Te Reo Māori i Tāmakimakaurau
Te reo is a taonga, but one in wide circulation, like the knowledge of how to make a fishing net discovered by Kahukura – a valuable resource for the entire populace. In this respect, revitalisation efforts cannot be bound by ethnic, regional or iwi-based exclusivenes. Thus, although the use, status, and transmission of te reo within the Māori community is of special relevance, facilitating the knowledge and use of the language within the community at large is also a vital concern; indeed, the two processes are interlinked.
AUTHOR DR RICHARD BENTON
Notes on the Māori Language in the Auckland Region, prepared for Te Reo Hapori, Māori Language Commission by Dr Richard A Benton
Just let the revolution come
The call to make te reo Māori compulsory is getting louder and louder. This year, with Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori falling smack bang in the middle of the election, it’s almost impossible to ignore.
by Nadine Anne Hura | Sep 16, 2017
The call to make te reo Māori compulsory is getting louder and louder. This year, with Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori falling smack bang in the middle of the election, it’s almost impossible to ignore.
But making Māori compulsory isn’t necessarily the magic bullet people are looking for.
It’s not that we shouldn’t strive to give our indigenous language the status and recognition it deserves. Absolutely we should. But it’s easy to declare the things we want. Much harder to sit down and devise a comprehensive strategy for how we go about achieving it.
Let’s say, for example, we made te reo Māori compulsory overnight. Every school in the country would be required to teach Māori. But how often? And by whom? Is any standard of te reo acceptable? And would we attempt to enforce or monitor such a policy? In the Middle East, our local school had to report the kids who missed more than eight consecutive Arabic lessons. Would we do the same?
A better approach would be to overhaul the curriculum, so te reo, tikanga and history are incorporated as core subjects alongside English, maths and science.
This is what the Māori Party wants to do. Te reo wouldn’t then be a marginal subject within the arts programme, but would form a part of the backbone of our curriculum.
This makes sense because, as anybody who’s studied te reo knows, our language is so much more than a collection of verbs and nouns. Te reo Māori is a rope of interwoven fibres — culture, history, knowledge, values and whakapapa. You can’t just pick out one strand.
But, as great as it sounds, a policy like this isn’t straightforward to deliver. Our national curriculum is a framework that props up our entire qualifications system. If we change the curriculum, it’ll set in train a domino effect that will impact on everything from achievement standards to unit standards to the quagmire that is NCEA.
It’s not that it’s not a worthy project. But you have to ask yourself: is this the best use of limited resources? Are we happy to sink more money into the bureaucracy?
Besides, there’s no guarantee this investment will result in the change we want to see on the ground. Far better, I reckon, to spend the money on the people already doing the doing: kōhanga reo, kura kaupapa, wharekura, and all the Māori teachers putting in extra unpaid hours in mainstream schools.
Anyway, the Ministry of Education would argue that the curriculum is already inclusive of te reo and tikanga Māori. Freshening it up so it’s slightly more prescriptive around te reo doesn’t mean that schools will automatically incorporate it in the way we want them to.
English is a core subject, but it isn’t taught at my local school in exactly the same way it’s taught at yours. That’s because the curriculum is flexible and open to interpretation. Our system recognises, in theory at least, that education isn’t a one-size-fits-all model.
The other danger of compulsory te reo relates to the question of power. The last thing we want to do, inadvertently or otherwise, is give the power to dictate what is taught, and how, to the government.
The same reason we don’t want the government to direct schools on the teaching of Māori history. As Morgan Godfery writes: "Asking the state to step in and revise the curriculum is like asking the school bully to take up a position as the school counsellor.”
Finally, and arguably most important, there’s the issue of capability. Where are all these qualified te reo teachers supposed to come from? We're not hiding them in the wings somewhere — we simply don’t have the supply of quality teachers to meet the demand yet.
This is critical, because schools that lack capacity internally won’t be able to deliver a quality programme in te reo. And quality does matter. A lot.
