Thursday 10 August 2023

From decolonisation to re-indigenisation


Embedded from the Education Hub with permission.

From decolonisation to re-indigenisation

Last Tuesday Janelle Riki-Waaka gave a webinar hosted by Nina Hood about Māori achieving success as Māori and what this means from a Māori worldview, and how teachers and schools can consider how well their environments and practices support ākonga Māori to succeed and thrive.

Below is a synthesis of the main ideas, interwoven with notes and thoughts for how what Janelle talks about is pertinent to our ACCoS Kāhui Ako as well as educators and leaders on our way to a Tiriti-centric Aotearoa. 

How could we support leaders to utilise this video with staff? Possibly gauge prior knowledge on the main topics by asking some questions via form, mentimeter etc such as - “What does partnership in Te Tiriti look like to you?” 

Time Stamps


What it means to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi

The Tiriti was written in 1840 rather hurriedly. The essence really was about honourable partnership and an agreement between two people to co-exist peacefully while retaining their language, culture and identity. It was an agreement between Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti who initially started off with the crown and British settlers and then the British settlers slowly grew into all kinds of different settlers from all different corners of the world. Essentially when it was written it was an agreement that the rangatira of Aotearoa in New Zealand would continue to have rangatiratanga or the agency and the sovereignty over their hapu, over their tribes and their right to be self-determining.

 The document was an agreement for the crown to come to Aotearoa and establish a governor who would govern over the new settlers, the previous settlers and any new settlers that came. Te Tiriti is the foundational document about New Zealand. It is the history of this country so as educators how might we in our practice continue to live the aspiration of Te Tiriti. The agreement was breached and then we had a process of colonisation particularly of Tangata Whenua and the impacts of that were devastating and continue to be devastating.

 An agreement between 2 peoples to coexist while retaining language and culture. This is the same notion as exists today. 

  • A question for educators is do they think this is the case?
  • What are the ripple effects of colonisation?

Equitable Partnerships

 “Diversity is a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice at the table and belonging is having that voice heard.” You can be invited to the table and be silenced, you can be invited to the table to have a voice but not be heard, or have that voice acted on.

What we want to do is to engage in Equitable partnership.

Moana Jackson said, “Partnerships can be inequitable because you can have someone in a partnership that has more power than the other person or the other party.”

Teachers and leaders in schools: how do they think about Te Tiriti in terms of their school context and what it means for them within the education system.

Teachers work for the government essentially. Teachers are a government employee and that comes with a moral and ethical responsibility to uphold the assertions that the crown made to Māori. In education the way that our employer makes sure that their employees are doing that, is through the teaching code and standards. Woven all the way through the code and standards is a commitment of our responsibility as Tiriti partners with Tangata Whenua.

Self determination, agency, voice etc is a goal for Māori. 

  • How as educators can we respect and foster this goal in an authentic manner?
  • Where do Tumuaki draw the line for Standard One: Te Tiriti in the Standard Teaching Practices? 
  • How do we move beyond static in our Te Ao Māori journey?

As tangata whenua with whakapapa to Ngāi Tahu, this was initially confronting. Having some mamae of my Nana being struck at school for speaking Te Reo, my journey to reindigenise as Māori has been ongoing for many years. After overcoming that wave of realisation that I am a subject of the crown it became incredibly empowering to be on both sides of Te Tiriti partnership. As kaiako we have the mana to decolonise and this has helped my own discovery of identity and whakapapa. (Steve ASL Te Ao Māori Lead )

TeTiriti Framework

Essentially Te Tiriti has four articles and those four articles are meaningful and have so many contexts.

  • How could this framework be used from a school governance level down so that Te Tiriti is valued and lived in each kura? 
  • What examples or success stories are there that currently exist?

Article one: kāwanatanga or governance or honourable governance from a Māori perspective. We all have roles and governance; essentially that's kind of like being a kaitiaki. Boards have a governance role. But leaders in schools have a governance and this rolls over to staff and then Kaiako and support staff .

Kāwanatanga is ensuring Māori have a seat at the table with ‘Equitable Partnerships’.  “Nothing about us without us”.

Ensure that  discussions are happening about Māori with Maori representations  as part of the co-designing process. That there is genuine engagement with your Māori  community and ensuring they are part of the decision making process at every possible juncture wherever we can. We help them to see that their skills and their knowledge and mātauranga Māori is hugely valuable.

Kāwanatanga  shines through strongly in Poutama Reo which we are in the beginning stages of rolling out in the Te Ao Māori initiative. Particularly in the dimension, “Whānau Hāpu and Iwi.” 

