Elliot points out trouble brewing over whether the new NZ education curriculum should include references to the Treaty of Waitangi.
The part that popped out for me was the Cultural Heritage Principle:
“Students who identify as Maori [should] have the opportunity to experience a curriculum that reflects and values te ao Maori [the Maori world].”
Well, shouldn’t an Indian student have the opportunity to ‘experience a curriculum’ that reflect and values the Hindu or Muslim world? Perhaps I, as an atheist, should have had the opportunity to experience a curriculum that ‘reflects and values’ the materialist worldview? Why does ‘te ao Maori’ get special treatment?
Differing ideas about what worldviews and values state schools should be teaching is just one of many reasons why Libertarianz supports privatising all schools by distributing shares to parents and letting them choose what values they want their kids to be taught.
Another part of the curriculum which annoyed me was:
“Inclusion of Maori concepts and content through all learning areas at all levels.”
How will Maori concepts be especially useful in, for instance, 7th form Chemistry? Or 5th Form Information Processing? Of course they could be used as examples or illustrations, but not as directly relevant concepts to most subjects.
Phil points out a recent Christchurch court case where the defendant says he was suffering from mata Maori, or ‘Maori sickness’ bought on by breaking tapu. What message does this send other than “He committed this crime because he’s Maori”?
Maori language should spoken by whoever wishes to speak it. New Zealanders should be free to attend Maori-speaking schools and universities. Who better to defend, promote and develop Maori culture than Maori themselves? But it seems that Maori culture is now simply a politically correct curriculum addition – a little tick-box on a Ministry of Education form.
What does it say about New Zealand’s perception of Maori culture when it has to be specifically included in every government ceremony, departmental letterhead or policy document? Perhaps intellectuals and Maori activists think Maori culture is too weak to survive by itself.
[...] street signs makes Maori culture into a humourless bureaucratic exercise. It becomes another box to tick on a government form, and that’s just sad. Perhaps leftist intellectuals like Marty G [...]
Left by Pacific Empire » Blog Archive » David Garrett: Racist? on July 30th, 2009