Te Tiriti o Waitangi Partnership

• Understand and recognise the unique status of tangata whenua in Aotearoa New Zealand.

• Understand and acknowledge the histories, heritages, languages and cultures of partners to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

• Practise and develop the use of te reo and tikanga Māori.

Commonly Used Vocabulary and Phrases

Professional Development

This standard has been the most challenging to meet. Not through lack of trying, although one can always try harder, but perhaps by the standards I have set myself. Science is a more difficult learning area to incorporate Te Ao Māori into, despite observation and responding to the natural world contributing significantly to this culture. Senior school in particular is hamstrung by the NCEA system with respect to alternative scenarios, and the knowledge assessed is Western Science. This is similar in the junior programmes, although there is greater flexibility in this space. I feel this standard is about being genuine so I am always trying to embed Māori knowledge, kawa, and tikanga rather than the surface level greetings and phrases. The embedding is also made more challenging by the lack of resourcing easily available to meet this need. The other challenge is that significant time and effort in the junior school is spent catching students up on three levels of the science curriculum as they have often missed this at primary and intermediate. Thus with all these external and internal challenges, meaningfully incorporating and embedding te ao Māori into the science curriculum (both content and pedagogy) has been slow, and required significant dedication of time and energy to achieve successfully. There are some examples of where this meaningful inclusion has been successfully achieved; Matariki tasks, use of native birds with their original Māori names in a dichotomous key, and event cards with traditional Māori medicinal botany. I have found that the incorporation of Māori ideas has occurred most easily in my gamified year 9 science class. As of yet I am unsure whether this is a product of the gamified environment, the greater flexibility of the junior curriculum (due to lack of NCEA), or the more deliberate effort I have made in this space. I suspect, however, that it is a combination of all three.

I have also been on a more personal journey in te ao Māori over the past couple of years as a PCT. Learning karakia and waiata (with both Catholic and Māori origins), the school haka, participating in various roles at pōwhiri, and observing the kawa and tikanga of this College. Looking back I am a little surprised at how much I actually did know prior to starting more purposefully on this journey (though not a great deal in the scheme of things), much of which comes from my early education. This year I have been more dedicated to learning in this area and as part of this I have signed up to Toro Mai, an online platform by Massey University, which is an interactive (although not always intuitive or easily accessible) introduction to some aspects of te ao Māori. I will be looking to complete the first four modules by the end of the year, as I now have more time and mental capacity to do so. I have also been involved with the management and coaching of the College's Waka Ama crews this year, despite the season's premature end due to COVID-19. Attending trainings and a competition has exposed me to more kawa, tikanga and beliefs outside of the classroom.