Herbison Invited Lecture, NZARE Annual Conference 2017
E āku iti, e āku rahi, tēnā koutou katoa. Kei te rere ngā mihi maioha ki a koutou, arā ki a tātou e toitū ana mō tō tātou reo rangatira, tikanga, mātauranga me ngā āhuatanga katoa o tēnei whenua. I tēnei rā kua whakaingoatia e te kāwanatanga i tētahi rōpū tohutohu mō ngā marautanga. Kei roto i taua rōpū ko ētahi tangata kaha ki te whakaiti i ngā āhuatanga Māori. Nā reira kōianei ētahi whakaaro i tuhia e au i te tau 2017 e pā ana ngā mahi whakaparahako ki tō tātou mātauranga Māori. Today the Minister of Education announced her “First steps of 100-day plan for education: removing distractions and teaching the basics brilliantly” advisory committee that include at least one member that has been actively working against Māori aspirations in education for many years – Pākehā academic Elizabeth Rata. It also includes Māori academic Melissa Derby who has been a voice for the right wing Free Speech coalition (for more comment on that refer to https://kaupapamaori.com/2018/08/12/444/), Given this development I am sharing this kōrero given as the Invited Herbison lecture in 2017 as a reminder that we must continue to be vigilant in regards to our educational aspirations. It is clear that this coalition in its broader educational policy frame is positioning mātauranga Māori as part of what they consider to be a ‘distraction’. The published article appears in the New Zealand Journal of Education. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40841-019-00130-7
Mihi
E ngā mana, E ngā reo, E ngā karangatanga maha, Tēnā koutou,
E tika ana me mihi ki te arikinui a Kingi Tuheitia e noho ana i runga i te ahurewa tapu o ōna Mātua Tūpuna, me Te Mākau Ariki me o rāua tamariki mokopuna, puta noa ki te Whare Ariki nui tonu, Pai marire ki a rātou. He mihi mutunga kore tēnei ki te hau kainga ko Ngāti Wairere, Ko Ngāti Haua, Nā koutou mātou e manaaki, i runga i o koutou whenua, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.
Ka huri ngā mihi ki o tātou tini mate o te motu. Ki ngā mate o te wiki, o te mārama o te tau huri noa i te motu, haere ngā mate, haere, haere, haere atu rā. Ka hoki mai ki a tatou te hunga ora, He mihi maioha ki ngā manuhiri kua tae tawhiti mai, me ō koutou manawanui ki te kaupapa nei, tēnā koutou.
Kei te mihi matakuikui tēnei ki a koutou o te kura o Kia Aroha kua tae mai kia whakapūaki i o koutou mahi rangahau, nā mātou te honore kua tae mai koutou ki tēnei huihuinga, ko koutou ngā rangatira o apōpō, Ki ngā kaihautu o tēnei waka rangahau, ko te kaunihera o NZARE me ngā kaiawhakahaere o te hui nei. Tēnā koutou. Nā koutou tēnei honore i homai ki ahau e tēnei rangi kia tū hei kaikōrero mō te kauhau Herbison, tēnā koutou Ki a tātou ngā hunga rangahau mātauranga, e hui tahi nei i runga i te karanga o ngā kupu o Te Puea Herangi, ngā kaimahi o ngā kura me ngā wānanga o te motu, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.
Introduction
At the opening of the first keynote session Margie and Bronwyn spoke about the tongikura that is the theme for this conference. It is from one of the great leaders of Waikato Tainui, Te Puea Herangi. The overarching theme of this conference ‘From Promise to Praxis’ is a philosophy that Te Puea embodied. Te Puea left us with many tongikura (prophetic saying) as inspirational, motivational and instructional sayings. One such tongikura reminds us of the power of collective action,
Mehemea ka moemoeā ahau, ko ahau anake
Mehemea ka moemoeā tātou, ka taea e tātou,
If I dream alone only I benefit
If we all dream together we can all succeed together
Te Puea is known for her incredible service and guidance to the iwi and the Kingitanga more broadly. Te Puea knew the power of collective dreams and visions. She worked and strategised for the benefit of the Waikato Tainui and the Kingitanga. In this tongi she provides many learnings and calls on us all to aspire to a world within which all can dream for, and achieve, success. For Māori and Indigenous Peoples dreaming is important. Dreaming is life. Dreaming is knowledge. Dreaming is vision. Dreaming is a learning space. It is an ancestral teaching place. It is a spiritual and cultural based learning centre. Dreaming is methodology. Dreaming is pedagogy.
