This paper is a selective consideration of the scene of the establishment of the first school in New Zealand in 1816. By foregrounding the possible views of the indigenous (Maori) people about schooling, the authors show that the promise of schooling was impossible to fulfil. Our argument is that the first teacher(s)' refusal to learn from the people they intended to teach ensured that a proper educational relationship between Maori and European could never be established. (Contains 77 footnotes.)