As for the tales you hear about Maori getting the strap for speaking Maori in school, what you are not told is that ALL kids were either strapped or caned when a rule was broken.

Interesting how you only get told one side of the story....

Maori children were strapped for speaking Maori

Why Maori was not allowed to be spoken in NZ schools?

Petition of Wi Te Hakiro and 336 others

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BIM873TeHa-t1-g1-t1.html

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BIM873TeHa-t1-g1-t2.html

"A civilising mission?: perceptions and representations of the native schools" by Judith A. Simon, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, 2001

"‘In the 1870s, shortly after the Native Schools system had been established, a number of prominent Maori sought through Parliament to place greater emphasis on the teaching of English in the schools. A newly elected Maori Member of Parliament, Takamoana, sought legislation to ensure that Maori children were taught only in English. A number of petitions in a similar vein were also taken to Parliament by Maori. One such petition in 1877 by Wi Te Hakiro and 336 others called for an amendment to the 1867 Native Schools Act which would require the teachers of a Native School to be ignorant of the Maori language and not permit the Maori language to be spoken at the school.

Some school committees developed similar restrictions themselves. The minutes of Waima School committee show that as early as 1883 this school developed a policy forbidding both parents and children to speak in Maori. The minutes recorded that,

“[to] supplement the law forbidding the speaking of Maori in class, or in the school grounds in school hours, no person or parent can engage a child in speaking Maori, and in such cases, any child can inform on that person or parent to the Committee, who shall be empowered to fine that person or parent the sum of five shillings. If it is a matter of emergency or extreme importance, the child can be removed out of sight or hearing of other children before any communication takes place.”

These rules would have been generated and approved by the committee, which in all likelihood was all Maori except for the teachers. It is ironic that the minutes that the above quote summarises were written in te reo Maori. It was commonplace for such meetings to be held and recorded in Maori during this period."