Boss of Our Story

Abstract

When we talk to people about a ‘Treaty’ education course we get a variety of reactions. Some eyes get glazed, some burn with evangelical fervour, some shoot daggers, and some close while their owners go to sleep.
When we took on the role of joint co-ordinators of the bicultural project at Christchurch College of Education in New Zealand at the end of last year, one of the tasks we faced was the development of programmes within the College. These courses would provide staff and students with the basic knowledge they need about the Treaty and its relevance to teaching and prepare them to apply this knowledge to their own practice.
This paper describes the processes we are engaged in to develop Treaty education programmes and the programme that is evolving. It also describes some of the conceptual incongruities that we are finding associated with Treaty education, and it places these against a wider framework of theorisations of learning, of decolonisation, of participatory and reflective practice, and of Maori approaches to education. It describes an alternative approach that draws upon the arts as springboards for investigation and learning.