The seniors looked at a day in 1769 (4th November), when the Endeavour sailed into Te Whanganui-o-Hei (Hei's great bay), near Whitianga. Unfortunately a maori man was killed on that day. Students read stories and accounts of many people who were in the area that day - the local maori people who went to trade with the ship, and those who were on board the ship or ashore exploring. We tried to figure out why the man was shot and what each person at the time would have thought about it. We discussed misunderstanding and differing points of view.
The year 1-4 students looked at similarities and differences in people and accepting ourselves and others. We read the story of the sneetches by Dr Seuss. We discussed ideas for how the sneetches without stars could deal with the situation. Then we looked at this story compared to how some people with differences might act these days - how we treat those who are a different age, size, gender, race, colour etc to us. There were some great discussions about inclusiveness. We looked at how far NZ has come (looking at the 'korero pakeha' movement when speaking maori was suppressed in schools - some as recently as 1980!) We still have a way to go, but maori language is growing again and more people understand and speak a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment