk with large dollops of personal bias involved.....
Yes, let's get closer to the truth of our history. Start by bringing back the 80 odd books which were removed from school, university, and public libraries some 45 years ago, possibly because they were written about the time and contain some semblance of truth, ie Robinsons Mill of early Auckland stated that it would pay 3 pence (2 cents) for every bag of bones delivered to it for grinding up for fertilizer. From the north arrived many bones. "What do we do with these," Robinsons asked? "We don't know and we don't care" came the reply. They counted the skulls, and there were in excess of 60,000 of them. They were not Maori bones! The cost to come to New Zealand (as it was called in those days) was 2 pound (4 dollars), in a "1100 ton iron clipper ship", but you had to bring your own food, enough to last for 6 months per person!
I pulled my 8 year old out of school after one of these NZ history classes. Apparently te rauparaha is a hero, and European are bad. That's the takeaway my NZ European son got from this class. He also said he overheard other kids in his class afterwards saying that Europeans are bad. I messaged his teacher about it concerned that my child felt an anti European sentiment was being taught...it took her a week to respond to which her only reply was that they were teaching the Wairau affray. Why do 8 year olds need to be taught the ins and outs of encounters that lead to massacres anyway. If you think TPM are bad, wait till there's an entire generation of kids indoctrinated into thinking the white man is bad. I'm home schooling now. This version of thehistory curriculum definitely needs an overhaul.
Doug your point 2: add the wheel, the horse and radically improved food. Firearms probably contentious but in fact another addition to an existing armoury.
Yes, I remember teaching that at Pukekohe High in 60s. REAL history... not dumb indoctrination fantasies.
Bravo! Plenty of others are homeschooling. Refer to new texts by Dr John Robinson for NZ history for 13 year olds.
What concerns me (at my age I dunno why I care but hey I do) about the indoctrination that progressive curricula have foisted on the young these past decades is this: Has any thought been given to corrective strategies for those who have already been brainwashed? I know the answer - none. So, we have a couple of generations or more who have been inculcated with this absolute BS and who in general believe it.
Searching for a reference I recently hunted out my copy of New Zealand, Being a Narrative of Travles and Adventures by JS Polack a resident 1831-38. 2 vols. Recommended reading for all. An on the spot picture of tikanga, tribal warfare, relations with Europeans, etc. A revelation to anyone conned by current teachings. Many of the maori traits still very evident today. Some of the devious scoundrels described seemed straight out of Te Pati. I strongy recommend all to hunt out the books, although many have been spirted away by pro maori. if I was teaching NZ history it would be essential reading. Would grab the interest of boys in particular. Although there are words no longer used, and oblique references,the English is far more straightforward tham many modern writings.
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