  • How can schools work towards Māori being represented laterally within their institution? 
  • Board room, staff room and class room and making them part of the decision making process?

Article two: Rangatiratanga or Māori self-determination. That is closely aligned to article one in terms of having discussions about our tamariki. Māori achieving success as Māori most closely aligns in article two.

Rangatiratanga is ensuring everyone is at the same place at the start line (equity). Reimagine consultation (as often decisions have already been made) and move to engagement. Come to the table with blank paper. 

  • How do we move from traditional consultation to engagement?

Article 3 is about О̄ritetanga or Equity.

It is about us removing bias from structures and systems that have prevented Māori  from succeeding as Māori. Co-designing for equity.

Janelle mentions the equity image we are all familiar with. The way she talks about this image makes us think about the following questions: 

Link to: 'What is Equality?'

    • Who created the boxes and were they codesigned? 
    • Who is playing the game? 
    • What role models are we looking up to? 
    • What are we watching and why? 
    • Who is being celebrated?

Engagement is when school leaders come to have a kōrero with Māori and the piece of paper is blank. Consultation is when Māori are asked “What do you think about the plan I've already made?” Māori  have been consulted for a long time and we're pretty weary of it . Schools are to stop consulting and start genuinely engaging with their community, with their Māori  whānau. Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the only framework needed. If we deeply embed that and if we look at those articles as a way of guiding our practice, we are going to be genuinely honoured in our practice within our kura.

  •  How do we move from traditional consultation to engagement?
  • What opportunities are there for schools to consult with Māori whānau, hapu and iwi? 
  • Could the Te Ao Māori Initiative use Kapa Kāhui as a vehicle to community collaboration? 
    • For example: What waiata/haka should we be learning and why?


What is the sense of norm in education?

Norm or the sense of norm is when something pushes up against our natural human reaction.

Bias checking and Bias Hunting

How do I then train my eyes to go bias hunting for things that don't impact me. That is why we need diverse conversations and diverse communities and people at the table to support us and that agenda is really important.

Bias hunting is a huge part of decolonization.  Part of the colonisation process was to assimilate Māori  into the dominant culture, the Pākehā culture and that was done by design not by accident. For example with the introduction of the Native Schools Act in 1867.

The fact is the language was banned and people were separated from their cultural norms such as how they brought up children, how they educated people. By assimilating them into a dominant culture and everywhere in Aotearoa is a very dominant culture. Māori  is, although growing,  is still very much a minority culture. It is still a marginalised group of people.

How do we get people to acknowledge that they may have a bias and discover what that is and how it impacts their practice?

Activities as a staff to do bias checking could include things such as, a towel folding contest. The idea is to understand that we see the world through different lenses and to hunt for those differences and challenge our own ways of thinking.

Decolonising practice

What would it look like if schools were to actually decolonize their practice? 

Decolonistation should be led by non Māori as those impacted should not lead their “own rehabilitation”. There is still grief and focus for Māori is on the need reindiginise.

This struck a chord with Steve as in what instance is it the victim's job to right the wrong. For example: My daughter was attacked by a dog and it was our job to report the attack and follow through with any prosecution, even though our whānau was working through mamae. For Māori, who are working through multiple generations of hurt, Janelle suggests that their focus should be on reindiginising as opposed to decolonising. That should be done by Pākehā

How to begin decolonization

  • Placing a value on the other world view
  • Place a value on Te Reo
  • Place a value on Tikanga
  • Place a value on Mātauranga

This happens when checking the bias at the door.

The decolonisation journey towards equity starts off with ‘Kia ora’ in emails and ends with ‘Ngā mihi’. It  is a journey and the first step can be uncomfortable. Education was used to weaponize and  to colonise using a variety of different ways. There's a famous quote:

“We've got a system that wasn't set up for Māori  to be successful. The system was designed to assimilate Māori children.”

In our mahi as Across School Leaders and experience as educators in Aotearoa, a common theme among colleagues is the apprehension of embracing and using Te Ao Māori due to fear of being tokenistic. Janelle sums this up perfectly by saying "What is tokenistic is living in the current space without moving forward." 

We need to keep the waka moving on our Te Ao Journey.

One way we are highlighting the value of Te Reo is for all our year 4-8 students within our schools to carry out the Taku Reo survey. Our first step has been to gather student voice on how they perceive Te Reo Māori through the Taku Reo Survey. We have asked our ISL to analyse and reflect on the findings and together we will discuss this. 

What does Māori achieving success as Māori actually means? What does it mean in practice in schools?

When we talk about success at schools we're actually talking about academic achievement and and all the other aspects of success become secondary to academic achievement; I would like to think a school's job is to grow good humans. 

