“Youth challenging norms” is one of the challenging sub-headings of the Royal Society of NZ/Te Apārangi’s critique [1] of the new history curriculum proposed for release into Aotearoa New Zealand’s schools next year [2].
At page 19 of its report, the panel of experts [3] comments:
The idea of youth ‘challenging social norms’ is a prominent part of the outcomes to the end of Year 10, but does not connect with any other aspects of the curriculum. Young people taking an active role in political activity is something almost completely limited to the period after World War II, and mostly from the beginning of the 1960s. A rare example from an earlier period is the involvement of the Te Aute students (who became known as the Young Maori Party) in promoting health reforms. Through behaviour, some groups, such as those described as larrikins, did challenge social norms, but for every larrikin there were many, many more enthusiastic attendees of Sunday schools. To look at the way young people debated and chose roles that challenged expectations for young men and young women can only be appreciated if we understand what these norms were in the first place. To do this, students would need to consider what it was like to be a young person and how this changed over time. This would have been a more appropriate topic in itself. [17]
[17] Chris Brickell is just one of a number of historians who has written very productively about the history of ‘young people’ and youth culture across New Zealand history. For example: Chris Brickell, Teenagers: The rise of youth culture in New Zealand. Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2017.
 |
In this group of pupils and teachers at Tauranga School [4] are three of the 16 contributors to Ada’s book and the brother of a fourth: he is N McNaughton, third from left in the back row. The girls are: Mabel Blick, second from left in the middle row; Ada herself, fourth from left in the same row; and, at the front, second from left, Alice Brain. The date is uncertain but, I would contend, at the earlier end of the range offered (1892-1896). [Editor's Note: Stewart Bros. operated a studio in Tauranga from 1890-1892] |
As with the milk bar gangs of the mid-twentieth century, there is almost no direct evidence of political activism in the ‘confessions’ of Ada’s friends made fifty years earlier. But there are indications of political attitudes. Lest this essay be cribbed by some earnest Year-Tenner of the future, I do no more than present a few examples of responses that, with further research and careful attention to context, in my view show some threads of
a huge story of human experience, and of formative ideas that emerge from the political, industrial, and social revolutions from the late eighteenth century onwards – events that continue to shape the modern world (where ‘modern’ is taken to characterise the long span from the c.1780s into the late twentieth century, a period that is the context for Māori–European interaction). [7]
For instance, there is the young fellow (Mr F R Koller) who, aged 21, found the peculiarity he was most able to tolerate to be “an intense hatred of wrong” and who thought immorality to be the most detestable vice. He went on to be a head teacher [8] at Wade, later Silverdale, School. It is to be hoped that his ardent spirit inspired his pupils and colleagues.
 |
| Brain Watkins House Collection, Courtesy of Tauranga Historical Society |
Alice Brain, 18 years old at the time, claimed, possibly mischievously, “Te Kuiti” to be her favourite hero “in fiction” and the “D. of Wellington” and Florence Nightingale to be her historical hero and heroine. All names rather well known for challenging established ideas.
 |
| Brain Watkins House Collection, Courtesy of Tauranga Historical Society |
Then there is the enigmatic HineMoa, who would be seventy years old at her next birthday, but who evidently was part of a youthful social circle and whose “opinion of the girl of the period” was, well: “Perfection”. A senior woman affirming younger ones: the green shoots of feminism two years after women in New Zealand achieved the vote.
 |
| Brain Watkins House Collection, Courtesy of Tauranga Historical Society |
“History can hurt”, the Royal Society report goes on to say. I acknowledge that some of the light-hearted responses recorded in Ada’s book may cause pain to relatives and descendants of those who made their “Confessions” without any thought that later research might expose them to cool assessment and the judgment of hindsight. For me, unconnected with any of them, Ada’s book offers invaluable insights into a tiny slice of Tauranga society cheerfully playing a parlour game. In my view, for that alone, it has an intrinsic value for young students of history. If they then care to follow some of the threads of meaning offered by the youth of yesteryears, they may find, in the admittedly unreliable responses, a real sense of excitement and a trace of the power of ideas.
[1] https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/assets/Aotearoa-New-Zealand-histories-response-to-draft-curriculum-May-2021-digital.pdf
[2] https://ssol.tki.org.nz/Have-your-say-on-Aotearoa-New-Zealand-s-histories-draft-curriculum-content
[3] Professor Charlotte Macdonald FRSNZ, Professor Michael Belgrave (co-convenors), Sir Tipene O’Regan CRSNZ, Emerita Professor Barbara Brookes, Associate Professor Damon Salesa FRSNZ, Sean Mallon, Emerita Professor Manying Ip FRSNZ, Dr Vincent O’Malley, Professor Jim McAloon, Dr Arini Loader (until June 2020), and Kahu Hotere. Their report was independently reviewed by Emeritus Professor Atholl Anderson FRSNZ, Emeritus Professor Margaret Tennant FRSNZ, and Professor Tony Ballantyne FRSNZ.
[4] Tauranga City Libraries image 04-327. https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/29335
[5] 26 February 1895
[6] https://nzhistory.govt.nz/the-mazengarb-report-on-juvenile-moral-delinquency-is-released
No comments:
Post a Comment