Maori Health and Education

Tu Tangata, Issue 14, 1 October 1983, Page 22

Maori Health and Education

Reprinted by kind permission of PPTA Journal.

An interview with Peter Tapsell MP for the PPTA Journal by Stephen O'Regan, Senior Lecturer in Maori Studies at Wellington Teachers College.

by Parliamentary procedures and his continuing efforts in this issue have only served to solidify an increasing base of Maori support for Tapsell. Maori resentment at the operation of the PostMortem Regulations is widespread and runs very deep. To be so clearly identified with an important Maori cultural issue so early in his Parliamentary career can be seen as an indicator of his political instinct and his ‘feel’ for the Maori electorate. He recently moved to centrestage again to challenge Jim Anderton for the Presidency of the Labour Party. The challenge, viewed by some as verging on impertinence, is just another example of Peter Tapsell reminding the Party of the Maori presence and that the Maori vote is not simply a passive Labour vote. Politics is not, however, a new area for Tapsell. He has had a long and thorough apprenticeship in Local Government having served as a Member and then three terms as Deputy Mayor of the Rotorua City Council. He has served as Chairman of the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua and as a Member of the Waikato University Council and the Hamilton Teachers College Council. Nationally, he has been a Member of the Physical Environment Conference, the Tourist

Development Council, the Maori Advisory Council of Health and Deputy Chairman of the Council fo Sport and Recreation. He is currently Chairman of a major Maori authority, the Ngati Whakaue Tribal Lands Incorporation. By Profession Peter Tapsell is an Orthopaedic Surgeon. He graduated from Otago University Medical School in 1954 on completion of a Ngarimu Scholarship and, after working in various New Zealand hospitals, he went to the UK in 1958 to pursue postgraduate studies. After gaining both an FRCS (Edin) and an FRCS (Eng) he returned to Rotorua in 1961 to take up appointments at the Rotorua and Queen Elizabeth Hospitals. His professional writing and speaking has taken him to Asia and the US and he has written extensively on Maori Health and the reorganisation of the health services. He has played Rugby for NZ Universities and Otago. In 1954 he was Vice Captain of the Maori All Blacks on their tour of Fiji. He was awarded the MBE in 1968 and the Queens Jubliee Medal in 1977. He lives in Rotorua and is married with four children two of whom are at Secondary School there. Another is doing Medical Intermediate in Dunedin and his eldest is at University in Moscow.

This extensive background lies behind his frequent public statements on a wide range of issues many of which range beyond his Maori Parliamentary responsibilities. STEPHEN -O’REGAN is Senior Lecturer in Maori Studies at the Wellington Teachers College where he is currently Chairman of the Department of Social Studies and Maori. He has taught there since 1968. He is author of numerous articles and contributions in Maori-Pakeha relations, Maori traditional history and Maori land matters. His doctoral studies are on migration tradition. He is Chairman of the Mawhera Incorporation and a Member of the Ngai Tahu Maori Trust Board. O’REGAN: In recent years there has accumulated a mass of reports and recommendations on the issues of Social Education, Maori Education, Multicultural Education, Maori Health and the social and cultural condition of Maori people. Some of these the Johnson Report, ‘He Huarahi’, ‘Te Tatai Hono’, for instance emphasise recurrent themes, they reinforce each other. I want to pursue some of these essential messages that come through and get your perception of them. One of the most stressful realities we are confronted with is the spiralling failure

rate of Maori children in our schools. The principal weapon suggested to combat this failure is the development of personal competence and a sense of worth in Maori children with particular emphasis on cultural identity. It is argued that with their identity secure Maori children will cope with whatever challenges or problems that are strewn in their path. It seems to be becoming the great ‘cure-all’. How do you see it? TAPSELL: I would place cultural identity first in priority by far. I believe that if the education system fails Maori children in any way it fails us most in that it does little in substantial terms to develop any sense of identity, any sense of belonging. They have no identity in terms of place, in terms of history. They have no sense that the new world has a place for them as Maori, that they will be welcome in it and that others will appreciate their contribution.