Secondly, it reminds us of the collective reciprocal relationships within which we exist. It is a ‘kōrero whakatūpato’, a cautionary reminder that as individuals we may dream, but if we dream alone the benefits will be limited. In today’s educational research context that can be translated to mean many things. It can be a reminder that individualism is encapsulated in a schooling system driven by national standards, markets and privatisation, systemic racism and hierarchies of knowledge, languages and achievement that privilege some individuals over others. As scholars and researchers, these cautions act as a reminder of what Graham Hingangaroa Smith (2015) calls the ‘privatised academic’ stating it “is my criticism is that too many Māori and Indigenous academics are self-serving, engaged simply for their own personal outcomes. Being a Māori academic is more than just a whakapapa claim” (p.115). As such it serves as a cautionary reminder that in our role as academics we need to be wary of the neoliberal agenda that treats education as a private individual commodity, which produces a privatised individual that seeks only self-gain and does not contribute to the wider agenda of collective wellbeing.
Thirdly, this saying brings forward the strength of the collective. Te Puea highlights our collective responsibilities, our collective obligations, our collective accountabilities and our collective power of working for a common cause, the wellbeing of the people. So, when I think about the idea of ‘Partnerships from Promise to Praxis’ within a context of Māori Education and educational research in Aotearoa, there are a number of key question that are foremost in my mind.
He aha te moemoeā?
What is the dream?
Ko wai tātou e moemoeā ana?
Who are the ‘we’ that are dreaming?
Who are ‘we’ in the Partnerships?
What is the Promise?
Who defines the Promise?
And who benefits from taking it to Praxis?
Te Puea like many great leaders in our history, was as much about praxis as she was about dreaming. As Margie and Bronwyn emphasised in the opening of the conference, Te Puea has also left us the saying ‘Mahia te mahi’ ‘Do the work’ but the full tongikura ‘Mahia te mahi, hei painga mō te iwi. Do the work for the wellbeing of the people’, takes us even further than just doing the work, it tells us why we have a responsibility to do it. Our energies and commitment is for the wellbeing of the collective, of the people. That is why we do the work and is who we are accountable and responsible to.
Education and the Denial of Māori History
The Pākehā Education system in this country, has never been based within an aspiration for the wellbeing for Māori. We just need to look at the origins of this education system to know that. We have many educational historians that have provided us with research evidence that the education system in this country has for 200 years been grounded upon visions, dreams and promises that have been imported from elsewhere and have been imposed on the dreams and aspirations of our people (Barrington & Beaglehole, 1974; G.H. Smith, 1986, 1997; L.T. Smith, 1986, 1999 & Smith, 2001; Simons, 1990, 1994, 1998). The history of schooling in Aotearoa is one that many in this room know, however it remains a history that many within this country continue to ignore and are supported in that by an education system that fails to teach the history of this land in any depth or with any commitment to meaningful relationships with whānau, hapū and iwi.
The history of schooling in Aotearoa is one that shows a system that was established as a tool of colonization, as a mechanism of assimilation, as a process of indoctrination in colonial Christian belief systems as an instrument of domestication of Indigenous Peoples globally. Where colonial schooling was established in 1816 the foundations were set for the imposition of colonial systems well before the first Mission school opened its doors in Rangihoua in the north (Binney, 1968; Pihama, 1993; Simons. 1990; Simons & Smith, 2001; Jenkins, 2000). This first school began the infiltration of colonial thinking, attitudes, practices, knowledge and systems into Māori communities. Assimilation was not limited to a missionary intent but was part of wider native policy developed by colonial settler governments (G.H. Smith & L.T. Smith 1990). Colonial schooling was also a vehicle for a wider agenda of the dispossession of Indigenous nations from our lands. It supported a process that was first and foremost focused on the Indigenous lands and resources that imperialism sought to possess.
The mechanisms through which schooling contributed to the broader colonial agenda differed across Indigenous nations. Those mechanisms ranged from the facilitation of the civilising intent on Turtle Island and on Aboriginal lands through the forced removal of Native and Aboriginal children from their nations and where generations of Indigenous children were forcibly removed and placed into Residential Boarding schools or Missions that operated in the same way that prisons and detention centres, which hold a disproportionate number of Indigenous peoples, continue to operate today.