But just because it's difficult to implement compulsory te reo, doesn’t mean to say the government is off the hook. Nor should we be satisfied with a National Party policy that would give Māori no greater priority in the curriculum than half a dozen foreign languages.
The groundswell of public opinion calling for compulsory te reo is an expression of the value New Zealanders place in our indigenous language. It’s evidence that the status quo “leave it up to schools” just isn’t good enough.
But there are smarter ways to go about it.
For a start, we need to increase the investment in schools already delivering te reo and tikanga Māori within the curriculum. That means kura kaupapa, bilingual units, kōhanga reo, Māori boarding schools. We need only compare Māori rates of achievement in these environments to understand the value of this investment.
But Māori medium education is only a narrow part of the picture. The majority of Māori students are in English medium schools. They're no less of a priority just because they’re in schools that don’t produce fluent speakers of te reo.
More to the point, ensuring Pākehā New Zealanders also learn te reo is vital. Pākehā are the dominant ethnic group in this country and, like it or not, will always be much closer to the levers of power than us. It’s in all our interests, as a bicultural nation, to increase the number of Pākehā who understand, speak, and value te reo and tikanga Māori.
So how do we do that, exactly? At least part of the solution lies in knowing how much mainstream schools invest in te reo. At the moment, the education ministry can’t say with any certainty exactly how much money is spent on the teaching of te reo Māori within an English medium environment. That’s because schools are independent, and free to spend their operational budgets as they choose.
If we're to lift te reo Māori from a "nice to have" to a “must have” we need better accountability measures in place. Let’s require schools to be transparent about their investment in te reo. But before we do that, we have to make sure they have sufficient resources in the first place.
An increase in funding for te reo in schools would allow us to address first and foremost the capability issue. We spend millions on scholarships for new teachers of te reo, but we need to extend that opportunity to current teachers. The kinds of teachers who are already committed to learning te reo in their own time. Let’s offer those teachers release time and immersion opportunities so they can study at an advanced level without having to quit their jobs and sacrifice their salaries.
Giving incentives to current teachers to learn Māori isn’t rocket science. We could also provide an annual bonus for teachers and principals who speak te reo. The better and more fluent you are, the bigger the bonus. We do it for public servants, why not teachers too?
The resources available to support the teaching of te reo Māori, particularly in English medium schools, also need an overhaul. Te Kete Ipurangi, the Ministry of Education’s portal for curriculum resources, is neither enticing nor technologically-friendly. Broken links, videos that don’t play on certain platforms, and audio files that have to be manually downloaded before you can listen to them.
We should also provide examples of best practice that other like-minded schools can follow.
Auckland Grammar School, one of our largest secondary schools in the country, didn’t need to wait for a Ministry of Education directive to introduce te reo Māori as a compulsory subject. They went ahead and did it off their own bat.
Now, all Year 9 students at AGS, some 500 students every year, are required to take te reo Māori. It wasn’t something the school’s board could do without prioritising the resources for it, so a full-time head teacher of Māori was appointed.
Tim O’Connor, headmaster of AGS, said that the decision made sense, because it aligned with their philosophy and values. "There had been a push to introduce Mandarin, but we asked ourselves: why would we introduce Mandarin before one of our other official languages?"
Of course, you could argue that a school like AGS, sitting in a decile 9 zone, is better equipped to adopt a compulsory te reo policy than some other schools around the country. But that’s an issue to do with a lack of resources, rather than a lack of will. So let’s level the playing field and establish an uncapped fund to assist schools who want to adopt a compulsory or universal policy on te reo.
The interesting thing about AGS, is that there wasn’t any backlash. The board had been prepared to defend their decision, but there was no need. The programme was received with the full support of the community — and next year, they’re planning to extend it.
It’s a lesson — and a wero — to other schools to follow suit. It’s also proof that our system isn’t broken, it just needs fine-tuning in the right places.
