Should Te Reo Māori be compulsory in schools?
No, it should be optional in every school but not compulsory
We would not be here today without the Māori culture. It is apart of New Zealand and what makes NZ,…
Whilst I understand and see your point about other life skills we should learn, that was not the question that was asked. I too think that those skills, although I don’t know how they would do it, should be taught as the benefits would reap through society and generations to come. As for the question that was asked, which was, Should Te Reo Māori be compulsory in schools, some of what you want to be taught such as respect, is something that is deeply embedded within the Māori language for example. As to address my comment about the math and English skills, I guess I was vague. What I meant to allude at was that we are taught compulsory math for majority of school, often learning skills such as Pythagoras, trigonometry, how to write film essays etc. Whilst I’m sure those skills will be useful to a small minority of people with whatever professions they chose to pursue, they are mostly useless to society which is held true due to most of the older generation not knowing these skills and many kids who have left school, not remembering a single thing about these. Obviously basic math and English skills will always be used, but those skills are ones we learnt at a very young age. The Māori language is a dying language because we have let it become one. It used to be banned in schools where they were just trying to abolish the language as well. If you know anything about linguistics you would know that language is deeply important. It has culture, history and connects people. New Zealand is Māori land, English speakers colonised it, not the other way around.
I appreciate your perspective on the unification and community-building potential of making Te Reo Māori compulsory in schools. You've brought up a really interesting point about how learning this language could help instill respect, which is indeed a vital life skill. However, consider this: if the primary goal of education is to equip students with practical skills for their future, then shouldn't the curriculum focus more on universally applicable languages like English, Spanish, or Mandarin?
The point you've made about the importance of language in preserving culture and… Read more
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I agree that a goal of education is to better equip students for the future but I would also argue that there is not one primary goal. Another equally important goal of education is to provide a wide range of knowledge on a broad range of topics. If we were talking about how we should better fund both of these ideas, I think there should be a wide range of changes within the education taught and the system that provides the education. For example, having a compulsory second language taught with emphasis on them being on the more universally applicable languages like you stated. But also a com… Read more
