The big kerfuffle in New Zealand is not a huge kerfuffle as the public seems to know little about it. I have been reading about these ways of knowing and trying to understand how they can fit into a science curriculum. That is important! I have had five questions and I will give some quotes about the issues. I will advance some tentative conclusions at the end.
You can consult the numbers at the bottom of the post if you want to.
MM, what is it? MM is a combination of theology, philosophy, mythology, morality, and a set of practical tools for how to get things done, both in the practical realm and in the human-relations realm. The highlights are mine.
The Mtauranga Mori Principle is a principle.
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The University accords to Mori knowledges and ways of knowing the central value of this principle. It refers to the responsibility and honour that we have as a knowledge institution to develop, nourish, protect, and help revitalise mtauranga, and to learn respectfully from Mori knowledge experts from the University as well as from communities outside the University.
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Mtauranga Mori is defined as the unique Mori way of viewing themselves and the world, which encompass Mori traditional knowledge and culture.
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Modern and creative knowledge of the human, natural and spirit worlds are encompassed by Mtauranga Mori. Mori have developed knowledge in the past, present and future. It refers to ways of knowing.
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Mtauranga Mori is a taonga, so it requires protection. The University has an obligation to protect mtauranga Mori and to provide a safe environment in which it can flourish.
MM has ancient knowledge of the spirit world. Is it really knowledge? Why is it better than other ways of knowing the indigenous people of the world?
Another definition.
Mtauranga Mori is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of Te Taiao, following a systematic methodology. Prkau and maramataka include a suite of techniques empirical in nature for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, and updating and integrating previous knowledge. They can be both accurate and precise, as they incorporate critically verified knowledge. Mori developed various forms of codifying knowledge after their arrival in New Zealand and Australia, each with its own categories, style, complex patterns and characteristics. The central principle of the universe is that everything is connected and that it is a cognitive framework connecting creation of the universe to everything that exists within it via descent from ancestors. Source 2
Another.
Mtauranga Mori is about a Mori way of being and engaging in the world, using kawa and tikanga to critique, examine, analyse and understand the world.
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It is based on ancient values of the spiritual realm of Te Ao Mrama and it is constantly evolving as Mori make sense of their human existence within the world.
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Mtauranga Mori is described in this way by Dr. Charles Royal. M reira e mhio ai te tangata ki te Ao, e mtau ai hoki ia ki tahi whainga. He mea ako.
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Royal thinks about Mtauranga Mori as a way to explain and explain some of the different aspects of the world around us, and in that process, a person gets to know about and understand some of the different ways of learning.
There is more spirituality being dragged in.
Is MM science?
MM is a gemisch of legend, mythology, oral tradition, morality, philosophy, theology, and practical knowledge, and I have read more than the five references below. Science construed broadly is what I call the latter, like learning how to navigate using the stars, or how to judge which parts of the landscape will flood. Practical knowledge is based on trial and error and can lead to empirical predictions. The rest of MM, including its creationism, its reliance on gods, its spiritual and moral aspects, and its philosophy, are not science, but fall into other realm. If MM is to be taught as equal to Western science, only the bits that are science construed broadly should be taught.
He points out the differences between MM and science and is an advocate for teaching it.
There are similarities between science and mtauranga Mori. Knowledge generated consistent with the scientific method is called prkau. Mtauranga Mori includes values and is explained according to a Mori world view. Table 1 outlines some other relevant differences.
Mtauranga Mori is valid in its own right. Mtauranga Mori and science are bodies of knowledge that have been created in a world view. Some mtauranga Mori can be considered as science because they have been generated according to the scientific method. While there are many similarities between mtauranga Mori and science, it is important that the tools of one are not used to analyse and understand the foundations of another. Mtauranga Mori is scientific in part, and in the context of this special issue, extends the history of scientific endeavor back to when Mori arrived in Aotearoa and Te Pounamu.
The inclusion of values in MM is a fuzzy concept. MM has spiritual qualities, while science has physical qualities. In MM, intuition is a method of knowing, but not in science.
The Mori explain the creation of humans, all of us descending from a couple.
In the New Zealand story, Tane took his daughter to wife in order to keep the human species alive. They had a daughter who was named. There is no explanation as to how Te Kawekairangi appeared on the scene so quickly. Maybe there was an adjacent Land of Nod. Human descent is given in the Matorohanga version. The priest of the Arawa canoe is given 28 generations in a genealogy tree. The genealogy shows that the first human being was created in the year 600 A.D. and that the time measure is 25 years to a generation.
The creation of humans 1.3 millennia ago is far younger than biblical young-earth creationism.
The single set of parents in the creation myth has led some to say that evolution and genetics are related because it shows that all of us are related.
The way people refute the idea that MM is just myths is also demonstrated by Hikuroa.
The traditional form of Mori narrative is called Prkau. Mori views of the world, of ultimate reality, and the relationship between the atua and humans are some of the things Prkau were used to create. Prkau were important to understanding the world in traditional Mori society. There is a widespread belief in the science and wider community that the prkau collections are just myths. The importance of prkau in teaching, learning and the intergenerational transfer of knowledge is an inadequate explanation of the importance of myths.
In the U.S., "scientific creationism" is said to presage later scientific findings. The legend of a giant water-dwelling lizard in New Zealand is said to explain the floods in that valley that kept the Mori from building their sacred areas there. If MM advocates can squeeze legends into the Procrustean bed of science, it will show that MM is science.
There is one more bit from reference 3.