O’REGAN: Many pakeha teachers, though, would agree with you. That is just what they are striving for with their Maori pupils but the kids just don’t respond or, if they do, its only in the nice warm Maori thing and not in those areas which count in terms of qualifications. Can schools really offer our people anything much in the way of faith in themselves?

TAPSELL: I believe that there are some very fine teachers out there trying very hard but I believe that it is the system, the curriculum that needs quite drastic change. I think that first of all we need a much greater emphasis on things Maori. I believe that we should introduce into our schools a subject which I have called New Zealand Studies. Its prime aim would be to inform the sense of identity of all children but it’s Maori that I am concerned with here. That subject ought to contain history, geography some Maori Language, arts and crafts and so on. The education system should allow for it to be centrifugally based let me explain that. Take a child in school at, say, Otaki, he ought to have a very thorough knowledge of all of the areas around his own school every mountain, every stream every hill. He ought to know the names and what they mean. He ought to know of the people who lived in that area before the coming of the Pakeha and after. He ought to know of the stresses and the strains which brought people there and which drove them away he should know these things very thoroughly indeed. And then, less thoroughly, a hundred miles out from Otaki, less thoroughly Auckland the South Island, less thoroughly the Pacific Islands, less thoroughly again America and Japan and least thoroughly of all Europe. I accept that whilst we have a majority of Pakeha people who descend from Europe there is some reason to pay at-

tention to it but I believe that the modern world demands that our education should be centrifugally based. O’REGAN: A comment on your geography there’s a fair chunk of the South Island within a 100 miles radius of Otaki! However, without debating the structure of your approach, you essentially see the solution to the cultural identity needs in terms of what is taught ie. the content?

TAPSELL: Yes. However I am assuming that the climate of the school is sound, that there are good attitudes, positive attitudes, between Maori and Pakeha and competent teachers with good attitudes. That goes without saying.

O’REGAN: What is your response when I tell you that what you suggest is, in very large measure, the current diet of many of our schools?

TAPSELL: I’d like to think that is so but I have seen little evidence of it. O’REGAN: You are really suggesting a drastic revision of the Social Studies syllabus some would say a revolution! TAPSELL: Yes. O’REGAN: What connection do you see between the development of cultural identity in the child, this sense of self esteem, and for example the psychological well being of Maori people?

TAPSELL: It is central to it. I use the term Health in the WHO sense complete mental, physical and spiritual well-being. Without spiritual and mental well-being there is no health. Basic to that is a sense of self-esteem. In a young person that self-esteem derives from the family, from the group in the Maori case from the hapu and the tribe. I believe that a defect in our present situation is the failure to give Maori children any firm belief that their contribution and that of their fathers and mothers and their forefathers before them is worthy of consideration and something to be proud of. If Maori children could feel that the contribution of their forefathers to the country was of great importance to the development of our society as it was and as it is, then I am sure they would develop a sense of pride. That pride would lead to greater scholastic effort, to greater attention to even the simplest things like dress, like stance, like nutrition everything. The young person with a sense of pride, of identity, with the feeling that he represents a contribution to our world that is respected; that’s the person who is bright, who is alert, who stands upright, who polishes his shoes and feels part of the scene. The child who has been made to feel in a hundred different ways that his contributon and that of his people are barely worth considering he is down at heel, he can’t be bothered with his dress, he is not alert he fails. Most teachers would probably readi-

ly agree with the principle here, the difference would be on how to achieve it. O’REGAN: Maori Language in the schools. How do you see it? TAPSELL: I believe that it would be impractical to have full Maori Language as a compulsory subject although I personally believe that it would be a good thing. I believe, though, that an initial level would be an essential component of the programme of New Zealand Studies I spoke of earlier.

It is slowly being recognised that learning Maori and having some competence in things Maori is really worth doing. I don’t know a single Pakeha who has learned to speak Maori who won’t tell you that it’s most interesting and exciting thing he has done. I think that’s important.