As Tim O'Connor says: “We’re on the tip of a revolution with te reo. To make it political, to talk about compulsion, isn’t going to assist the process. It’s already happening. Let it go. Make some decisions, look strategically to the future. The demand is already there. Just let the revolution continue." Nadine Millar
What are your thoughts?
“An increase in funding for te reo in schools would allow us to address first and foremost the capability issue. We spend millions on scholarships for new teachers of te reo, but we need to extend that opportunity to current teachers. The kinds of teachers who are already committed to learning te reo in their own time. Let’s offer those teachers release time and immersion opportunities so they can study at an advanced level without having to quit their jobs and sacrifice their salaries,” says Nadine
What are some practical ways this can happen quickly and efficiently?
The best is to give leave to a key teacher and immerse them in Te Reo at a Rumaki course much like what happens to a selected few now but often this is too hard for the school, especially rural schools requiring their teacher to move or travel to the city and for their school it is very hard to cover them and often they then get head hunted elsewhere.
One teacher offered the idea of using proven tutors of Te Reo to run afternoon sessions two or three times a week starting at 2pm and running through to 5pm each day. This would allow these key teachers to work with their classes in the mornings and practice their new learning with their kids in between time. Their school would retain their connection with them and find it easier to cover their absence in the afternoons. Marae type Wananga could then be scheduled for a week of each holiday break, along with a summer school to start and perhaps even complete the course. Each teacher selected would have to prove that they are not an absolute beginner and for the school to enter into the contract, they too would have to show their commitment and also their determination to grow Te Reo in their kura. It’s a win- win situation for everyone. Mike Lander WaiMac
Culturally Responsive Sustaining Education Framework
For more than a century, education providers throughout the United States have strived and struggled to meet the diverse needs of American children and families. A complex system of biases and structural inequities is at play, deeply rooted in our country’s history, culture, and institutions. This system of inequity — which routinely confers advantage and disadvantage based on linguistic background, gender, skin color, and other characteristics — must be clearly understood, directly challenged, and fundamentally transformed.
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Treaty of Waitangi and Community Development
The Treaty of Waitangi is the founding document for relationships between Maori and the Crown in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In more recent years, discussion and debate about the Treaty and its relevance to modern society has been both vigorous and contentious.
So what, then, is the relevance of the Treaty to us as community development workers and communities? How do we sort through the myriad of issues and give real meaning and effect to the Treaty in our everyday work and lives?
This paper will explore some of the issues surrounding the Treaty, taking an Article-based approach to working with the Treaty in an effective and meaningful way for those of us working in community development.
AUTHOR Mairehe Louise Tankersle
Paper presented to “The Big Day In” Community Development Conference, May 2004
Working with Te Tiriti o Waitangi
One of the most important aspects of working with te tiriti is making sure that anything we do is genuine and not just for show. To ensure this, employers and staff need a good understanding of what te tiriti is and means, so that they can work out how it applies to them. To gain this understanding, they may need to do some background reading before they start.
This guide outlines some of the information organisations will need and sets out some tools, including an example of a tiriti policy and a checklist to help organisations develop their own. Also included are suggestions for where to find out more about te tiriti.
By communitycentral.org.nz
Te Tiriti o Waitangi - A workshop for Newton Central School
By Betsan Martin PhD.
AUTHOR Betsan Martin PhD.
Treaty of Waitangi a test of our national character, says ex-diplomat
OPINION PIECE by Peter Adams: The Treaty of Waitangi, signed on 6 February 178 years ago, is probably the most denigrated and undermined founding document of any modern nation.
Author Peter Adams 05:00, Feb 06 2018
OPINION: The Treaty of Waitangi, signed on 6 February 178 years ago, is probably the most denigrated and undermined founding document of any modern nation.
Excoriated in the 19th century for its promise to protect Māori resource ownership, "honoured" in the 20th century by politicians who did no such thing, insulted as a "fraud" this century by those insouciant about past wrongs, nevertheless the Treaty just won't go away. At its heart sit obligations, undertaken in good faith, which present a challenge to who we are as a nation.
