📖 Unit Overview
This 8-10 week unit challenges colonial narratives of New Zealand history by centering Māori perspectives, agency, and resistance. Students examine history through a decolonized lens, understanding ongoing struggles for tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty) and the impacts of colonization.
Rather than presenting Māori as passive recipients of colonization, this unit highlights sophisticated pre-colonial societies, strategic resistance, powerful activism movements, and contemporary justice pathways.
📋 NZC Curriculum Alignment
This unit addresses achievement objectives across multiple learning areas of the New Zealand Curriculum.
Social Studies / Tikanga-ā-Iwi
Understand how systems of government in New Zealand operate and affect people's lives, and how they compare with another system.
Understand how the Treaty of Waitangi is responded to differently by people in different times and places.
Understand how people's perceptions of and interactions with natural environments differ and have changed over time.
English / Reo Pākehā
Show understanding of ideas and information in texts through identifying and analyzing main and subsidiary ideas and the links between them.
Key Competencies / Ngā Pūkenga Matua
🤔 Thinking
Students critically analyze historical narratives, identify bias, and construct counter-narratives based on evidence.
🤝 Relating to Others
Understanding historical injustices develops empathy and commitment to social justice in contemporary contexts.
🌱 Participating & Contributing
Connects historical activism to contemporary social movements, encouraging active citizenship.
🔍 Managing Self
Confronting difficult histories requires emotional resilience and sustained critical engagement with challenging material.
🎓 Pedagogical Approach
Counter-Narrative Methodology
This unit explicitly challenges dominant colonial narratives. Students learn to identify whose voices are centered and marginalized in historical accounts, developing skills to construct evidence-based counter-narratives.
Primary Source Analysis
Students engage directly with historical documents, waiata, speeches, and Tribunal findings. This develops critical literacy and understanding that history is constructed from evidence, not simply received as fact.
Trauma-Informed Practice
Given the difficult content, lessons are structured to acknowledge harm while focusing on Māori agency and resistance. Content warnings, choice in engagement, and support resources are embedded throughout.
✅ Assessment Overview
Formative Assessment
- Primary source analysis worksheets
- Historical argument construction exercises
- Peer review of counter-narrative drafts
Summative Assessment
- Research Essay: Students construct a decolonized historical account of a specific event or period, centering Māori perspectives
- Oral Presentation: Present findings to class, demonstrating understanding of historiography and counter-narrative methodology
- Portfolio: Collection of source analyses and reflections on changing historical understanding