Early engagement by Māori with Mission Schools and the colonial administration was undertaken through a belief that our people could benefit from the inclusion of new technologies (Simon, 1990). Interest in schools was not merely located in a desire to read and write but also to gain access and knowledge of key instruments that our people believed would support the overall interests of the hapū and iwi. Hapū and iwi, operating from a position that schooling would add to rather than replace Māori knowledge, language and culture, engaged in what may be considered an early form of educational partnership with the State. In 1816 our ancestors were the majority. In 1816 we held most of our lands. In 1816 we were fluent in te reo and tikanga a hapū, a iwi. In 1816 those things were not under threat. As such the early engagements were from a place of strength in terms of rangatiratanga, population, with embedded and intergenerational cultural knowledge and practices. It is well documented that the speed at which our people gained expertise in the written word was attributed to literacy being conducted in te reo Māori (Tomlins-Jahnke & Warren, 2011). However, any belief in partnership was soon lost as disease, population decimation and a hunger for lands increased exponentially. By 1840 of many of our people considered that Te Tiriti o Waitangi was a necessary covenant that would be enabling of the formation of new future relationships in a context where significant changes were happening. This, however, was not the underlying intention of missionaries or the colonial government. This was also the case across Indigenous territories globally. Schooling as a formalised colonial structure serves as a vehicle for wider imperialist ideological objectives. This is highlighted in the civilising and christianising intention of Mission or Native schooling systems in tribal communities operating, that Linda Smith (1986) refered to as ‘trojan horses’.
Last year was the 200th anniversary of the establishment of colonial schooling systems here on Māori land, and yet it went virtually unrecognized. Like most historical events in Aotearoa that are challenged in terms of the colonial intention or agenda there is an ongoing silence. Why is this important? Because for 200 years we have yet to see the history of this land privileged within state schooling systems. The recent re-emergence of the debate over the teaching of Māori history in schools is a clear example of the continued lack of commitment to facing the impact of the colonial land wars, the denial of te reo, tikanga and mātauranga Māori in this country.
In 2014, a group of students from near here, led by Leah Bell and Waimarama Anderson, at Ōtorohanga College began a petition calling for statutory recognition of the land wars and the need for a great understanding of our history. In talking about their intent in creating the petition Leah Bell (Price, 2016) stated;
“We are fighting for justice, it is not blatant in the struggle, but there has been so much grief and pain buried in the unspoken history of our land wars, within our beautiful country.”
This was supported by the Māori Select Committee (2016) who noted,
While we received evidence from the Ministry of Education about the scope for including local historical content, we found little evidence that this was being actively pursued at a local school level. We recommend that the Education and Science Select Committee better promote a way in which curriculum content provides for the teaching of local Māori history in relation to the New Zealand Wars. (p.8)
Joanna Kidman (2017) provided some insights in the silences that are a part of denying the historical information about this country within Aotearoa and highlighted the need for these stories to be heard and taught within our schooling system noting “Difficult as they are to hear, the stories need to be told”. Moana Jackson (2016) also noted that the raising of this issue by Leah Bell and Waimarama Anderson provided an opportunity for a moment of truth that has not been grasped by the government. This highlights that we continue to live, in this country, with a selective memory that denies the historical events that underpin Māori experiences and lived realities today. We continue to experience that denial through the rationale that leaves the teaching of our histories to the choice of schools and teachers. This is a key reason given by the National-led government over the past few years for not making the history of the land wars compulsory in the curriculum. The Ministry of Education response highlighted that their refusal to include the colonial land wars in the curriculum is grounded upon a view that such a change would “erode the autonomy” of schools to determine their own specific content (Price, 2016). The problem with notions of school choice of what is taught as Huia Tomlins-Jahnke (2008) highlights that Māori language and culture are maintained as the add-ons within the curriculum.