From the outset the Treaty has been embroiled in controversy, but the facts are surprisingly clear.
The Treaty was the political act by which Britain gained sovereignty. Māori could not have understood how it would turn out, and for some people today that invalidates the cession.
However, New Zealand became legally British not through the Treaty but by Hobson's proclamations of May 1840.
Māori signatories placed their faith in the integrity of the Crown and its promise of protection for their land and other resources. Yet the Colonial Office did not know that it had promised Māori possession of the whole of New Zealand as all parts of it were claimed by one iwi or another.
By 1843 The New Zealand Company, wanting cheap land for colonisation, was labelling the Treaty nothing more than "a praiseworthy device for amusing and pacifying savages for the moment". The British Parliament merely called it "injudicious".
Cynically, the Colonial Office turned to the pre-emption provision to undercut the land guarantee. In 1846, Governor Grey was advised that the "evil" of having to recognise Māori land claims could "to a great degree be neutralised" by using the Crown's monopoly right to acquire land. Grey set about purchasing huge tracts.
Rather than protecting Māori rights to "the full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries and other properties", the British Government now sought to part Māori from their land quickly, quietly, and cheaply. The land wars of the 1860s, confiscations and the Māori Land Courts did the rest.
In return for giving up their sovereignty, Māori were also accorded "all the rights and privileges of British subjects" in article three.
For today's groups like The One New Zealand Foundation and Hobson's Pledge, that offer of equality is all that matters. They overlook more than a century of breaches of the Treaty and the inevitably discriminatory impact of an imported social and political system on Māori society.
Māori electorates, the Waitangi Tribunal, Treaty settlements and even the promotion of te reo are seen as "racial favouritism".
'Hobson's Pledge' takes its name from the observation, "He iwi tahi tatou" (We are now one people), which Hobson made to each chief as they signed the Treaty. It was not a pledge, but a well-intentioned though naive remark, made after a highly contentious debate.
There were two parties, Crown and Māori – not "one people" – and a Treaty partnership involving reciprocal obligations.
Even the promise of equality was an illusion.
As systematic coloniser Edward Gibbon Wakefield pointed out: "The establishment of the same rights and the same obligations can only be fair between parties who have the same power in the same field. Where one is 'immeasurably inferior' to the other, the weaker party will be destroyed under a 'show of justice'."
In ceding sovereignty, Māori lost all real authority. The 'kawanatanga' or 'governorship' they thought they had given to Hobson undercut the 'rangatiratanga' they had hoped to retain, compounding the loss of mana already occurring through loss of the land.
Over the next century, Māori made numerous efforts to find a political basis from which to negotiate their survival and the fulfilment of the Treaty: Kingitanga, Kotahitanga movements, Te Whiti and Parihaka, Rua, Rātana.
But it was not until the Māori-generated renaissance in language, culture and self-confidence from the 1970s onwards that dramatic change became possible.
Taking up the seemingly casual reference to "the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi" in the State Owned Enterprises Act 1986, the Court of Appeal decided in 1987 that the Treaty "signified a partnership between Pākeha and Māori requiring each other to act towards the other with reasonableness and with the utmost good faith".
Far from being unwarranted judicial activism, the court's decision was highly appropriate, given the failure of the New Zealand polity to interpret the Treaty other than in a way favourable to the dominant culture.
Some argue that Māori are now privileged over other ethnic communities. Yet it was the tangata whenua – the Treaty partner – who lost their land and other taonga despite a guarantee of protection that was more honoured in the breach than the observance.
No other community has paid such a price.
The partnership framework, along with the Treaty settlements process, have gone some way to redressing egregious historical injustices and putting iwi in a position to pursue economic empowerment, educational achievement, and social improvement.
The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in good faith.