O’REGAN: A couple of years ago Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan introduced a Bill requiring all schools to provide Maori when it was requested; that it should be an option available to every New Zealander. Is that in conflict with your New Zealand Studies core subject notion? TAPSELL: Not at all. The two are complementary. I believe that both should have a syllabus so it is not subject to the whim or judgement of School Principals as to its introduction.

There is another point about Maori Language. Many ask ‘What’s the point of Maori Language? It is not of any use in the real world of business and making a living.’ I wouldn’t teach it for that. That would be the last reason I could imagine for learning Maori. I would teach it to support that sense of identity to give New Zealand children, no matter what their forebears, a sense of identity with New Zealand through it’s indigenous language.

O’REGAN: There is clearly much that the school can do to promote this sense of identity, this confident competence, this self esteem in young Maori. It might even take a lead in promoting it within its community but what can the school really do in the face of the social and economic condition of the great mass of the Maori population? With more than 85 per cent of the Maori school population in urban schools, separated from it’s cultural roots, featuring the worst statistics going for prisons, marriage breakdown, health and employment and so on do you really believe that the school can effectively combat the absence of hope, of expectation that so many of our kids are bringing to school with them? Significant numbers come from environments which don’t perceive achievement even as a possibility. Do you seriously believe that adjustment of the curriculum can do much for Maori identity against this tide of failure? TAPSELL: Yes. First, it can offer an element in the school to which Maon children can perhaps relate more

readily. More importantly though, it could be a powerful factor in directing the awareness of teachers to the issue of cultural identity and their job futures might provide some motivation for action and involvement beyond that awareness. The curriculum shift I suggest could, perhaps, re-orient our schools for the benefit of both Pakeha and Maori children.

Another important aspect is that of the teacher’s involvement in the world of the pupils beyond the classroom in supporting their sports, in community activities. The teacher who travels with children on school trips, who relates with interest to them as people can have enormous influence for good far more than many teachers think. I know that Maori parents and their children place a high value on such involvement, on such relationships. It is perhaps more important to many of them than classroom results.

However, to return to your question, the tide of failure as you call it results from the accumulation of social and cultural experience over generations the school has been only one contributor to it. Turning that tide will take decades and again the school can only be one of the contributors, albeit an important one. I believe it could be much more important than it is now.

Ultimately it is a family matter. Identity and positive attitudes that selfesteem can only derive from what we Maori people do for ourselves. As a people we have to pull ourselves up with our own bootstraps, on our own terms. We have a right, though to expect the school to assist us in that. O’REGAN: Where do you see the Maori cultural community the marae centre, the Maori community in the city with it’s urban marae and its competition groups...?

TAPSELL: It really hasn’t had a very big influence over the last decade. I think we have over-emphasised the role that the marae has in Maori social life. In fact a very small percentage of Maori people outside of a few Maori areas like Ruatoki and perhaps parts of Ngati Porou have any association with the marae at all. In my own area of Te Arawa (around Rotorua) I would say that for the vast majority of people of Maori descent that is very much the case.

O’REGAN: Except for the occasional hui or tangi perhaps?

TAPSELL: Very rarely even for tangi. I believe we have grossly overestimated the part the marae has to play in social functions. There are a variety of reasons for this and I believe we need to do much to improve the position of the marae amongst our people. One of the first of those is to attend to the basic, pragmatic question of money. Maraes are generally badly off financially. They are an enormous financial drain on Maori communities.

The struggle for improvement and maintenance and the not infrequent financial difficulties strangle the potential of the marae for our people.

I believe the taxation of our Maori incorporations and trusts should be dramatically reshaped to permit them to play a much more supportive role for our marae. In that way our lands could effectively underpin our culture. With the marae financially secure it could begin to play a much more central role in Maori life. It would provide the capacity to modernise them in certain important respects. We have magnificent Meeting Houses, some good wharekai but, generally, we have a long way to go in terms of ablutions showers, toilets etc. Young people today care much more about such things. There are few things that make staying on a marae more acceptable and attractive to people especially our younger ones than good showers and modern, effective sanitation. Younger Maori wanting to take their Pakeha friends to the marae should be able to do so with complete confidence in the water supply and the drains in the standard of living that can be had there. Once these things are accomplished we can turn this financially secure treasure of ours, the marae, towards new functions and roles that our young people can relate to. For example I would like to see maraes with a room added to them in which there were TV and Video facilities and libraries of tapes on everything from Maori Health to whaikorero, waiata, whakapapa, educational topics, anything to do with Maori and the Maori situation Why can’t we have all of those? Why can’t we have a Poly or an Apple computer there? A modern relevant learning centre that’s what I’m talking about. The marae should be a place where all sorts of learning

