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The association of the main Maori says that changes in the English curriculum will harm Maori students. File photo.
Photo: Unsplash/ Taylor Flowe
The English School Curriculum is playing alarms for some teachers, without reference to Te Mātaiaho – the structure that supports all other curriculum areas.
The teachers told RNZ that the omission of Te Mātaiahoho in the document published this week was bizarre, and they were worried that it was part of a change to mark the Treaty of Waitangi, which was recently a critical part of Te Mātaiaho.
The association of teachers of English President Pip Tinning said the omission was uncommon.
“When we look at all the different subjects, there needs to be some alignment. You need to have some clarity around which structures we all use and teach and remember. So when one is quite different from another, you have a misalignment about how we teach your children,” she said.
Sources told RNZ that Mātaiaho had been dumped and there was no mention of this on the Ministry of Education website, introducing and explaining the curriculum update.
But Education Minister Erica Stanford told RNZ Te Mātaiaho was not discarded.
She said she was not included in the English draft curriculum because she needed work.
“This is just because we haven’t done it yet … Since we did more of the curriculum areas, we will examine the comprehensive structure. We are keeping Te Mātaiahoho, we haven’t reached this work yet,” she said.
The Ministry of Education confirmed the structure of the curriculum, Mataiaho, was still under development.
“The updated design for New Zealand’s curriculum is based on learning science and guaranteeing excellent and equitable results for students. Learning areas will provide authentic examples, demonstrating indigenous knowledge through weighted and deliberate inclusion of cultural culture, language and disciplinary relevance,” said one spokes.
“The work is underway to understand how the structure of the curriculum is updated alongside the revised focus of a curriculum rich in knowledge based on learning science.”
The ministry said the curriculum was still organized using the understanding model, you know, do (UKD).
He said the draft of the secondary curriculum in English emphasized knowledge and practices, but a draft page covered the understanding section of the curricula in primary and secondary English.
Other recent draft curricula, such as secondary mathematics, referred to Te Mātaiaho, but contained a crucial change. They said the curriculum’s guiding principle was based on learning science, while previous documents said it was Tiriti Waitangi.
Bruce Jepsen of Te Akatea, the association of the main Maori, said the change would hurt students.
“The relationship between colonization and education is that in which indigenous forms of knowledge and pedagogy are marginalized and suppressed and this is the case,” he said.
“If we are being directed to teaching the science of learning, structured literacy, structured mathematics, once again it ignores the Maori ways to know, teach and learn, and therefore this will have a significant impact on the tamariki maori and all other tamariki.”
Jepsen said the change was “educational violence” and was not happening in isolation – the government was also moving to lower the importance of the treaty in the official guidelines for school councils.
“So, really what we are facing a level of advice, a level of education, a leadership level is a total washing of Tiriti out of education,” he said.
The president of the Post -Primary Teachers Association, Chris Abercrombie, said that Mātaiaho was developed in collaboration with ample agreement.
He said that omitting it from the curriculum in English was a major change, as well as replacing the reference to the treaty by reference to learning science.
“These are high level principles, but everything falls from that,” he said.
“If this curriculum, English, is out of tune with all other curriculum areas, this is a real concern.”
Abercrombie said the curriculum areas based on the Treaty’s partnership principles would always have better results for students.
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