I believe it was Deborah who said, “history is thrust upon us and we’re expected to know it.”

We learn in baby steps. We weren’t taught calculus at 13, we were taught linear algebra first. I wasn’t an immigrant six-year-old in ESOL studying Shakespeare’s use of iambic pentameter in his sonnets, I dealt with the concept of compound words like ‘cupboard’ being made up of ‘cup’ and ‘board.’ We were taught about Einstein’s impact on Physics, but we learnt Newton’s physics first. Could you imagine TRYING to learn organic chemistry before atomic structure? Jeez.

Through baby steps, I’ve gained a great appreciation for all of those subjects. I can’t say the same for my education on history, though, and I think my relationship with history, and history’s relationship with me, has suffered.

I moved to East Auckland from the Philippines when I was 5. Until I was 9~ I knew nothing about any history. Like, at all. Philippine’s or New Zealand’s. So, when I was first exposed to the Treaty of Waitangi at 8, I took for face value that land disputes can be settled with a piece of paper. Granted, eight-year olds aren’t known for their critical thinking, but it remains: I was exposed to this MASSIVE concept of colonialism and had no framework to structure my emotions or thoughts. I had no steppingstones to process history and colonialism systematically like I have for everything else.

This issue was exacerbated in Intermediate & College. After 2 years of repetitive research and reproducing the same content, year 9 social studies’ Treaty of Waitangi & ANZAC section was met with unenthusiastic acceptance. These sentiments would be heard when 500+ kids, from Y9-Y13, had to sit on the gym floor and listen to another kid recite ‘In Flanders Fields’ on a hot summer afternoon. I doubt kids don’t respect Nz’s war history, but as a collective group FAR removed from this war (as many students don’t have relatives who fought) we have little framework, sometimes even little reason, to even begin processing how war can be connected to us and how we should approach it.

I’ve only been able to process history, colonialism, and history’s relationship to me, in the first semester of Uni. I also know I’m not the only one. Someone in arts school had said that until recently, they knew very little about Te Tiriti. I also know that recently, people have been slowly understanding and dealing with one’s country’s history. My Indian friend who recently started seeing a British man joked “My ancestors are rolling in their grave but I’m ✨different ✨.” Tiktoks of young Filipino’s would joke about how “If I was alive during Spanish colonialism, I would simply stop it💪.” There’s also Tiktoks of Filipino’s teaching each other about the Philippines pre-colony. In general, there’s a concerted attempt to decolonize our understandings of our own identities and cultures.

Nowadays, the youth are experiencing war and colonialism at multiple removes, and it makes for an interesting study not only on how colonial history should be taught and remembered, but how we should deal with it, too.