You walk into school Halls all over this country and you see honours boards for academic achievement. Go into end of year  assemblies and there's accolades that celebrate academic achievement. But it's not the only part of success.

We need to start thinking about what an ‘honour board’ in Te Ao Māori looks like?

School Reports are antiquated:

For example page one of most schools reports is Reading, Writing and Maths and how nice you are and the school values are on page three. Schools generally place a value on reports in that format. Are they an accurate way of celebrating the success of our children? What about the rest?

 

Tell success stories and that are individual in nature

Success stories should not just involve what happens at schools.


How do we change the script on reporting and tell success stories?

Be an advocate for children  telling their own success stories and being part of writing that success story that goes home to their whānau, so success must have a wider lens. Education success has been too narrow with what we consider success in schools.That means certain children get it and certain children don't. Yet if we widen the lens beyond academic achievement maybe more children will get to experience school success.

 Māori  achieving success as Māori 

Schools present their Māori achievement data and label it whether as name or a narrative as their Māori achieving success as Māori data. Yet when you look at it, it will be the Reading, Writing and Maths data. The academic achievement data of Māori children is still important but call it what it is please.

Do not label it Māori  achieving success as Māori. But call it the academic achievement of Māori  students. For Māori, that academic achievement data has often used Non-Māori tools to measure non-Māori Kaupapa and how well our children did academically in those spaces. Another way of saying it is, “How well did we colonise our Māori children data?”

Tell me how my child is doing in relation to their wellness, in terms of their identity, how strong their connection is to their language and culture and identity. Tell me how you supported that reconnection through school. Re-empower our education to re-indigenous our children.

How do we empower the education system to re-indigenise our children with Māori succeeding as Māori?

Every single time my children strengthen their connection to their identity and every time my children succeed in their Māori Tanga.

  •  Learning a karakia
  • Standing on the haka stage.
  •  Learning a whaikōrero or a karanga
  •  Learning about Matariki
  • Learning about beautiful mātauranga

Every time they reclaim their identity and they re-indigenise then that is Māori  achieving success as Māori. Academic success is important. But  the re-indigenisation of our Māori children should be our focus. Shift the focus to re-indigenising and watch their academics grow. Watch their confidence in Te Ao Pākehā grow the more strongly they are able to walk in Te Ao Māori .

Changes need to happen at the system level and the school and or Kura Level. It is mandated that we share with our whānau the success of their children. But it is not mandated to share Reading, Writing and Maths. Our current system is completely damaging to some children and some of it is irreversible.  For some of our children the trajectory of their life at the end of school never recovers. Their self-esteem and self-worth never recover. Some of our children believe every word we tell them in those reports and these words can’t be taken back once they're gone. Times change in education. There were things that we said years ago that we would never say now.

Kick over some of those education posts and innovate some of our systems

Find the opportunities for  innovation in education. We discuss how reports used to be with how they are now and how in the future we would probably report. That's when we assemble the ‘Avengers’ around the table and we make sure everybody is present and we go okay. We've got to tell our parents about the achievement of their children and the success of their children. That's a given and has to take place twice a year.

However, outside of that- innovate:

  • What could it look like?
  • How could we do that?
  • What could we change?
  • Where's the space for Innovation?
  • How do we get the right people on board to co-design that with us so that it will meet the needs of our learners?

Reporting on Reading, Writing and Maths is what Janelle refers to is ‘immovable pou’. As innovative educators, we need to be able to flex these pou to meet report on how well we really know our tamariki. 

    • How is data collected and reported on connection to identity and whakapapa?
    • What do we consider success and what should be considered as success?
    • Should children be a part of writing their own reports?
    • What else could we report on? 

“Our system was weaponised to colonise how about we empower it to reindigenise?”

Academics is only a small part of learning.

  • Why don't we measure and capture data around our children’s connection to identity and whakapapa?
  • Why don't we measure our children’s understanding of mātauranga Māori concepts?
  • How do we change the list of things that we're measuring in terms of equal success?
  • What would children’s success stories look like if they wrote them themselves?
  • Then cocreate a framework for measuring that. Children know how good they are at what they have strengths in. They can articulate what they still need to do to be better.

Identify examples of culturally empowering practices and what these can look like in a school context.

For Māori children: It’s like my pieces fit together. Actually for many of us we don't realise how apart our pieces are until we get to sit a little while in Te Ao Māori. You just have to watch a Māori  child singing a waiata in their eyes and their face light up or when meeting Māori role models.

