A critical guide to Māori and Pākehā histories of Aotearoa

Are your educational centre and staff still struggling to effectively meet goals in any of the following?

1. The New Zealand Curriculum Treaty of Waitangi Principle (MoE, 2017d).
2. Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (MoE, 2017b).
3. Te Whāriki (MoE, 2017c)
4. Te Aho Matua (Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori o Aotearoa, 1994)
5. Te Marautanga o Te Aho Matua (Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori o Aotearoa, 2015)
6. Ka Hikitia (MoE, 2008, 2013).
7. The Māori Language Curriculum for Mainstream schools (MoE, 2011).
8. Tātaiako (Teaching Council of Aotearoa, 2011).
9.  Aotearoa New Zealand Histories Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2022).
10.  The Māori Histories Curriculum (Tamua, 2014).
11. Hautū (NZSTA, 2015).
12. Our code, our standards (Teaching Council of Aotearoa, 2017).

This CPR is now in just over 300 schools and centres.

It can go a long way towards practically enacting these policies more effectively. Or are you feeling that you are not teaching accurate Māori & Pākehā stories of our nation to your students effectively? This CPR is designed to support the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) goals that require all New Zealanders to be knowledgeable about Māori and Pākehā, to understand the history of their relationship and enact the Treaty of Waitangi Principle (MoE, 2017d) and Te Whāriki (2017b). The resource meets the NZC Social Science Achievement Objectives (MoE, 2017c). The CPR can be utilised successfully by all mainstream and Māori medium pathways.

The CPR has been written in response to research findings that many teachers have outdated knowledge about Māori and Pākehā histories. They have a lack of critical history, Treaty and Māori knowledge. Teachers tend to steer clear of  'controversial' content and have a belief that younger students cannot manage this content (Consedine & Consedine, 2013; Hanly, 2007; Harrison, 1998; Kunowski, 2005; Sheehan, 2010, 2012; Simon, 1992, 2000).

The CPR is based in multicultural history and social studies pedagogies. It attempts to be more directive, comprehensive and critical. It was originally aimed at a primary school level but has been adapted so it is Professional Development for educational centres across all levels. The historical narrative is based on authoritative historical texts with an ethical commitment to properly represent that authoritative historical work.

The CPR is written in a knowledge from practice that people will not see changes in any inequities in our education systems or meet policy potential until we address the current teacher lack of the knowledge mentioned above, present new discourses to talk about these and give educators some options about how to teach this new information. This CPR is not a 'happy ever after' or solution to Māori and Pākehā issues. The CPR is an offering to schools and teachers to more effectively meet the NZC goals and other relevant policies.

It is designed to professionally develop educators, through exposure to critical content and pedagogy, who then design and teach their own and updated work for students. It is entirely possible to start learning, teaching and having informed conversations in classrooms about things we have not to date raised. All students and educators can know these stories to honour the intentions and visions of Te Tiriti o Waitangi agreements and the possiblities of a future based in bilateral aims of those (Huygens, 2007), as well as being informed active citizens in their nation.

The CPR includes two worldviews, two knowledge bases: a tangata whenua view, and a Pākehā settler group view. It draws on all Treaty texts, a local and global context, histories of colonisation and an honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi discourse (Huygens, 2007).

This CPR overview covers six topics that schools can use in a range of models of delivery. The six topics each have one Unit booklet which is divided into historical sections, with matching social science achievement objectives, a rationale, learning outcomes, core information, essential ideas, junior and senior activity possibilities, images, optional cross-curriculum term overviews, websites and references.

After reading the booklets for Professional Development, educators can select from the resource and create their own unit plans, lesson plans, and assessments for deliver as is an educator's craft. The resource can be integrated across all primary curriculum areas. Centres can collate their teacher planning and resources. A staff member needs to be a caretaker of the CPR for the centre to ensure direction, copy only for in school use.

This CPR has been designed and written by a Pākehā senior primary school teacher who has twenty five years' experience in Mainstream and Māori mediums teaching this content and a similarly experienced pathway teacher editor. This CPR will assist beginning to experienced educators of all ethnicities to teach these histories more effectively to our students of all ethnicities.

The resource uses the generalised terms of 'Māori' and 'Pākehā', but it is important to remember that these terms tend to 'homogenise' and over-simplify these groups, that is, to imply that they are entirely different from each other, and those within the groups are mostly similar. Neither of these statements is correct. Māori and Pākehā groups are made up of complex individuals, groups and cultures and these complexities need to be included in teachings.