This topic also comes at a time when some of the Wellington History teachers are organising the NZHTA conference, and for the first time, as far as I know, actually going to meet Te Ati Awa. Short of Manning’s suggestions that an official relationship and memorandum of understanding be established between Te Ati Awa and Port Nicholson Block schools, I am launching ahead, although not in the kind of place-based manner that this kind of topic actually deserves. The historical GIS maps put together by Te Ati Awa look amazing – such a geographical approach towards the past is surely the way of the future if we are to start engaging students, especially Maori ones. I have no more history internal assessments left thanks to our addiction to the “rigour” of external assessment and am using an internal, Level One social studies assessment on values exploration and have called this unit of learning “The Legacy of Waitangi”.
Naturally students were not jumping out of their seats to be doing this topic so we started with a method I have Andrea Milligan from Victoria University of Wellington to thank for. Called a “Collective Biography” it was a great way to acknowledge that student’s prior experiences of learning this stuff has been quite negative as well as the fact that students’ own cross-cultural experiences tend towards the negative too.
Asked to describe a story in their life about a personal memory or experience with the Treaty of Waitangi or Maori and Pakeha relations, we shared this while sitting in a circle. I started with a few examples, and we went around a few times so those who passed at first could get ideas or have a memory triggered from someone else’s story. It is really interesting what you find out about your students doing this.
99% of students came up with something and we wrote them up and put them on the wall as in the picture. Following this, students responded to the prompts in a free writing exercise and came up with some varied responses. It was a good way to break the ice and it definitely wasn’t “boring”. There was a bit of discussion and disagreement and lots of acknowledgment that this topic is generally taught very badly. Which is a little scary – if I don’t deliver I will be another example of how education can screw up student’s appreciation of an important issue. The generally negative experiences from the collective biography expressed in an undeniable way that New Zealand has a problem. So my next question was “can history help?” which is a pretty fascinating question. There was some difference of opinion about this, (students claiming that if we don’t know anything about it that will mean we don’t have anything to disagree with) but by and large they agreed that some historical knowledge would at least help them to participate in a conversation about the role of the Treaty of Waitangi in the 21st Century. Incidentally, this is the final assessment task too. They need to:
Explain, in depth, why people hold differing values positions on the role of the Treaty of Waitangi today.
Describe, in depth, consequences for society of people holding differing values positions on the role of the Treaty of Waitangi today.
The next task worked well; a pretty basic diagnostic assessment task but one that generated information that I am actually using. Students filled in “The Treaty of Waitangi pre-assessment chart” and we stuck them all on the wall, half of which are evident in the photograph. For students who have ‘done the Treaty’ and ‘hundreds of times’, there was a whole lot of critical stuff that they didn’t know and which they thought they needed to know in order to “have an intelligent conversation about the role of the Treaty today”, which was great, because that assessment wall is serving as my unit plan.
A lot of students wanted to know a bunch of factual stuff as well as why it was signed so the first lessons have been a fly through the 1830s. We brainstormed what they thought the 1830s might be like and then read a text and watched a state service commission CD rom . From this we got a whole lots of key concepts and I listed artefacts that could potentially relate to those concepts. For example, the 1830s were a time of European lawlessness and an associated artefact could be a broken piece of glass. Students had to choose an artefact, make or find it, and write a 60 word summary linking the artefact to the big idea. We then put them all on the table as an exhibition and using the historical thinking rubric of evidence, agency and perspective, critiqued what this exhibit on the 1830s told us about New Zealand in this time and what it didn’t tell us. My knowledge of this era is woeful but know I want to learn everything I can about this decade. There is heaps of really critical important information about why the Treaty was signed that they aren’t going to get from me this year, for example we should look at the 1831 Chief’s petitions, the relationship between the 1835 Declaration of Independence and the Treaty and Normanby’s letter to Busby. They have the basics though about life in the 1830s and why the Treaty was signed. It goes to show how important teacher’s knowledge is though for it to be done really well. After that we will look at what was actually in the treaty and then they are doing a mini inquiry in the library where they need to report on an event between 1840 and 2010 where the Treaty of Waitangi was either honoured or breached.
And then it is into the present day stuff and my research question starts to come into play. I have online discussion forums, anecdotal comments, their history journals and their assessments which I can use for evidence. I have also developed a series of perspective cards on the treaty with their key assumptions. For example:
Biculturalism
–The Treaty is New Zealand’s founding document.
–The Treaty symbolizes a unique relationship between Maori and the Crown (the Government) and is what gives Pakeha the historical right to be on this land.
–The Treaty should serve as the basis of an ongoing partnership with rights and responsibilities for both parties.
Social Justice perspectives
–Educational, health, employment and crime statistics show that Maori are more vulnerable than Pakeha, a clear breach of the Treaty of Waitangi, especially article three.
–New Zealand society today is inherently unequal between Maori and Pakeha due to the massive confiscation and alienation of Maori from their land.
–Historical understanding of New Zealand’s colonial history is absolutely critical to solving today’s problems.
Treaty as contract
–Maori ceded their sovereignty (political authority) with the signing of the Treaty.
–Injustices towards Maori have occurred in New Zealand and need to be researched and addressed through the Waitangi Tribunal as soon as possible.
–The Treaty should have no role as a “Partnership” between Maori and Pakeha.
Treaty as irrelevant
–What happened 170 years ago cannot possibly have any real bearing on the present.
–The treaty has no legal standing, it is a “legal nullity”.
–The “Treaty Industry” is bleeding the New Zealand economy and leading to separatism between the races.
– Just like William Hobson said “he iwi tahi tatou”, we are all one people and there should be one and the same system for all.
These are not perfect and I also want to look at the “Beyond Biculturalism” arguments and multiculturalism as a perspective on the role of the Treaty today. We will use this to discuss the views of people like Don Brash and the Orewa speech and responses to it, Robert Consadine’s 2006 Waitangi Day speech and Te Ati Awa beliefs about the role of the Treaty. Long term it would be great to have a “perspectives card” that was developed with Te Ati Awa. In the meantime, for this we will use what secondary sources I can find, especially the land claim on their experiences of colonisation in Wellington so more history will be required here.
So that has set the scene – further posts will relate directly to the research question unless anything particularly amazing takes place and needs commenting on.
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