Educating the Young Maori

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 62, 4 June 1927, Page 10

Educating the Young Maori

(Written for THE SUN by

MARGARET M. MARTIN , 8.A.)

\ CURIOUS little country this! Cou--“-V centrated in its narrow islands are specimens of most of the geographical structures of the earth; compressed in its meagre stretch of history are examples of most of the larger factors in the story of Man. To-day we will glance at one such —a race suddenly thrust into a complex alien culture which becomes responsible for its education. We have it before our eyes in one corner of the laboratory of New Zealand; the corner where Maoriland goes to school. Those little dark-eyed children, the Maoris of to-day and to-morrow, are mutely challenging our civilisation and pleading with all its professed enlightenment, humanity and brotherhood. The long struggle of the Maori race in the dark night of confusion and ignorance, the ceaseless efforts of Government Departments and religious organisations, have, somehow, we hardly dare to guess how and how securely as yet, stayed the decline of the race; the yawning grave has been cheated, and in our midst behold this miracle —a generation of virile, hopeful children! Would the thoughtful reader here pause and summon to mind some of the terrifying odds these little ones, 40.02 per cent, of the race to-day, are facing. In a previous article an attempt was made to scan some of the broad difficulties the New Zealand natives hat'e had to face since the coming of the white man. The creation of this vigorous generation proves that to some extent the primary physical problems have been overcome, yet still stretching out ahead, with few guiding signposts, lie the econimic, social and psychological trails leading up to civilisation. Scores of the past generation have fallen exhausted and perished by the way which these little brown feet must travel. Surely no one of us is without responsibility to study the problems involved, further than a newspaper article can take us, and having found our duty, to do it; the writer can supply only a few hints that mayserve to arouse our complacency and give food for thought. Picture to yourself a typical Maori village. We are not concerned just now with the economic and psychological factors responsible for its being what it is, but rather with the social atmosphere and home life in which these little ones are growing up. In the first place note how primitive it is and unconstrained. All conversation is in Maori —the new Maori evolved through the experiences of the past century and a-half —-and it is about “Maori things,” the concrete everyday experiences of life in the pa. The children in the nineteen hours a day spent thereabouts weave mats, prepare food for the tangis, and lead an utterly wild, uncontrolled life, as different from that of a white child as can well be imagined. Innumerable ideas that are the social heritage in the most illiterate European homes never enter the pa unless in a distorted form through the cinema, while much that is unmentioned among us forms the daily chatter; there is no little shelf of books in the home which the children read at night, no appeal to “Dad” for help with a difficult lesson.

So the Maori children at home dwell in a Maori world few of us know much about.

Now picture the school where these children attend for five invaluable hours a day, hours when our culture has its chance of leading the little one right from where they are to where they can see the pathway straight and clear to a more civilised life. Within formal walls and at regulation desks the little freedom bred natives, eager of face

and eye, endure cramp and discomfort while they learn formal lessons in a language quite foreign to them except on its crudest material levels. Very eloquent to a sympathetic teacher are their mistakes, questions and puzzled silen :es, leading soon to shame and hopelessness. What in their life connects with the history of Richard 11. or the XXII.? What does “sceptre,” “meadow,” “stream,” let alone “universal,” “gentle,” “picturesque,” mean to them? How will the decimal system help them in their struggle from a decadent communism to individual farming ? How will it make them' craftsmen, home-makers, citizens? They leave school with a veneer of pakeha polish which rubs off in a year of village life, out of which it never grew, and on which it made no impact. They have formed no habits to help them to a life of work and thrift and progress; no passion for reading or inventing, no pride of race, no ideals for themselves or their people; able only to mimic the Pakeha superficially and. despising their own people, drift without hope or purpose. Is the picture exaggerated? Search and see. In contrast glance at a picture supplied by a teacher from a Pacific Island school, where the natives have less both of talent and of opportunity than our little olive-skinned friends. The children come to school to be taught for the first few months in their own language. They learn to read from little books specially prepared to show pictures of life in their own environment —the native village —but it is the village as visioned and desired by an enlightened Government. From the first there are real lessons on the English language, and gradually by pictorial comparison and word games the English vocabulary is made real, large and vital. By the end of the first year all the usual instruction can proceed in English, but always difficulties and new words are interpreted through the medium of picture, paraphrase and native equivalents. The lessons deal with the actual life experiences of the child and lead in carefully graduated stages from this life out to the great society. The reading lessons deal simply and attractively with the moral, vocational and health lessons he particularly needs to learn, illustrated largely from the local folk-lore and geographical life.- A pride in his race and its past, a passion for its future and for the future of the world of which it forms a responsible part, is deliberately inculcated, along with the Christian principles of brotherhood and co-operation. Native arts, crafts, dances, songs, games and folklore occupy a large part in the syllabus, though not to the exclusion of good things from more developed cultures, while developments and new creations are welcomed and expected. Such the picture of a South Sea Island school.

Friends who have caught the vision, are we doing the best for our Maori children? Dare we do less than the best? How many enthusiastic Maori teachers have we created in.6o years of State directed native schooling? What impact has been made through the schools during that time upon the actual life of the Maori? Dare we treat the present generation to the same education in the light of our knowledge? Where are our writers of textbooks and library books? Where our agitators, our leaders ready to face risks, our church schools which might surely do the pioneering work, the backing of public opinion and public money which could make all things possible? Surely it is high time to awake out of sleep! What will posterity say of us if we loose our opportunity?