It's Our Treaty/Tiriti!

Our first week back at school was punctuated by our beloved national holiday, Waitangi Day. Everybody was, of course, very thankful for such a gradual return to routine. However, by Tuesday of week two we were really kicking our brains in to gear, starting with a question of national significance - What IS the Treaty of Waitangi?

A day of rich learning ensued. Read more about the social experiment our teachers literally plastered on us here. 

Through a 2018 collaboration between The Spinoff and The Ministry of Education (via School Journals) we now possess the most colourful, engaging and honest Treaty of Waitangi resources in existence.

As one of the comic's creators Toby Morris points out, Te Tiriti o Waitangi "tells the story of the Treaty of Waitangi for primary school and intermediate-aged kids, but considering how sparse education in New Zealand has been around this subject, we think the adults might need it too." You can see it for yourself here.

We kicked off our Treaty learnings by reading the comic together. We then investigated some Tika/Teka (True/False) statements using a range of resources. 

This group answered the true/false question "The Waitangi Tribunal has helped make things more fair" with "True - It's the reason there's peace today."

Learning about the Treaty inspired us to do something about our own unfair dot/non-dot situation. 

At the end of the day we reflected on how our Dots/Non-dots social experiment connected to our Treaty of Waitangi learning. 

How does this connect to the treaty of Waitangi? Because the British took over New Zealand 🇳🇿 and bossed the Maori around (that was the dots which was not me). But later the British listened to the Maori and switched it around (the teachers listened to the non dots and switched it around) - Charlotte C

People make agreements like the Treaty of Waitangi to stop wars and tribal rivalries. The treaty made peace between people - Billy B

I was sorry for the other people because the green dots were kind of mean. People should have a treaty so they are not told what to do as people do really mean things. We need a treaty in our class - James N

People make agreements like the Treaty of Waitangi because they don't want their selfish, mean, greedy, annoying, tattling leaders being mean to them and acting like they're worthless MUD! - Nye W

We are certainly powerful, connected thinkers here at WBS. Our Treaty of Waitangi day of learning was the beginning of an Inquiry centred on relationships. We'll call it 'He Waka Eke Noa' - We're all in this together.