Maori Science: Hit Or Myth?

Calls for Maori input in the science classroom are fine for encouraging students in the belief that science is relevant to their lives, but could also be used to cut them off from the international scientific community.

Christian creationists have battled, generally in vain, to have Biblical beliefs taught in school evolution classes. Now scientists and some teachers are worried that another belief system may be pushed into the classroom, as Maori folklore and culture gains attention in the science syllabus.

Five years of intense thought and discussion have gone into the new draft syllabus currently under consideration by the Ministry of Education. The last publicly aired version contained suggestions that teachers need to "acknowledge the beliefs, values and heritage of Maori students". It affirmed the special place of the Maori people as tangata whenua and encouraged the use of Maori language in science.

The reaction of many scientists to these suggestions is one of puzzlement. What relevance, they ask, has this to science teaching? Even the then Minister for Science (DSIR), Clive Matthewson, said he was "a bit surprised" to learn of the recommendations.

"The recognition of any cultural context in a science syllabus only introduces an irrelevance which will inevitably distort and, perhaps, even destroy the very fabric of science education," said Warwick Don, senior lecturer in Otago University's Zoology Department.

Like most scientists, Don considers the universality of science as one of the most important factors distinguishing it from all other human activities. Science deals with the real world and scientific methodology freely crosses cultural boundaries.

Scientists recall with a shudder examples of religious, cultural or political dabblings in science. The Soviet Union's biological sciences are still paying the price for letting Marxist doctrine rule agriculture and _ genetics. Physiological and psychological studies were used to justify the dominance of one race over another in the United States, Nazi Germany and South Africa.

Ethnoscience

Ethnoscience — the use of a cultural view to explain the observed world — has been gaining ground around the world. At its extreme, it is seen as a means of getting away from white, male-dominated, imperialist attitudes and empowering the cultural beliefs of ethnic minorities.

In the United States, such an approach is being used to teach Hispanic children science from the viewpoint of the ancient Mayan mathematical system and Aztec ethnobotany. This "particularist" approach has been heavily criticised, not least because Spanish-American students would presumably have European science tradition as their heritage, rather than those of South American natives.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek, a lecturer in science education at the University of Papua New Guinea, has long studied Melanesian ethnoscience. He disputes the suggestion that science per se has racist or imperialist underpinnings.

"[[To educated Papua New Guineans] science is not generally seen as 'white man's science' but as a form of knowledge accessible by all peoples whatever their cultural background, for the benefit of everyone. Science education as a form of cultural imperialism was laughed off so often that it became an embarrassment for me," he avers.

He is concerned that teaming traditional science with a single culturally specific ethnoscience in a multicultural society like New Zealand would "do justice to neither and be deleterious to an understanding of both".

Meaningful Context

Beverley Bell, who has worked hard on developing the syllabus revision, sees the recommendations as less radical than they might appear. The use of Maori concepts and beliefs is intended to provide a meaningful context in which students can relate science directly to their own experiences. By applying a Maori perspective, it is hoped to encourage more Maori students to take up science and to feel less alienated from science.

Pauline Waiti, of the University of Waikato, echoes those thoughts. In the NZ Science Teacher journal she outlined ways in which teachers could take a fresh look at science to make it more relevant for Maori students. Thus the unit on "Science and Me" ('Ahau') could start with "Whakapapa" ('Genealogy') to acknowledge the importance of the past. From there, the science units could go on to look at the body, growth and development and so on. Waiti sees the science as being the same, with only the teaching approach being made more appropriate.

She did warn that "we have to be careful that in contextualising content we do so sensitively and accurately, and we must make sure that all the necessary information is passed on. After all, we do not want to 'ghettoize' Maori education."

The recommendations are part of a general move towards greater emphasis on context and learning experiences. The "science for all" approach aims to produce students who are scientifically literate and who find science topics personally and socially relevant.

"We haven't advocated a separate science, a Maori science," Bell says. "We're saying that perhaps the context needs to be looked at differently."

Radical Extreme

A more radical approach is advocated by Helen McGregor, a Lincoln University lecturer, and endorsed by teachers attending her session at this year's Science Teachers' Conference. McGregor contends that there should be no separation between Maori culture and Maori science.

In her approach, the wanderings of Ruaumoko, the goddess of volcanoes, are used to explain earthquakes and the movement of tectonic plates. Whales are classed as mammals because Tane Mahuta, god of the forests, claims them for his realm.

"Mythology is very much a part of scientific analysis," McGregor says. It is not part of her culture to single out any particular area of study. There is no need to teach students distinctions between what is believed scientifically and what concepts have their basis in non-scientific beliefs.

Teachers at her session appeared to have no difficulty with this and, when asked, affirmed that creationism was an equally valid approach for European science students. One teacher recalled work by a geology professor which suggested that the Maori were explaining geological processes when they told legends of wandering mountains. The group speculated that perhaps they were recalling actual events in the geological history of New Zealand. McGregor sees this as providing validation and legitimacy for mixing mythology and science.

The geology professor, John McCraw, Professor Emeritus at Waikato University, says he does not go along with this idea. He's used legends in his Stage I classes to get students interested in the subject and give them a context in which to place the science.

"In no way will I go along with any suggestion that legends should replace 'pakeha science'", he states. "The legends could make at least a small contribution to the integration of Maori culture and pakeha science that the new school science curriculum says is so desirable," McCraw concludes.

Teachers agree that the deplorably low numbers of Maori students in science studies obviously demands more effective measures to gain their attention and interest. The draft syllabus goes some way to addressing those demands; its implementation as suggested by Helen McGregor goes a great deal further.

Vicki Hyde is editor of the New Zealand Science Monthly. This article first appeared in the September 1990 issue.