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Wednesday 30 May 2018

Whoa-ora and Sheesh-kanga

First off, an apology to my colleagues. A conversation taking place around me yesterday left me feeling concerned about a few people I care about. The emotional toll left me a bit empty for staff only day today, which impacted my filter, my ability to receive from those teaching, and my ability to engage with people on anything beyond the surface. I eventually took myself off to a quiet corner to refresh and restore somewhat. I am aware that my lack of freeboard will impact the telling of this story, however, I am also aware that our students come into our classes with their own lack of freeboard. For that reason, I hope this will help us all. Help me to process and be back to normal, and help us to remember to look beyond the surface when a student is disengaged.

So, whoa-ora and sheesh-kanga. What do I mean by that. Firstly, it is not meant as derogatory slurs against te Reo Māori. It's to express my feeling of overwhelm at concepts that feel so foreign to me. I thought I was pretty good at ticking the criteria 3 and 10 boxes in the previous Registered Teacher Criteria (they're the ones that were to do with Māori learners and Māori learning). Seems that's actually exactly all I was doing. How was I being inclusive? Chuck a couple of NZ short stories in the year somewhere and yup - I've included Māori learners in my curriculum. If they had actual te Reo words in them - great. 3 and 10 done. Tick tick.

So when I started teaching Kaupapa Māori as a critical lens to teach literature through this term, I actually had no concept of the magnitude of the task we are undertaking. I am so grateful that my students expect their teachers to be learners, because right now we are all wrestling together.

Here's a website that clearly outlines Kaupapa Māori.  Whaea said "ka rewe", so I'm going to use this as our base.
Here's a Mansfield text. How well is it fitting Kaupapa Māori? Not great - she's Pākeha (Kaupapa Māori includes "by Māori, for Māori, about Māori in its definition). Nonetheless, we explored the Pākeha construct of Māori in this text, as breaking down the Pākeha-born identity is one thing Kaupapa Māori seeks to do (Kayla.net)
Here's an Ihimaera one. Same event as Mansfield, but a Māori author's response. How are the two stories the same? Different? Where's Waari in this story? What's Kaupapa Māori about this story?
Let's watch Waru - Whaea said this was Kaupapa Māori. But how is this Kaupapa Māori when Whaea also said that The Pā Boys isn't Māori?
Let's watch The Pā Boys and see if we can work it out.
We are wrestling. It's hard. The students are doing better at it than I am, that's for sure. I'm joining in with all the learning activities, including myself in the groupings, because I'm learning right along with these year 13 students. Once we've finished watching The Pā Boys, we'll go back to critical texts again and try and work this out together. I gave the students their Assessment documents at the beginning of the unit, and told them to hand them into me on or before the first day of next term, so they know what ways they're evidencing their learning this term. Which means right now we can focus on this challenge of deconstructing texts to work out what Kaupapa Māori actually means.

And yet despite all this - or perhaps because of it - when I went to the workshop on matauranga Māori and the one on tikanga, I still felt very overwhelmed. I did a full year paper on Matauranga Maori in 2006 as a compulsory part of my dip ed., but I can't remember anything other than circles - teach in a cyclic way and keep coming back to content. So when asked "What do I want to know", I freeze. I have no idea - I'm so challenged in my own understanding and I'm so emotionally depleted that I'm struggling to know even where to begin. I feel like the student we write off as being disengaged: just tell me what I can do. Tell me something. I can't think yet because I feel so overwhelmed that I don't know where to start because everything is spinning. It's not that I'm intentionally disengaging, nor am I disengaging out of disrespect, apathy, or arrogance. Simply not knowing means there's nowhere where I can fit yet. Nothing to build from. Nothing that looks / sounds / feels familiar and I don't quite know what to do about it.

So when it came to writing my goal based on what I learned that session, sorry kaiako, it's still blank. I think it'll probably read "by the end of this term I will have prioritised the principles of Matauranga Māori and chosen one to incorporate into a class".

The following session on tikanga I thought I'd be a bit better with. I had a whole place on my back wall with the tikanga of my class written on it.
We respect:
Ourselves by doing our work and asking for help.
Others by supporting their efforts and encouraging their risks.
Learning by trying everything and trying again.
The environment by keeping it clean and keeping it calm.

Tikanga - a way of doing things. There are so many tikanga for so many differnt things. I kinda feel like my 10yo daughter a bit - she often laments all the rules she has to know. Why so many rules? Well, it's the way of doing things in society.

It's not that they were tricky, and many of them are already in place in my home even - we have Kai karakia at home, we just have them in English. It wouldn't be hard to ask someone to help me translate a few into te Reo Māori for me. It also wouldn't be hard to have some karakia that we all know to start each lesson with. Every time I observe a Māori class, I see a karakia being given, and I really like it. There was a lot of tikanga Māori that really resonated with me, and I kept finding myself staring at the list in awe and wonder, "that's really ok to do?"

One of the reasons I came to HPSS for my next set of challenges was to extend further into skills that I valued and are normal here. I romantically forgot that challenges come with struggles, and learning pits are innate too! Fortunately I can recognise that in myself - this is a learning pit, it won't last.

And fortunately also, I carry with me my learning from my previous kaumatua: to take one thing at a time, to be patient, to count on people to support me in my struggles (bless you, Whaea! Answering my continuous questions).

And so, by the end of the term I will have started a journey with my year 13 students towards a deeper understanding of what "as Maori" really looks like.

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