The article discusses the challenges of
teaching history within the ongoing context
of curriculum reforms in New Zealand.
Specifically, I discuss my learnings
and challenges, as a Brazilian-born lecturer
at a New Zealand public university, to
implement a pioneering history curriculum
in the country. In the first part, I present
a brief history of history teaching contexts
in New Zealand. I focus on the
current process of refreshing the national
New Zealand curriculum, which, among
significant changes, draws on a pioneering
principle entitled mana ōrite mō te
mātauranga, which intends to give epistemological
equity between indigenous and
Western knowledge traditions. In the second
part, I detail and reflect on my own
classroom initiatives to rethink “what”
and “how” to teach history to future New
Zealand history teachers amidst the current
decolonizing context of political and
epistemological changes.
