MAOR108: Mana and Power 6

Core claim examined: “Schooling in Aotearoa is an inherent public good.”
- The word inherent signals an absolutist, non-nuanced stance.
- Lecturer warns against unequivocal statements; urges analytical caution.
Schooling is not a benign, neutral service; it is a political institution in which people decide:
- What knowledge is valued (curriculum).
- How it will be taught (pedagogy).
- How it will be measured (assessment).

Recent government decision to abandon $\text{NCEA}$ and revert to “traditional” test-heavy systems.
Origins of current assessment debates:
- Global testing regimes: $\text{PISA}$ , $\text{TIMSS}$ , $\text{PIRLS}$ collected large-scale data on Maths, English, Science.
- $\text{NCEA}$ was originally a reaction against rigid exam models; attempted to broaden evidence of learning.
Lecturer:
- Personally “not a fan of tests” because they attempt to ascribe value to thought.
- Prefers valuing things “we ourselves connect with.”

Pierre Bourdieu: schools are sites of symbolic violence.
- Capital concept: students arrive with differing social / cultural capital (language, values, habits).
- When school rewards one form while de-valuing others, students experience symbolic violence.
Therefore curriculum decisions = sociopolitical struggle over knowledge.

$1816$ – first European-style school for Māori (Thomas Kendall, Bay of Islands).
Early $1800\text{s}$ : Māori chiefs invite missionaries; schooling viewed positively as gateway to literacy & trade.
Orthography for te reo Māori still fluid; literacy often bilingual.
Governor Sir George Grey:
- $1847$ Education Ordinance Act: state funding aimed to assimilate Māori children, remove them from “demoralising” village influence.
- Grey studies Māori language & tikanga, publishes “Polynesian Mythology” (authorship contested).
Native Schools Act $1867$ :
- Nondenominational state-controlled schools; communities had to build & partly fund.
- Native School Code: teach literacy in Māori as a bridge to English; gradually shifted to English-only.
Language Suppression:
- $1905$ – Inspector formally bans te reo Māori in playgrounds.
- Stats (Bruce Biggs): $\approx 90\%$ of Māori children spoke te reo in $1900$ → < $5\%$ by $1975$ .
- Corporal punishment for speaking Māori well-documented (Waitangi Tribunal Wai $11$ evidence).
Curricular Discrimination:
- $1931$ T. B. Strong: Schools should train Māori boys as “good farmers” & girls as “good farmers’ wives.”
- Clear vocational/academic divide; school–work link assumed natural.

Examples: Te Aute, St Stephen’s, St Joseph’s, Hato Paora, Turakina, Queen Victoria, Waimārama.
Te Aute anomaly: visionary teacher offered advanced syllabus to Āpirana Ngata, Maui Pōmare, Peter Buck → produced national leaders.

$1960$ s – Harold Lavigne & C. Laugrove: When background factors equalised, Māori & Pākehā achieved similarly → gaps are social, not innate.
$1990$ s phrase “long tail of under-achievement”: international tests showed NZ overall high, but Māori & Pasifika persistently low.
Systemic pattern, not an aberration → indicates lack of political will to change.

Early $2000$ s: influx of programmes framed as culturally responsive.
- Core flaw: they changed pedagogy to use students’ culture but left dominant curriculum intact.
- Lecturer: real struggle over knowledge, not merely style.

Subtractive bilingualism myth: learning $L<em>2$ weakens $L</em>1$ .
Additive bilingualism reality: develops meta-linguistic awareness; eases further language acquisition.
Anglo (EN) settler states are linguistic outliers: largely monolingual compared to multilingual world norms.

$1980$ s Kōhanga Reo → $1990$ s Kura Kaupapa Māori / Wharekura expansion.
Majority impact: revitalised te reo, reshaped national discourse.
Limitation: still only ~ $10\%$ of Māori children; $\approx 90\%$ remain in mainstream where disparities persist.
Some kura add third languages (e.g., Spanish in Rotorua) → model of plurilingualism.

Gilbert – “Catching the Knowledge Wave”:
- Calls to rethink knowledge itself; dissolve traditional school structures; create community-embedded “learning nodes.”
Alternative functions: beyond labour-market prep → civic responsibility, creativity, social cohesion.
Michel Foucault perspective: schools historically double as child-minding enabling adult labour participation.
Question raised: Does early streaming deny late-bloomers access to sciences & advanced study?
Concept of “pluriversal” (vs universal) education: embrace multiple epistemologies & languages; reject one-size-fits-all.

Pierre Bourdieu – symbolic violence, capital.
Linda Tuhiwai Smith – schooling as site of struggle.
Bernard Spolsky & Joshua Fishman – language planning, Hebrew & Māori revival links.
Sir George Grey – Education Ordinance Act, ethnography.
Bruce Biggs – linguist, te reo decline stats.
T. B. Strong – $1931$ policy advocating agricultural training.
Āpirana Ngata, Maui Pōmare, Peter Buck – Te Aute alumni.
Archer, Oppenheim, Carter, St George – satirical “Māori Otis Test” article critiquing biased IQ tests.
Jane Gilbert – “Catching the Knowledge Wave.”

Equity vs assimilation: historical policies show assimilationist intent disguised as benevolence.
Corporal punishment & language bans = direct human rights issues.
Ongoing assessment debates raise ethical question: Do tests serve learning or merely sorting?
Multilingual, pluriversal approaches align with global realities and Treaty principles.

Te reo use: $1900:\;90\%$ fluent → 1975:<5\%.
Māori in mainstream schooling today: $\approx 90\%$ .
Bilingual benefit: research shows additive effects on cognitive flexibility (qualitative but widely supported).

In what ways do curriculum, pedagogy, and language each act as arenas of political struggle?
How does Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence illuminate persistent achievement gaps?
Evaluate the strengths & weaknesses of $\text{NCEA}$ vs traditional exams in light of equity & knowledge diversity.
Could Gilbert’s community-node model realistically replace conventional schools? What barriers exist?
How might additive bilingualism and pluriversality reshape NZ’s future workforce and civic life?