takes place, which is attractive and stimulating to be at. When the import-

ant things are taking place at tangis or huis we could close it down; but there’s a lot of hours on the marae when there is nothing for the young; that’s when we could give them a computer to play with any activity that fosters mental agility and which they see as relevant to them.

Finally, and I think this is important, the marae should once again become something of a recreational sports centre as it was for the previous generation to us. I am pleased that many in my area are revamping and upgrading their old tennis courts and squash courts and building gymnastic facilities. All of these changes could go a long way to bringing our generations together around the marae centre, to satisy a bigger range of needs and functions. This sort of marae could really begin to provide the social and cultural focus which is much talked about but which, in my view, we currently fall far short of.

The marae has to make a much more up to date contribution to the Maori social process.

O’REGAN: Let’s come back to some of those social processes. The Johnson Report was widely attacked for its comments on health and sex education. Maori illegitimacy rates amongst the young are just one area of continuing tragedy for many of our people. How did you respond to that aspect of the Report?

TAPSELL: I have reservations about the Report. I can see why the Minister was reluctant to accept it per se. At the same time I think it was a great shame that so much of value was thrown out with the parts which were objected to. I personally think that every parent has the right to say whether his or her child will be taught about sex at school, more so about contraception! I wouldn’t mind if I was confident that teachers were competent in these areas, but I have lit-

tie confidence that they are. O'REGAN: Another dimension of the report was that which dealt with the climate in the school which might be more responsive to cultural difference and preferences. The implication is that all kids would probably do better in such a climate. However all the nice thoughts about socialisation are underpinned by the judgement that one of the first functions of the school is to teach children to numerate, read and write with confidence and competence. Beyond that....

TAPSELL: May I interrupt you there! I differ with the Report to this extent... I think the most important thing a school ought to teach a child is to communicate verbally. I don’t think reading and writing are nearly so important now as they once were. The media has changed all that. I have noticed that there is a striking difference between New Zealand and American children in their capacity to communicate verbally. The American is immeasurably better than the New Zealand child and so too is the English child.

O’REGAN: You think that this is to do with the patterns of learning we have developed?

TAPSELL: I think we have emphasised too much the skills of formal reading and writing and paid nowhere enough attention to encouraging children to communicate with each other and their elders by means of speaking. This is very important.

O’REGAN: Nearly everyone who has ever said anything about Social Education aims at the development of a more harmonious society. They then generally go on to discuss the growth of perceptions of political and social process and so 0n....

Now the Maori community and the Maori child seem to be fairly distant from much of the formal social and political process that we have. Maoris seem to switch out from involvement in the larger political scene. If they do get into politics its usually into the Maori political frame and into Maori issues.... Doesn’t this suggest a sense of alientation, and instinct for separation from the larger society and its operation? TAPSELL: Not really. I think its due as much as anything to the fact that the system has not really made provision for Maoris to play a part as Maoris. Another reason is that in the larger system the Maori viewpoint is always subordinate to the thinking of the Pakeha majority, decisions are made on the basis of their rules. At least in the Maori world you can control the process in a Maori way and let Maori values operate. You can focus on your own Maori issues there or on the Maori viewpoint of general issues. It’s much more satisfying than always being in a minority playing by someone else’s rules. I don’t think it’s separatist; it’s sensible, as long as we don’t lock our-

selves up in our own world. There is another aspect to this question. I have had a lot of political experience at different levels and I find that Maori people have much broader political views than the Pakeha I have dealt with. They get excited about larger issues. In a general seat I would be rung up about the holes in the footpath or the state of the telephones. In a Maori seat I get rung about the catchment of the Motu River the whole 5000 acres of it the lakes, the forests, Tarawera Mountain, about the education of Maori children, not about a particular child. Maoris don’t grizzle politically! The Motunui coast issue is a classic example.

