1/14 There's been a lot of discussion on social media about the new history curriculum for Aotearoa/NZ schools. If there's one thing that many commenters, liberal & conservative, agree on, it is that kids should be taught 'objective history'. But there's no such thing. 
2/14 Facts are real. It's a fact that Germany invaded Poland on September the 1st 1939. It's a fact that John Walker won a gold medal at the '76 Olympics. Historians spend much of their time collecting facts. But facts can't make themselves into an 'objective history'.
3/14 Facts alone don't make any sort of historical discourse. They have to be organised into narratives, into analyses, into interpretations. & narratives, analyses, & interpretations are always influenced by the worldview & preconceptions of the person constructing them.
4/14 The timeline is the simplest form of historical narrative. A few years ago I had to create a timeline of NZ history for a group of primary school kids. I was only allowed to include 10 events in my timeline.
5/14 All the events in my timeline were factual. No one could reasonably doubt they occurred. & yet the timeline I constructed reflected my own perspective. Someone else could have made a vastly different timeline, drawing on some of the millions of other events in NZ history.
6/14 I chose to begin my timeline with the establishment of settlers' self-government in 1853. This is because I consider NZ a state founded by settlers, which gradually expanded into Maori-ruled regions, & then into the Pacific (even today Tokelau is a part of NZ).
7/14 But somebody might easily have begun their timeline with the emergence of these islands from the sea millions of years ago, with the arrival of the first Polynesian settlers, with the arrival of Cook, with the signing of the Treaty, or with Dominion status in 1907.
8/14 My choice reflects my worldview and my general interpretation of history. But the various other starting points for a timeline would not be invalid. They would simply reflect the perspectives of their authors.
9/14 All of the events in my timeline were easily verifiable facts. But by choosing these particular facts, out of millions of candidates, I was giving them a special importance. I was implicitly offering my own interpretation of NZ history.
10/14 I chose to include the Great Strike of 1913 in my timeline. Someone without my interest in trade union history - perhaps someone with conservative views, who thinks instances of social harmony are more worth noting than violent conflict - could have chosen something else.
11/14 To say that there is no objective history is not to say that every interpretation of history has the same value. One way we can judge interpretations is by their explanatory value - do they help us understand the past, or do they throw up anomalies & leave much unexplained?
12/14 In his famous book on the NZ Wars James Belich questioned some old interpretations of those conflicts. Some earlier historians had treated Pakeha victory in the wars as inevitable, & attributed any setbacks to bad leadership of Pakeha troops or similar factors.
13/14 But Belich put forward a new interpretation, which attributed many of the setbacks & defeats to the quality of Maori military resistance. His new interpretation has become popular because it seems to have more explanatory power & to generate fewer anomalies.
14/14 In their final year at high school, NZ history students are usually introduced to historiography, which makes them aware of different interpretations historians make of the past. They are being taught that there is no single, final, objective history. It's a good lesson.
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