Most Māori children in Aotearoa New Zealand are located in state mainstream schools where for many there is a disjuncture between the culture of the home and that of the school, between the lived realities of family and the school habitus. The term mainstream is a euphemism or code word for schools that privilege a western/Eurocentric education tradition. Mainstream schools in Aotearoa/New Zealand are controlled by those who have political, economic and cultural power and where western values, knowledge, culture and the English language are the central focus of the school habitus. Schools incorporate aspects of Māori language and culture as additions rather than core components of the curriculum or school knowledge. (Tomlins-Jahnke, 2008, p. 6)
While the Ministry is unwilling to make changes to curriculum to include discussion of this history there remains compulsion in other areas of the curriculum. As such the refusal again raises issues of the failure of the Crown to operate in ways that would be expected from a Treaty partner. A key process of colonialism is the undermining and fragmentation of existing Indigenous ways of knowing. Such an analysis highlights the insidious ways in which colonisation and capitalism, more recently in the form of neoliberalism, collude to marginalise Māori knowledge within conventional schooling systems. In this context the neoliberal concept of ‘individual’ school choice provides the rationale for the denial of the inclusion of a particular form of Māori knowledge.
Charter Schools: The Illusion of Partnership
The education system within Aotearoa continues to be grounded upon flawed assumptions that schooling will ‘prepare’ Māori children to ‘fit’ within the existing dominant system. The system continues to operate in breach of its Treaty obligations. Over the past 40 years since the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal we have been actively engaged in the Treaty claims and negotiation processes. We have also seen hapū, iwi and Māori communities working to inform meaningful partnerships with the Crown in the establishment of schooling options for our people. The establishment of Kura Kaupapa Māori was a struggle to assert educational options that would validate and legitimate te reo, tikanga and mātauranga Māori (Smith, 1997). It was and continues to be a struggle for Māori. Education continues today to be a site of struggle where there is constant contestation over both the structures and the cultural framework of schooling. As with the issue of the denial of teaching Māori history within schools we also see the ongoing debate surrounding making Māori language compulsory within schools. The Ministry of Education, as the Crown agent in the Treaty relationships is adamant in its position against compulsory teaching of Māori language and the history of the land wars (Price, 2016). The marginalisation of Māori knowledge and language in state schooling is a clear indication of white-streaming (Milne, 2013) and is yet another contemporary breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. After significant Tribunal reports related to the marginalization of Te Reo Māori (Waitangi Tribunal, 1986, 2010) it is disturbing that such a position continues to be taken by the Crown’s agent, the Ministry of Education. The depth and power of institutional racism and the illusion of Treaty partnership is another act of oppression perpetuated against our people with every public refusal made by the Ministry of Education.
So rather than provide meaningful engagement and restructuring of a fundamentally flawed colonial education system Māori are expected to accept only what the Crown puts on the table. As we are well aware, the key Crown articulation of partnership presented by the previous National Party was that of Charter Schools. The system of Charter schools in Aotearoa has had solid analysis and critique (PPTA, 2015). In his ranking of 195 forms of policy interventions and school achievement, John Hattie (2015) places Charter Schools at 183, highlighting that the promotion of the ‘success’ of the Charter Schools system is seriously problematic.
It is ironic that a popular solution to claims about ‘failing schools’ is to invent new forms of schools. There is a remarkable hunger to create charter schools, for-profit schools, lighthouse schools, free schools, academies, public–private schools – anything other than a public school. But, given that the variance in student achievement between schools is small relative to variance within schools, it is folly to believe that a solution lies in different forms of schools.
These new forms of schools usually start with fanfare, with self-selected staff (and sometimes selected students) and are sought by parents who want ‘something better’. Indeed, there is evidence there is a slight increase in achievement in these schools in the short term, but the long-term effects lead to no differences when compared with public schools. The effect of charter schools, for example, across three meta-analyses based on 246 studies is a minuscule .07 (Hattie, 2009, p. 23)
The critique of neoliberal market driven models has been ongoing since earlier neoliberal practices such as vouchers were proposed through to the imposition of National standards and the notion of League Tables (Save Our Schools, 2012). A key process undertaken in the promotion of Charter schooling has been in the ways in which Māori and Pacific ‘underachievement’ has been framed by neoliberal discourse as an educational crisis that results not from systemic or institutional racism or colonial discourses and construction of schooling as vehicles of assimilation but rather within the discourse of the need to reduce government involvement in education. Such educational crisis positioning has been used to rationalize the implementation of neoliberal systems of corporatization globally. Naomi Klein (2007) in her book ‘Shock Doctrine’ highlights the process of privatization models moving rapidly into areas that experience extreme levels of disaster. She writes,
One of those who saw opportunity in the floodwaters of New Orleans was the late Milton Friedman, grand guru of unfettered capitalism and credited with writing the rulebook for the contemporary, hyper-mobile global economy. Ninety-three years old and in failing health, “Uncle Miltie”, as he was known to his followers, found the strength to write an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal three months after the levees broke. “Most New Orleans schools are in ruins,” Friedman observed, “as are the homes of the children who have attended them. The children are now scattered all over the country. This is a tragedy. It is also an opportunity.”
