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Called ‘Aotearoa NZ Histories’, the draft curriculum proposed to teach children about New Zealand history certainly looks as “unbalanced” as National’s Education spokesman Paul Goldsmith claims. A casual look through the focus points of this draft reinforces what a dangerous snake pit the humanities and applied sciences have become. However, if there was a golden age of objectivity in teaching these subjects before, it predates my school experiences.
In third form Business Studies in 1996, I suffered long-term brain damage resulting from one teacher saying he wouldn’t vote for National because their tax cuts package will result in less funding for public education, increasing the cost for parents. He usually wore smart suits each day and my impressionable mind accepted this opinion as gospel. In fourth form Social Studies in 1997, the teacher claimed that 90% of all wealth is owned by 10% of people in the world and the United States only dropped nuclear weapons on Japan to test them, as the war was already won.
The public education system can never be entrusted with teaching children civics, hence my suspicion of this new draft curriculum: Aotearoa NZ Histories. It shortens New Zealand from two words, to two letters, yet writes ‘Aotearoa’ in its entirety. I’m not saying that it should be called A NZ Histories because it sounds like a very niche economic curriculum. I don’t even have a particular problem with Aotearoa being in the title. Call yourself whatever compensates for your low self-esteem: New Zealander, Aotearoean, Kiwi. I identify as Stephen Berry. However, not calling it Aotearoa New Zealand Histories indicates a bit of imbalance.
The Ministry of Education says, “Through the Education Conversation | Korero Matauranga and wider public discussion New Zealanders have made it clear that the current gaps in knowledge of our histories are not okay. We have heard a strong call for Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories to be taught to all students and akonga at all schools. We want the next generation to be able to apply lessons from the past as they shape our future.
Given the calls from New Zealanders for this to change, we will be updating the National Curriculum, to make explicit the expectation that Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories will be part of the local curriculum and marau a kura in every school and kura.”
Here’s a little lesson in why identitarianism and collectivism are dishonest and dangerous to the existence of a free liberal western society, community, culture. It’s a bit of an extreme, pedantic point to make but the principle applies to every scenario of involuntary collectivism. If you’re a New Zealander, you called for this curriculum change, whether you actually did or not. No calls from Stephen Berry according to the Ministry of Education.
Announcing the draft curriculum proposal, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said, “In September 2019 we announced Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories would be taught in all schools and kura from 2022. This was a response to the growing calls from New Zealanders to know more about our own history and identity.” Stephen Berry, ignoring accusations of insanity following repeated referral to himself in the third person, is a bit foggy on his history from 1983-1988 but rather than add Stephen JB Histories to the New Zealand education curriculum, consults his mother and the Plunket book everyone got in the 1980s. His identity is individualistic, not arbitrarily collectivised by the political borders his mother gave birth inside; therefore he is fully informed of his own identity every waking moment. This is immeasurably more efficient and balanced than a 16-year program run by the Ministry of Education to indoctrinate hundreds of thousands of impressionable children into believing their identity is whatever bureaucratic echelons determine fashionable for those collectivised on their own behalf.
The draft curriculum is centred around three “big ideas.”
Maori history is the foundational and continuous history of Aotearoa New Zealand
That is a nonsensical statement which can be pulled apart from several angles. Maori are believed to have arrived as early as the 900s and as late as the 1300s. Up to 35% of Maori history cannot be concretely determined to be the foundation of the history of Aotearoa New Zealand. Maori oral history indicates the first explorer to reach New Zealand was Kupe approximately 1000 years ago. The most generous estimates of Maori colonisation and habitation of New Zealand are 1120 years. On a planet estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, Maori history makes up just 0.002% of that period.
What about the Moriori? Racist!
Colonisation and its consequences have been central to our history for the past 200 years and continue to influence all aspects of Aotearoa NZ society.
The sentence itself is self-evidently true; however, it will inevitably be twisted into an excuse for those individuals with some Maori ancestry who are better at formulating excuses for personal failure than they are at taking responsibility for their own success. That character flaw is not exclusive to one race. Socialism, communism and fascism all depend upon providing people living tough lives with someone else to blame.
Life is harder for some people than others but we all have it very tough at some times. It often isn’t necessarily my fault that life is hard but if I choose to blame others, expect solutions from others or demand the government do something about it, then it is my fault that life doesn’t get any better.
Another self-evidently true statement could be that isolation and its consequences were central to the history of Aboriginal Australians for the 39,500 years prior to white settlement.
Aotearoa NZ’s history has been shaped by the exercise and effects of power.
With the exception of natural disasters, the history of the entire human race has been shaped by the exercise and effects of power. Humans and animals inevitably form hierarchies regardless of the situation. Hierarchies of power exist in totalitarian regimes. Hierarchies of skill exist in the sport of cricket. Hierarchies of competence exist in workplaces.
Tyrannical hierarchies are inherently corrupt, unstable and deserving of our derision. However hierarchies of skill and competence provide economic and negotiating ‘power’ commiserate to the ability of the individual and the demand from others for those abilities. Surely nobody would begrudge the most competent being rewarded more than the less competent?
Actually, they would, and the statement ‘Aotearoa NZ’s history has been shaped by the exercise and effects of power’ is the language of post-modern neo-Marxism, the sleight of hand which transformed the failure of traditional Marxism’s class-warfare ideology into the new warfare of the identitariat.
If you’re left in any doubt about the dangers, the Ministry of Education has helpfully explained the last idea as: “Individuals, groups and organisations have exerted and contested power in ways that have improved the lives of people and communities, and in ways that have led to damage, injustice and conflict.
“Ideologies and beliefs, from within and beyond Aotearoa NZ, underpin expressions of power and resistance and insisting on rights and identity.”
Again this seems obvious and innocuous; however, it is the same language that underlies radical postmodernist views of identitarian segregation, patriarchal hierarchy and victim vs oppressor groups. Skills that students are expected to be able to demonstrate under the curriculum include “I can make an informed ethical judgement about people’s actions in the past” in Years 9 and 10.
Paul Goldsmith has correctly identified “the themes are mainly about identity and identity politics.”
I strongly recommend making a submission on this draft curriculum before the May 31 2021 deadline here. You can make a submission in English, Te Reo Maori, Te Reo Maori Kuki ‘Airani, Gagana Samoa, Lea Faka Tonga, Te Gagana Tokelau, Vagahau Niue, Hindi, Korean or simplified Chinese. Whether that is an indictment on the delivery of ‘core subjects’ in the public education system is for you to decide.
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