Mtauranga Mori gives insight into different perspectives about knowledge. The Mori penchant for trying to understand the connections and relationships between all things human and non-human first provides a contrast to the western paradigm that tries to seek knowledge and understanding by a close and deep examination of something or someone in isolation. What is it for?
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The first question is, "Who or what is this thing I am seeing in this world and how do I relate to it?" The first question that Western knowledge asks is, what is the role that this person or thing has? The emphasis on the human element and impact on the human element distinguishes a Mtauranga Mori approach from a Western Pkeh approach. Source 3
One could not say that this kind of MM is related to modern New Age philosophy in the West.
What is wrong with teaching science? Western science is seen as white supremacist and colonial by MM advocates, and there are other issues as well. This is from a previous reference.
The big three subjects of biology, chemistry and physics are still taught in schools in simpler versions known as school science, which are collectively known as'school science'. A simplistic model of science taught in school that bears little resemblance to the diverse environments of modern working science and scientists is the result. The resistance to change of school science curricula has been documented for many years. School science needs to be simplified by comparison with the real world of working science. The success of science is promoted in textbook presentations, but it is not mentioned in regards to its failures and disgraces. The relevant intentions and effects form complex chains of power that are difficult to discern in a deviated textbook version of science.
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Secondary science teachers may believe that teaching science through the scientific method is in line with tertiary science education, so they may reject the proposed changes. This belief is flawed because modern philosophy of science accepts that there is no one scientific method, and because tertiary science teachers are under pressure to teach Mori. The next section looks at how science teachers could respond to the challenge of these changes in relation to the Mori concepts shown above.
If school kids are taught that there is a single scientific method, that is wrong. The practice of science is a toolkit with many tools, including observation, consensus, predictions, hypothesis-testing, experiments, and so on. Not all of these tools are used in scientific research. "Anything goes if itInvolves some of the tools of science", said Feyerabend. Teaching science is more than just teaching the methods scientists use, it also involves giving a body of knowledge to students and answering the question, "How did we come to know that?" What is evolution? How do we know it's true? When chemical bonds are formed, what happens? Why do we find marine fossils at high altitudes? And so on. Does MM have ways to answer those questions that are different from modern science?
I don't agree with the conclusion that science is white supremacist and colonial. The Nazis built a gas chamber to gas Jews, just as science was used in some cases to colonize. Some scientists used their knowledge in bad ways. It doesn't mean that science is a colonialist. The whiteness of science shows that modern science was developed by white people. Scientists are becoming much more diverse and that doesn't depend on race or gender. Asian scientists are thought to be practicing white supremacy.
Should MM be punished in prison? MM is not based on science and the methods of MM are not the methods of science. It would confuse students to learn that there are two incompatible ways of knowing.
The practical knowledge that helped the Mori thrive and survive should not be included in science class. It is good to do this so that Mori can connect with modern science, but also to show that part of the indigenous people with whom they rub elbows were skillful in empirical endeavors using a form of science. MM should not be taught as equal to modern science in schools, and should only be a small part of science classes. MM should be reserved for courses on culture, anthropology, and sociology.
Some of the effects that occur when MM replaces science have been shown by Elizabeth Rata.
In New Zealand, curriculum design tends to favour sociocultural knowledge over academic knowledge. There are two examples. The first is a study of Mori teachers. The teachers intended to give their own children an academic education. In line with bicultural policy, they teach a curriculum to their Mori students. The social studies teacher wanted to give students an opportunity to learn through a Mori lens, so they replaced history and geography with ka pa haka. 55). The teacher called educational success white success and opposed it to succeeding as Mori. 60). The media is the second example. The principal said that the danger of giving a powerful knowledge curriculum is that it is about who knows what. A colonial tool of putting old western knowledge ahead of indigenous communities is called a Eurocentric approach.
Sound familiar?
Why the big push to teach MM as competency with modern science? Everyone knows the answer, but don't say so because it's the Elephant in the Room. The Mori are being treated as a group of people who have been mistreated, and as a result, their culture is being treated as a group of people who have been mistreated. It is said that teaching MM will enable young Mori to connect better with science and become scientists who will join other working scientists in New Zealand. Equal treatment morally and legally is owed to Mori. This should not include teaching non-science as science and pretending that it is science. The parts of MM that are scientific will fail with biblical creationism.
MM will be taught in schools and colleges as a form of science. You don't have to read about government initiatives to know that this movement is unstoppable. New Zealand is the only country in the Western world that is willing to corrupt science in the service of equity. I pity the country, I pity its science teachers, and I pity the children who are deprived of the wonder and glory of real science because they are bound for a confusing education in science. I love New Zealand and its people, but they are divided along racial lines the same way we are in America.
There are parallels with the U.S. The Leftist attack on modern science is powered by a combination of postmodernism and a desire to dismantle the meritocracy, and that is why the push for teaching MM is part of it. Science is the most meritocratic of academic disciplines, since everyone can check on whether you have a good idea that produces truth.
Links are given to all publicly available documents.
1. The curriculum transformation programme of a university has an internal document called "Ptoi Ako".
2. D. Hikuroa was born in 1997. Mtauranga Mori is the kaip of knowledge in New Zealand. Jour. Roy. It's Soc. New Zealand is located in the Americas. 47:5-10
The organization is called the Kia Eke Panuku organization. Mtauranga Mori is not dated. There is a website at which you can find resources on Matauranga- Maori.
Tuari Stewart and A. Tedoldi. 2021. The NCEA is bringing Mori concepts into school science. 41: 77-81
Rata, E. M., 2021, curriculum design in a bicultural context. 149:22-23.
