Treaty of Waitangi DVDs launched at Film Archive

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Treaty of Waitangi DVDs for secondary school students launched at Film Archive

New Treaty education resources will be released Monday 25 August at the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington.

The Treaty: Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a comprehensive three-disk addition to the Archive's highly successful On Disk Library, a growing collection of moving-image resources on DVD for New Zealand secondary schools, commissioned by the Ministry of Education.

The resources will be launched at the Film Archive, Wellington by Associate Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage Judith Tizard and Associate Minister of Education Hon Parekura Horomia, from 5:15pm to 7pm Monday 25 August, at the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington.

The Treaty: Te Tiriti o Waitangi resources have been designed to help teachers facilitate learning experiences relating to the Treaty, as stated in The New Zealand Curriculum (2007).

What makes these resources unique is the range of sources that the Film Archive has been able to draw from - from early silent film, documentary extracts, television advertising, and 1930s newsreels, through to recent items from television news and current affairs. These are then easily accessed through the multi-menued DVDs that teachers can use to support the learning of senior secondary students.

The research and editing process has unearthed a significant amount of Treaty specific footage now available for all New Zealanders to view at the Film Archive in Wellington or around the country at specific Video Access Sites.

Film Archive Education Programmes Manager Alex Burton says the importance of these Treaty resources cannot be understated.

"They provide eight hours of moving-image excerpts supported by online curriculum materials that present balanced historical background information, an analysis of the actual language and ramifications of the Treaty Articles, alongside wide-ranging footage that gives evidence of the changing dynamic of the Treaty in New Zealand's recent history. There is plenty of room for teachers to manoeuvre and for students to see the contentious issues being debated."

"At one point you might be analysing the divergent views of those involved in the representation of the Treaty during the final stages of Te Papa's construction, next a news report on the use of the haka in a video game! This exceptional footage is designed to show the Treaty in its many aspects at work in New Zealand society."

"The idea is to make it both informed and enjoyable, and, as the new curriculum says, make what we study a part of our life-long learning. It doesn't stipulate what viewpoint you should take, but it does provide the source evidence of the different perceptions people have had regarding this important and contentious document over time," says Burton.

The new Treaty resources are the latest production from the Education Team at the Film Archive. Designed to harness the power of visual source material to enhance the learning process, teachers and students have been quick to recognise the usefulness of the On Disk Library. Nearly 800 secondary teachers around the country have realised the potential of this service in the past year alone. The On Disk library contains over forty titles designed specifically for the secondary school curriculum and are available completely FREE of charge.

Secondary schools are able to borrow these new On Disk resources or any from the catalogue of forty titles by ordering online at: http://www.filmarchive.org.nz/education/ondisk.html

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