However there is a degree to which Māori people have walked in Te Ao Māori. Some people have seen it from afar and know it exists but have never even dipped a toe in it. Some have gone in and out and in and out and depending on where they are and who they're with. We are beginning to see children that are born in Te Ao Māori which is so exciting.

Supporting our children to re-indigenise is going to go such a long way for their wellness and such a long way for their success in life. Their ability to navigate both worlds.

However, at a bare minimum, the places where we educate people should reflect our bicultural society. The place where our Māori  children get to see their world and get to learn how to traverse in both worlds.

Some Tips

One of the mistakes that schools often make when engaging Māori  whānau is they'll say right we'll have a whānau hui and it's going to be Tuesday the 8th of August at 7:30pm in the school hall and they'll send out a pānui and say this is what its about and when it is.

Then the whānau will come along to the Hui. There will be a little bit of an agenda. Some people have a formal one and some people have an informal one.

Here's all the things we're going to talk about and they will say, “Right we'll have some whānaungatanga and we'll do this. Next the principal will say, “I want to ask them about this and I want to ask them about our strategic plan and I want to ask them about curriculum and a list of things they, the principal. wants to talk about.

Yet there's very little mana motuhake at all. You've told me when the meeting is, you've told me what time it is and now you've told me what we're going to talk about There's not a lot of agency for me. That doesn't feel like Equitable partnership. Genuine engagement is removing the power and allow Māori to have some Mana in that space and feel part of the process. Someone has more power and it's not me and so really honestly my recommendation is the very first questions you should ask your whānau Māori are these:

  •  Ask Māori how often they want to meet? 
  • Ask them what do you want to talk about?
  • What's important to you?
  • Who do you want at the hui?
  •  What are your aspirations for your tamariki as Māori ?
  • The usual response is (I really want them to have Reo, I really want them to know Tikanga.

Engagement begins like a whānau member that wants to sit alongside.

I want you to just realise that between some of our whānau and the staff room or wherever you want to have your Hui is a whole lot of trauma about schools. For me to traverse from my car to that staff room means that I have to walk through some mud. That's a bit mamae  and there's some memories. There's some stuff so actually asking: How do you want me to engage with you? How do you want to have a relationship with your school? We really want to work alongside you. These can help with avoiding walking through that mud.  

They might respond with: Actually we want to meet over at a different venue and we want to do it at this time.

With “Māori everything moves at the speed of trust.”

  • Co-design the agenda if it has to have an agenda
  • Always have kai
  • Always follow tikanga.
  • Always have harakia and whakawhānaungatanga.
  • Don't plan for it because whakawhānaungatanga could take over the whole time and that's because it's needed. Your Māori  whānau want to know each other.
  • Focus on a positive relationship with whānau.

Māori  whānau come to the whānau and look for their children's teacher. They want to see a message that you're here because you care about my child as Māori . Principals must apologise if staff are not present.

Know who your kura is. Your kura is being sheltered by a tribe. It has always been sheltered by a tribe.  Our kura  lives on a piece of whenua so know what that whenua is, where it's from, do some learning. Your first interaction with manawhenua shouldn't be knocking on the door and asking for a cup of sugar.

Mistakes schools make on their very first interaction with manawhenua is:

  • Can I have……
  •  Can you open the classroom?
  • Can you give us a name?
  • Can you come and do our powhiri?
  • Can you come and do our blessing?

Manawhenua are volunteers. They are mums and dads and working whānau and manawhenua by whakapapa only.  But also they volunteer most of their time as manawhenua. So if you are not known to them. Their first response will be, 'Who are you?'

A school’s first conversation with manawhenua should be “Kia ora this is who we are, how can we serve you?”

Teatowel Tanga and Service

If we want them to turn up to our Hui then we should turn up to theirs. We should turn up, roll our sleeves and take on the Tea towel Tanga as it is known. Pick up the tea towel. You don't walk in the front door of the Marae and ask to sit in the paepae.  Most of us have to go through the back door and dry dishes sometimes for years. We live in service.

Engaging with manawhenua?  My return serve question is what can you do for them and give a lot of thought to that. Start with establishing relationships and thinking about how you can serve them and their aspirations and their whenua.

Conclusion

As educators re-indigenous our children through the promotion of Te Ao Māori. Use  our Teaching Codes and standards to help with decolonisation and guide our work. Encourage the schools to place a value on the other world view & actively recommit to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Identify and reaffirm school values to help grow good humans. Embrace programmes that develop Mana such as Mitey. Actively seek pathways to serve manawhenua. Revisit the NELPS to seek ways to incorporate te reo Māori and tikanga Māori into everyday activities.

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