Honouring the Treaty – albeit in the changed circumstances of today – is a challenge to our integrity and our aspirations to be a nation founded in equity and justice for all.
Peter Adams authored the award-winning book Fatal Necessity, on the Treaty of Waitangi period. He is a former senior diplomat and CEO of NZAID.
This article was featured in The Dominion Post and stuff.co.nz
Te Rautaki Reo Māori - Government Māori Language Strategy 2014
The health of the Māori language declined over the last century. From the 1970s, Māori groups and communities have developed initiatives in an effort to revitalise the Māori language. The Government in turn created policies and programmes, and made funding available to support aspirations for the Māori language. In 2003, a revised Government Māori Language Strategy was released. The Strategy described the respective roles of Government and Māori in revitalising the Māori language, focussing particularly on re-establishing intergenerational language transmission.
Te Puni Kokiri - Realising Māori Potential
The health of the Mäori language declined over the last century. From the 1970s, Mäori groups and communities have developed initiatives in an effort to revitalise the Mäori language. The Government in turn created policies and programmes, and made funding available to support aspirations for the Mäori language.
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Unconscious Bias and Education
A comparative study of Māori and African American students
Authors Anton Blank, Dr Carla Houkamau and Dr Hautahi Kingi
A comparative study of Māori and African American students.
Authors Anton Blank, Dr Carla Houkamau and Dr Hautahi Kingi
MAC changing outcomes for Māori students
Taranaki schools are lining up to be a part of a collective championing Maori student achievement.
More than 60 principals from throughout New Zealand gathered at Owae Marae last week for the Te Ara Hou Maori Achievement Collaboratives national hui.
Hoana Pearson
PĪTAU MĀTAURANGA - NATIONAL CO-ORDINATOR
Taranaki principals keen to change outcomes for MĀori students
Hannah Lee 16:20, May 15 2015 - stuff.co.nz
Taranaki schools are lining up to be a part of a collective championing Māori student achievement.
More than 60 principals from throughout New Zealand gathered at Owae Marae last week for the Te Ara Hou Māori Achievement Collaboratives national hui.
Māori Achievement Collaboratives (MACs), supported by the Ministry of Education, focus on working with principals to better meet the needs and improve achievement outcomes for Māori students.
The hui ran from Wednesday afternoon through to Friday and had a range of speakers discussing issues facing Māori students and how to better understand their different learning needs.
MACs national co-ordinator Hoana Pearson said it was a privilege to be part of an initiative where the key focus was to build relationships between schools and whānau, and where Māori identity could be utilised in the classroom to see greater results.
‘‘What’s most critical in learning is a relationship – it’s whānau, that role of nurturing. If you’re unable to maximise cultural capital, you don’t have access to a huge resource.’’
The initiative has been running for the past year and is growing in strength, numbers and success stories, Pearson said.
‘‘And what’s happening as a result [of MACs] is that principals have the courage to do things differently.’’
Schools from Taranaki, Christchurch, Auckland, Waikato, Rotorua/Taupo/ Tokoroa and the Far North had signed on to be a part of MACs and the goal was to continue to add schools to the programme so eventually every region would have representatives taking part, Pearson said.
Frankley School principal Damon Ritai said in the year their collective had been running he had seen a shift in attitudes towards seeing potential and helping Māori students achieve.
‘‘In a lot of ways, you’re driving for change against the current.’’
Ritai said he co-ordinated 12 Taranaki schools participating in the grassroots initiative and others were definitely taking notice.
‘‘We’ve got schools lining up who want to join and be part of that learning community.’’
Pearson praised the courage of participating principals to be a part of something that pioneered a way forward for others.
‘‘These principals are putting their hands up to be challenged – it’s new and it’s exciting.’’
Education for Māori: Context for our proposed audit work until 2017
Research shows that peoples of indigenous cultures are more likely to experience the enduring effect of educational under-achievement as a barrier to progress in life. The concern of this project is specifically to address this issue as it relates to Māori.