Friedman’s radical idea was that instead of spending a portion of the billions of dollars in reconstruction money on rebuilding and improving New Orleans’ existing public school system, the government should provide families with vouchers, which they could spend at private institutions.
In sharp contrast to the glacial pace with which the levees were repaired and the electricity grid brought back online, the auctioning-off of New Orleans’ school system took place with military speed and precision. Within 19 months, with most of the city’s poor residents still in exile, New Orleans’ public school system had been almost completely replaced by privately run charter schools. (p. 4 – 6)
The treatment of disasters as ‘opportunities’ is equally applicable to Aotearoa. The ‘disaster’ advocated here is that of the education ‘crisis’ for Māori, Pacific and low decile communities. Charter Schooling in Aotearoa is described by the government as “a new way of delivering public education. Their specific purpose is to enable New Zealand’s most disadvantaged students to achieve greater educational success” (Parkinson, 2017). These types of descriptions place Māori and Pacific students achievement or underachievement as the ‘educational crisis’ that Charter schools are to address. The Ministry of Education (n/d) clearly articulated this focus in the naming of the systems as Kura Hourua:
- Waka Hourua is the Māori name for the traditional sea voyaging double-hulled canoes used on expeditions where great distances needed to be travelled. The two hulls joined together created a stronger and more versatile vessel better able to cope with all of the challenges of the vast Pacific Ocean.
- This is an apt metaphor for the journey of partnership the Government and community have embarked on with Partnership Schools. The partnerships between the sponsors and the Government, and the sponsors and their communities, are creating stronger, more versatile schools which are better able to meet their students’ and communities’ needs.
- Waka Hourua took many forms and shapes and were adorned with any of a range of special characteristics, just as Kura Hourua are able to take on many forms and shapes with special characteristics tailored to their students’ needs.
- Waka Hourua were used for great voyages which sought out new horizons by following new pathways. This reflects the journey that Kura Hourua are undertaking within the New Zealand education environment.
- Kura Hourua is the term that has been chosen to best represent the intent behind Partnership Schools, with hourua encapsulating the notion of partnership and journeys, and Kura being the commonly used and known term for ‘school’.
The point I make here is that as the Crown continues to fail in its partnership role in Māori education it is similtaneously using a Māori educational crisis, that has created and reproduced for 200 years as justification for its neoliberal agenda. Māori achievement and underachievement has been debated for many generations with little enduring systemic change and an ongoing denial of the existence of institutional racism and the continued reproduction of a fundamentally mono-cultural focus of schooling systems and curriculum.
Neoliberalism and the Construction of False ‘facts’
You may ask why I have framed this keynote to include the “Construction of False Facts” and in fact it was not my initial intention however over the course of the conference it became increasingly evident to me that I needed to speak to this issue in relation to Māori education and educational research more broadly. We may like to think that after 30 years of critique of colonial patriarchal class systems that we as educational researchers have come a long way. That the assertions of educational philosophy based within kaupapa Māori would in 2017 be seen as not only valid and legitimate as a critical part of the Indigenous culture of this land but also that for Māori achievement and experience of success, all robust research evidence indicates that kaupapa Māori works.
We have in this conference heard many exciting presentations across sectors that have highlighted commitment to provide innovative ways to meet the needs of Māori and Pacific nations learners. We have heard many examples across the conference of the promise for the future for education in Aotearoa. However, in some sessions we have also been presented with yet another version of the Elizabeth Rata & Roger Openshaw styled anti-Māori tirades that have raged around Māori education for many years (Openshaw & Rata, 2007, 2008). For some time I have chosen not to engage with those works as I, and others in this room, have made conscious decisions to focus, as Te Puea advocated, on “Mahia te mahi hei painga mo te iwi”. What has been made clear in those particular sessions is that with the global conservatism that we see with Brexit and Trump it becomes increasingly necessary to directly respond to the right-wing assimilationist approach taken by authors such as Rata and Openshaw (Openshaw & Rata, 2007, 2008). As such, I have some comments to make about two extremely problematic presentations that, within this conference, have caused concern for many working in Māori education, and which serve to reinforce the Eurocentric notion that Māori language, culture, knowledge and history has no place within schooling.
