Whanganui High School History Students Embrace Local History

In the last few days Whanganui High School students have been out and about looking into aspects of local history.

The Y11 students are using the topic “How We Remember” to look at local monuments in and around the city. Our walking tour also included the Alexander Research Library where the students were even able to do some research on their own families. This year we took along our Maori Dean Tim Pauro who was able to give the students an interesting perspective on some of the sites as well. Next term we hope to extend this further with a trip up the river.

Meanwhile the Y12s are researching “New Zealand at War”, and to help them with this we undertook a trip to the excellent National Army Museum in Waiouru. Part of this assessment is that the students not only have to do the research, but they also must use their research to design a museum exhibition. So not only were the students given a fascinating tour, they were also able to use the extensive Kippenberger research library. By a strange coincidence, one of our students has chosen the Maori 28th battalion as his research focus, and on that day one of only two surviving members of the battalion happened to be visiting the museum. It was really a privilege for Jansen Condon-Ngapo to meet with ‘Bomb’ Gillies, and the two were able to spend a little bit of time together making connections across the generations. One comment heard in the bus on the way home was “For a learning trip, this was really fun!”

Mrs Jemma de Smidt
History Teacher in charge 18/2/20