Tom Newnham: Blank spot in our lessons leads to the talkback nonsense on Maori

COMMENT

It seems that most New Zealanders, for the time being at least, agree with Don Brash over the Treaty of Waitangi and the place of Maori in this country.

Clearly the rest of us must take stock as to why this should be so.

I have belatedly realised that I must take a share of the responsibility. I am a retired high school teacher of social studies, and for several decades was a head of department.

Each year, that involved deciding what the school's social studies syllabuses would include, and allocating teachers to classes.

Social studies can encompass the entire world, all its history and geography - so there is enormous scope to choose from.

In the late 1960s, there was a realisation that virtually no attention was paid to Asia in our curriculum. The Education Department took bold measures, appointing an inspector, Margaret Roberts, to organise refresher courses in Asian studies up and down the country.

Because I had Asian experience, I was co-opted and gave lectures and helped write classroom materials.

It must be said the drive was successful, and Asia assumed its proper place in our school curriculums.

The response to Dr Brash has made me realise that most of our population are ignorant about New Zealand history. Even if they went to school in this country, they learned very little from their school history or social studies classes.

Only a small minority take history as a separate subject. Social Studies is the compulsory subject for the entire student population up to Form 4, but little New Zealand history is included in those courses. How has this come about?

The present high school curriculum dates from 1944 as a result of the Thomas Report, which was concerned mainly with the introduction of universal free secondary education.

Before that time, free secondary schooling was available only to students who had passed certain examinations, such as Proficiency at Form 2 and Public Service Entrance at Form 4.

A feature of the Thomas Report was the inclusion of the new subject, social studies, to be studied up to Form 4 by every pupil.

It was intended to ensure the whole population had a comprehensive grounding for citizenship, and was an amalgam of history, geography and civics, which had previously been taught as separate subjects but only to selected classes.

Only a minority of high school classes ever studied history, and very few gave New Zealand history more than a passing look. The Adventure of Man by Happold was a popular textbook.

It was left to each individual school to frame its own social studies curriculum, draft the class syllabuses and allocate resources to classes.

The teachers inevitably taught to their strengths, the most important of which was their own academic background. Only occasionally was this in history, and even more rarely in New Zealand history.

But the past 30 years have brought quite surprising and enlightened policies from Labour and National governments.

Since the time of the the Kirk Government, the Waitangi Tribunal has been authorised to investigate and make recommendations regarding Treaty of Waitangi claims as far back as 1840.

Successive governments have largely accepted the recommendations and made settlements accordingly. The efforts of Sir James Bolger and Sir Douglas Graham were particularly notable.

Particularly memorable was a settlement made with Tainui in the mid-1990s. It was accompanied by full-page apologies in all major newspapers for 19th century confiscations and other wrongs.

Clearly the governments have run ahead of the mass of the people.

Those educated in New Zealand schools have been poorly served as regards understanding the history of their own land, and the substantial proportion of the population who are immigrants know virtually nothing of it.

They see plenty of newspaper headlines about handouts to Maori and nonsense on talkback radio, which all exacerbates the present dangerous situation.

It is something the Minister of Education must take in hand.

The Education Department succeeded with Asian studies. It must now do the same job for New Zealand history in our schools.

* Tom Newnham is a longtime activist, writer and former teacher, and secretary of the Citizens Association for Racial Equality.