Over the past 20 years Pākehā researchers such as Elizabeth Rata and Roger Openshaw (Openshaw & Rata, 2007, 2008) have made unevidenced attacks on Māori educational initiatives. Rata (2006) claims her work is ‘critical’ scholarship and labels Māori educational developments using terms such as ‘ethnic fundamentalism’, ‘secular religion’ and ‘politicised ethnicity’ (Rata, 2006). As such, Rata frames a context to deny Māori identity and cultural positioning as Indigenous Peoples, by applying limited and reductionist Western frameworks of identity which have no applicability to Māori cultural ways of positioning ourselves. What is most evident is that the arguments posed by Rata serve the interests of Pakeha academics such as herself. The labels created and imposed by Rata not only have no relationship to Māori cultural frameworks, but they have been constructed to undermine any Indigenous attempts to create and sustain kaupapa Māori contexts that work for our children. More particularly these terms and their reductionist racist underpinnings have been constructed to benefit and reinforce the author’s own positioning of white privilege. White privilege and its maintenance through the construction of white spaces has been highlighted by Ann Milne (2013).
To “name the white spaces” in our schools we have to have to talk about white privilege and white supremacy without taking these terms personally. We have to ask the hard questions about the purpose of schools, whose knowledge counts, who decides on the norms we expect our youth to strive to achieve, who decides on literacy and numeracy as the holy grail and almost sole indicator of achievement and success? (Milne, 2013, p. 19)
Claims that Kaupapa Māori is not robust, that epistemic knowledge is more beneficial than cultural knowledge for Māori, that ethnic essentialism is the basis of Māori identity, that Māori are taking over the world and denying democracy (Rata, 2017) are fundamentally flawed as the basis for an argument: such claims are both factually and ethically wrong. Similar arguments are advanced by Don Brash and the Hobson’s Pledge group that seeks to remove all references to Te Tiriti o Waitangi from legislation; and advocates a colonial assimilatory approach to all education in this country. Even more disturbing is the claim made in the presentation at this conference by Rata (2017) that the establishment of Kura Kaupapa Māori has caused Māori achievement rates to decline. In There is considerable evidence to the contrary, so to advocate such a position is dishonest and unethical. For example, references to Māori achievement in Kura Kaupapa Māori in the recent discussion paper by the ‘Tomorrow’s Schools Review Independent Taskforce Meeting’ (2018) suggests that such statements by Rata are deliberately made to deceive.
Since the mid-2000s there has been a clear upward trend in NCEA attainment at all levels, and achievement gaps between comparable social and economic groups are slowly closing. Māori school leavers from Māori-medium settings tend to achieve NCEA Level 2 at around 15-20 percentage points higher than their Māori peers in English-medium. (p.2)
Māori school leavers from Māori-medium settings tend to achieve NCEA Level 2 at a similar level to non-Māori in English medium, and around 15-20 percentage points higher than their Māori peers in English-medium. (p.10)
The underpinnings of these colonising discourses are not based as we may be led to believe on any actual evidence or researched informed basis. A number of authors have solidly critiqued the false claims made by Rata and Openshaw (Mika 2011; Duncan 2011). For those aware of the background issues in regards to Elizabeth Rata’s engagement with Kura Kaupapa Māori it is easy to see that these discourses are grounded in what I would call a politics of resentment or a politics of disgruntledness (Indigenous Research Institute, 2004). We need to be clear that using some distorted idea of academic scrutiny to enable constant attacks on Māori initiatives and to undermine Māori educational movements and all that support those movements is not acceptable.