O’REGAN: Coming back to the harmonious society question; most people see that as being an issue between Maori and Pakeha. However in my own Ngai Tahu area it is as much an issue between Maori and Maori. We have been heavily inundated by migration from other tribal areas. How do you see the harmony or the lack of it?

TAPSELL: I’ll take up just one aspect of that. One of the things that worries me greatly is the concept of the Multi-tribal Marae. I think that is going to end up a mish-mash fruit salad of good-for-no-thing. I believe that every tribe should have it’s kawa (it’s rules and protocol) and stick to it in it’s own area rigidly. O’REGAN: But what about those areas where the tribes have mixed or are having to mix? What of your own Arawa who are living and working in my tribal area? Are you suggesting that they should establish Arawa marae in another tribe’s area? How can we avoid the cross-tribal marae? Isn’t it something that just has to be made to work? TAPSELL: I don’t see how it can. The problems you refer to will just have to be worked out some other way.

O’REGAN: A well known feature of your Arawa kawa is the emphasis on sex role definition, on the fixed roles of men and women in a marae context. Whilst this is widespread through most Maori kawa, Arawa are particularly noted for it. Is this at the heart of your resistance to the cross-tribal marae? TAPSELL: To some extent. I resist very much the rage in education to make girls into boys and boys into girls. That rage will not last. It will fizzle out. I think our Maori sense of sex role definition is not something we should lightly give up.

I am not saying for one moment that a girl should not train, should she wish, in electricity, plumbing, etc, in fact I have been advocating it.

O’REGAN: So you are talking about relationships, about the restoration of the traditional age and sex roles. At the same time, in terms of occupational category and income earning you would be all for opening it up?

TAPSELL: Yes for opening it right up, across the widest range of occupa-

tions appropriate for our women. However I want to qualify that a little. I fear the great Pakeha rage for abolition of sex roles might lead us to sending out our women to work with chainsaws in the forest on some bizarre attitude that this is going to bring sex equality. What that will bring is the situation that Maori women will be run into the worst, the dirtiest and the heaviest jobs and the most miserably paid. That is not what we want! I am all for equality that gets women to be lawyers, teachers, doctors and nurses all the nice jobs. I am not nearly so keen on equality for women if they are going to be in the bush and in the dirtiest parts of the freezing works. That is what will happen!

O’REGAN: While all the Pakeha women have the teachers jobs?

TAPSELL: All the women who talk about equality you will find doing so from behind lawyers’ desks. Not many of them are in the forests. The main point I am making is that we are going through an era round the world in which age and sex roles are being challenged in many cases justifiably. In Maoridom, though, I don’t believe that our customary sex and age role definition does disadvantage people. It has many positive effects for our culture.

One of the unfortunate things about minority groups is that they always follow fashions in ideas belatedly. When the pendulum of opinion swings they invariably get caught up in the backwash.

I don’t think the current trend to abolish sex and age roles will last. I think we should be careful and retain our traditional cultural concern with the generations and with the respective roles of men and women. These things give us a structured base for the maintenance of the whanau the extended family and the whole supportive structure of Maori society. Ultimately that is what we must rebuild ourselves around. All the identity and self-esteem we were talking of earlier will be impossible unless we can rebuild a strong supportive home base. That requires the strengthening of the family. That is the context in which I see our restoration as a culture and as people.

O’REGAN: That’s all very desirable. But isn’t it all pretty abstract in the face of the enormous number of our children who are growing without any experience of whanau? The children of solo parents who lack opposite sex models; distant from their old people and with no age ranges to relate to. How realistic is the rebirth of the whanau?

TAPSELL: Very realistic. The problems you describe have been largely met by whanau. In that respect Maoris are surviving the present breakdowns somewhat better than Pakeha. We have more built-in capacity for surviving the trauma of our times than the Pakeha has. I want to see us realise that capacity release that potential!