This week was supposed to be a holiday. Instead, I have spent three days at the NZHTA Conference in Hamilton. About 130 History teachers from around the country gathered together to discuss the future of our subject - which sounds funny considering we deal in the past.
I love history, I love finding random things out about the past. I’m definitely not as widely read or knowledgeable about it as I’d like to be though. The conference highlighted for me just how little I know about the history that should be most important to me - that of my own country.
Oh, I know the general overview, don’t get me wrong. I know the grand narrative of "official history" that gets taught in schools - one which serves the colonists - as well as some of the other narratives as well, being that NZ History was a part of my degree. In fact, I’m often reminded that many people did not have the education that I did in terms of NZ History. Even so, I know so little of the New Zealand Wars, in terms of the Maori experience. So little of the impact of the Pacific Islands on NZ beyond the labour shortage and subsequent Dawn Raids.
I was also reminded of the political nature of history; of the use of history teaching, commemoration, construction, and storying. Of the use of history as a weapon to silence indigenous voices. I was reminded of my role in that and that, ideally, I wanted to subvert that. I was reminded of the bigger role that history teachers play in society and how we can help ease historical trauma by teaching our students about it. It made me sad that we get so caught up in NCEA and assessments and “teaching” that we forget this.
We spent a whole day going round various battle sites in the Waikato and hearing the stories of what occurred there. One particularly jarring thing was the realisation that roads had been run through the hearts of them, and the pa that were defended there. In the photos below, the white arrows show the main roads surrounding Rangiriri. In the cemetery, the Pakeha soldiers have separate graves while Maori were buried en masse.
This deliberate erasure of the past grates - in Germany, the site of Hitler’s bunker is a carpark and deserves to be so. No one would run a road through Auschwitz and pretend the history there never occurred. It’s not something I’d thought about as having happened here.
This was the first conference I’ve attended since beginning teaching in 2007, so it was nice and a little strange that my history curriculum teacher was one of the keynote speakers. My class were her research subjects for her PhD, and she spoke a little about what she’d learnt about the teaching and learning of history from us. I thought “wow, I was so naive”. And then I realised that little had changed, except I am more grown up and more socially aware...but not as much of my own country as I need to be.
The images below show different stories of the events at Rangiaowhia and Orakau.
We need to be critical of monuments, but they too are our history. Pulling them down, no matter how racist or inaccurate is still an erasure of our past.
Overall, I feel re-energised about my practise and what I want to see happen in my department. These things will take a bit of time and planning, but I think they will be for the best in the future.
What have you done lately that has given you a boost? Is there anything you want to become re-energised about?
Deanna x