Articles published by Elizabeth Rata fail to acknowledge that she is Pākehā, despite her Māori surname: rather, they are framed to position her approach as objective when clearly this is not the case. The background to the verbose attacks on Māori educators and Māori educational initiatives is the resentment and anger held towards these individuals and the movement of Kura Kaupapa Māori. Rata & Openshaw (2007) take a very simplistic position that Māori critique of objectivity is to deny critique from ‘outsiders’ and then uses that position as justification for not revealing her own self-interested subjectivity in her attacks on Kaupapa Māori and Māori educationalists. Vanessa Andreotti (2009) also provides critique of this positiong,
By locating the scientific paradigm in an objective space, outside of language and culture, Openshaw and Rata not only homogenise science, but also deny its metaphysical roots and its complicity in the creation and maintenance of inequalities in the distribution of wealth and labour in the world today. One possible interpretation of their position is that, by advocating the primacy of objectivity in critical inquiry, Openshaw and Rata are advocating the primacy of their own supposedly neutral and unmarked perspective. In doing so, it could be argued that they are projecting their local and contextually constructed beliefs about reality and knowledge – as universal and beyond critique – reproducing the culturalist stance that they aim to critique. (p.212)
The use of verbose language and selective approaches to philosophical terminology to frame a fundamentally flawed argument does not make the argument any less flawed. Carl Mika (2016) provides an articulate critique of just this point in his article A Counter-Colonial Speculation on Elizabeth Rata’s-isms:
Rata’s article is replete with –isms. We see mention of fundamentalism, neo-Marxism, idealism, primordialism, German romanticism among others. Although these terms comprise a useful shorthand for denoting an abstract tendency that we all—particularly those of us who are part of the inner sanctum of the apparently highly educated—are meant to understand, dealing with ideologies by grouping them together and then declaring their seeming predominance in a person’s or culture group’s thought can be a dangerous act. To begin with, there is an obvious problem in the fact that there is no one ‘Romanticism’ or ‘idealism,’ and certainly no uniform ‘primordialism.’ Riding thoughtlessly over the subtleties and nuances of a discipline is not normally carried out so lightly and unboundedly in academic work. Presumably in order to convey her concern at what she sees as a Māori academic tendency to limit a Māori approach to those of Māori ancestry, Rata does indeed seem to find it necessary to resort to the –ism: all of ‘romanticism,’ ‘fundamentalism,’ ‘idealism’ and ‘primordialism’ are recounted as examples to explain her view that Māori academics disdain critiques by non- Māori of kaupapa Māori. All of these terms might just as well be explained by the phrase ‘cultural integrity.’ (Mika, 2016, p. 5)
Given the fundamental racism embedded in the work by Elizabeth Rata it is time, in my view, to question why we as researchers and why NZARE as an organisation continue to accept presentations that are not grounded upon any legitimate evidence and the so-called ‘findings’ which many in this room know are just wrong. I recall a conversation a few years ago with Matua Tipene O’Regan when he was asked for his thoughts on an organisation that solicited copied letters that stated the Treaty was null and void. His response was very clear, he asked “If thousands of people sent letters saying the world was flat, what would we do with those letters? … We would say no, you are wrong” (personal communication, 2016). It is that simple. This is the case with the discourses created by Rata and others like her, they are just wrong, and they should not be privileged in ways that give them credibility. It is equally important to note that it is not only Māori scholars who find such work lacking. In his review of the Openshaw and Rata (2009) edited collection The Politics of Conformity in New Zealand, Grant Duncan (2011) states:
Indeed, the very existence of this book is evidence against its own central thesis. If we were suffering from the ‘fundamentalism’ and the ‘conformity’ that the editors say that we suffer from, then why are they free to publish a critique thereof? The answer to that conundrum is simply that their critique rests on false assumptions and on the very kind of exaggerated differences and stereotypes that they seek to attack. So, while they appear to question the idea of a distinct Māori cultural identity, their political critique also relies upon the identification of an influential ‘Māori elite’, very few members of which are actually named.
Of course there are some distorted ideas about culture and colonization out there. One common cultural stereotype revolves around the notion that white intellectuals (like me) are oppressors who rely on denatured western philosophies that have lost touch with the kinds of holistic values that are thought, in contrast, to be inherent in indigenous cultures. And some of these ideas sometimes find their way through to power-brokers, whom we might see one day mumbling their way through a waiata. Openshaw and Rata’s text attacks a straw man of ‘culturalism’ by appealing to a social ‘reality’ out there that is more complex than the binaries of Māori/Pākehā, indigenous/western, etc. allow for. But their own analysis is equally simplistic and equally guilty of overdrawing its boundaries.
