THE TANIWHAS OF EDUCATION COME TOGETHER

Te Ao Hou, December 1961, Page 23

THE TANIWHAS OF EDUCATION COME TOGETHER by E. G. SCHWIMMER It is gradually becoming accepted that the education of the Maori is a special task that needs special attention. What sort of attention should we give it? There is the famous story of the fox who had invited the stork to dinner. Being a naughty animal he served it soup on a flat plate. The stork of course could not eat it and had to go away hungry. Then the fox went around in great glee and let it be known to the other foxes that the stork was a silly bird which could not eat soup. The story did not go much further but we can imagine some of the kinder foxes getting together to work out ways of helping the stork. Some would suggest if the soup was thicker that would solve the problem. Others would think perhaps the stork just did not like the soup and the thing to do was to put sugar in it. One very wise old fox proposed giving the stork a big spoon to eat the soup with, but of course when they tried that out they found the stork could not, or would not, use the spoon. There were plenty of foxes with bright ideas willing to help but none of them quite knew how to do it. Such, in fact, is the problem of Maori education. Just as in the case of the kind foxes, it is not enough to provide material help; for if it is of the wrong kind it may be of no more use than a spoon would be to a stork. Therefore it is worthwhile to give careful thought what sort of special help would really produce the right result. In order to do just this, last August the New Zealand Council for Educational Research invited a number of people, some European and some Maori, to discuss problems in the schooling of Maori children. The purpose of this meeting was not to solve all the problems—it was realised well enough that such a meeting could have been no more effective than the meeting of kind foxes I have just described. The foxes, indeed, would have been far wiser to study carefully how the beak of the stork was formed, how the bird eats, and then perhaps

they could have designed some containers which would be more useful than a flat plate. Of course such containers after being designed would still have to be carefully tested over a period. For instance an old hat would at first seem an ideal container for the purpose, but in practice it would probably be found that the hat would have a hole in it in no time. What the Council for Educational Research wanted, then, was to collect more facts and do more experiments which would finally lead to a solution of the Maori education problem. The first question for the Council was what sort of facts had to be found, what sort of experiments had to be conducted. That and only that was the purpose of the meeting. It therefore will have no immediate effect on Maori education, but it will result in research being done which is necessary before a real solution of the problem can be found. The chairman of this working party was Mr G. W. Parkyn, the director of the N.Z. Council for Educational Research. There were twenty other members, some of them head teachers, others research people from the universities, others again officials from government departments. Five of them were Maoris: Mr S. M. Mead, Whatawhata School (Hamilton), Mrs Mary Penfold, Poroporo School (Whakatane), Mr J. Waititi, Maori language specialist, Department of Education, Auckland, Mrs Lena Manuel, Maori Welfare Officer, Wairoa, and Dr B. G. Biggs, Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland. One member, Dr Fanaafi Ma'ima'i, University of Wellington, is a brilliant young Samoan woman. The meeting lasted for three days and was held at the Victoria University of Wellington. Among the opening speakers were Sir Eruera Tirikatene, and also Mr Roy McKenzie, who is chairman of the J. R. McKenzie Trust Board. He told the meeting that his Trust, which spends £30,000 yearly on various good causes, would support the research the conference would recommend. “The working party will not be wasting its time,” he said.