This intellectual hypocrisy reminds me of an ossified version of Enlightenment utopianism that abides by the old ‘melting-pot’ hypothesis and visions of a ‘brotherhood of man’ united under a transcendent set of rights- based rules. It is all very Kantian. But I have yet to see any evidence that the neglect or suppression of the political claims of minorities, in favour of a universalisation of class politics, is the route to social wellbeing and harmony. (p.105-106)
These right-wing attacks have gone under-answered for years in a range of academic forums and conferences. If we are truly seeking to create enduring and meaningful Treaty-based relationships then it is time to speak out against the privileging of conservative, assimilatory discourses that are being reproduced by researchers working against that promise. This is not an easy thing to do. Māori whānau, including academics, have often been marginalised for challenging discourses that continue to marginalise our dreams and aspirations for te reo, tikanga and mātauranga Māori. We are referred to as angry, aggressive and told to be polite, and nice, all in the face of racist discourses that are not only marginalising to our people but which evidence shows are destructive. What is equally disturbing about these assimilationist agendas reappearing is that we have ample evidence that continues to highlight that:
- Institutional racism continues to impact on Māori
- For many years the State has made it difficult for the establishment of new kura
- That Māori educational movements are inclusive of anyone that is committed to the kaupapa of te reo and tikanga Māori learning
- That Kura Kaupapa Māori have contributed significantly to increased achievements for Māori students
- That meaningful and inclusive educational options enhance Māori whānau involvement across sectors.
So for over 30 years we have as Māori been in struggle for the development, establishment, sustaining of and validation of Kura Kaupapa Māori and Wharekura (Nepe, 1991, Smith, 1989). We have worked across the education sector to create spaces where our children can be save and affirmed as Māori. This is the political context and nature of the work we do as educational researchers. As Jenny Lee-Morgan (2012) states:
Our work is never only intellectual or cultural, but political. It cannot be divorced from the broader struggle to assert the legitimacy of kaupapa Māori, mātauranga Māori, tino rangatiratanga and the redistribution of resources. Māori pedagogues require
a political clarity that understands the non-neutrality
of schooling and educational institutions, as well as the nexus of culture, knowledge and power. (p.38)
So when we speak of Partnership: Promise to Praxis, one of those key components in education is for Pakeha researchers, academics and scholars to challenge directly those discourses that seek to deny Māori rights to Māori language, culture and knowledge. Ann Milne has called on Pakeha researchers, scholars and teachers to take on this role:
We have to name racism, prejudice, stereotyping, deficit thinking, policy and decision making, power, curriculum, funding, community, school structure, timetabling, choice, equity instead of equality, enrolment procedures, disciplinary processes, poverty, and social justice. We have to reject framing culture as problematic and stop negating cultural identity within assimilationist terms such as multiculturalism and diversity. We have to challenge Eurocentric solutions that perpetuate the myth that “white is right,” and come from the perspective Stovall (2006, p.108) calls, “giving those poor people of color what they so desperately need. (p. 19)
It should not only be Māori educators that stand and challenge assertions that Māori language and culture have no place in schooling because they are ‘socio-cultural knowledge forms’, and that schooling is only for the reproduction of epistemic and ‘rational’ knowledges, by which is meant Western, Pākehā, colonial-imposed knowledge forms. In order for Māori education to move fully into the praxis, to be fully affirmed and legitimated, we need all educators to take on the issues of the marginalisation of our language, our culture and our knowledge.
It is also necessary to consider what is meant by partnership. In relation to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the idea of partnership as a frame came from the Crown. However, Partnership does not necessarily embody the kinds of relationships that Māori and Indigenous nations are seeking. Many partnerships are not enduring, some separate, some end with contractural arrangements. Not all partnerships create equitable relationships, or even happy ones. In our work as Kaupapa Māori researchers we have focused more on collaborations, on hoa haere, walking with our people and allies, on hoa mahi, working with others, developing meaningful relationships that are enduring and that are built upon strong, equitable, affirming relationships. For Māori education our aspirations and dreams can only be fully realised through a true honouring of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The existing paradigm of Treaty Settlements as defined by the Crown is focused upon notions of settlement and symbolic compensation. The future of Aotearoa is dependent not solely on notions of settlement, but, as Moana Jackson has stated consistently:
Treaties are not made to be settled, Treaties are made to be honoured.
The essence of making a difference within education for Māori lies in the need for Te Tiriti o Waitangi to be honoured. It is only then that the collective dream and vision for this country, for current and future generations can be realised.
I want to close with more words from Te Puea:
“Te ohonga ake i taku moemoeā, ko te puāwaitanga o te whakaaro”
“Dreams become reality when we take action.”
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