Whāia te iti kahurangi ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei Aspire to great heights, should you bow down let it be to a lofty mountain It’s hard to imagine that surrounded by the brassy buzz of motorway madness in Auckland’s inner city suburb of Grey Lynn, a hillside of wooded wonderland cossets a little school, a learning sanctuary for 270 children. The children are mostly of Māori (46 per cent) and Pākehā (36 per cent) descent enriched by a smaller eclectic mix of cultures including Pacific Island, Indian and other Asian cultures. Newton Central School is led by Tumuaki Hoana Pearson, whose descendants include Māori, Liverpudlian, Polish and Scots. She wears her heart on her sleeve in the form of a beautifully constructed kōtuku (white heron) tattoo, stretching the length of her arm and illustrating her multiple whakapapa.
She proudly explains the intricacies of the design showing how her Liverpudlian, Celtic, Polish and Māori roots combine to shape who she is and what makes her tick. She is a woman very comfortable in her own skin, secure in the knowledge of where she’s from and where she’s going. We settle down to talk. My first impressions are of an intense, stern and determined woman on a mission. Hoana doesn’t engage in trivial niceties but drives straight to the heart of what motivates her and that is, ‘ . . . the children in this school will not experience the kind of education that I endured.’ ‘My reality is deeply embedded,’ she said. ‘The education system failed me and failed many like me . . . I learned at school that I was dumb and couldn’t learn. It was only in adulthood that I learned about embedded racism, and I wanted to change that story.’ According to Hoana, understanding how we impose values,
Children clamber for Tumuaki Hoana’s attentions the moment she walks into the room
assumptions, beliefs and world views on others is the key to Māori concept of leadership, ‘Rangatira’, which she describes as unlocking the barely acknowledged but deeply entrenched ‘taking the different strands and weaving them together.’ ‘It’s all prejudices that have negatively affected Māori for so long. about the interconnectedness of everything,’ she says, ‘and the ‘Pākehā culture with its own values and world view is the child is right at the centre of it all.’ accepted norm. It is so ingrained it is invisible,’ says Hoana. ‘You Her sense of interconnectedness is so strong she is even only see the effects of Pākehā cultural dominance when different reluctant to allow me to take a photograph of her on her own. She cultures are treated as ‘other’,’ she explains. insists that even though our schedule does not allow for a whole Her passion centres on changing attitudes so that we can live in staff photograph, she will send one later. Her actions breathe life a society where it is normal to have many different world views into the Māori proverb ‘Ehara taku toa, he toa takatahi, engari rather than one dominant world view to which all others must be he toa takatini’, which translates as ‘My success should not be compared making them ‘other’, ‘fringe’ or ‘marginal’. The idea that Māori is seen as ‘other’ is an abhorrent concept to Hoana and she will have none of it at her school. ‘What we do here at Newton is not normal,’ she says, ‘but it should be.’ What happens at Newton Central School is that all cultures are embraced and celebrated. It is one school that gives active expression to the Māori Education Strategy, Ka Hikitia, which aims to change how the system performs and give all Māori children the opportunities to enjoy achievement and success as Māori. Goran (2009) in a review of Ka Hikitia, talked about the importance of changing hearts and minds. It’s about whanaungatanga; it’s about a holistic curriculum; it’s about empowering children. To achieve the Hoana describes this little corner by the staff room as the ‘de-stressing’ corner where you can be soothed by the little waterfall and the calm green colours aims of Ka Hikitia, Hoana adopts the
Rurea taitea kia toitu ko taikaka anake . . . Strip away the bark. Expose the heartwood. Get to the heart of the matter.
The Newton Central School Staff
bestowed onto me alone, as it was not individual success but success of a collective.’ The relationships between her staff and their willingness to do things differently are the key to the school’s success. All of the staff place a high value on nurturing the identity and connections of the children through language, culture and creating a supportive environment. There is a high level of professional trust, mutual respect and willingness to teach and learn from each other, which extends to the wider Māori community with whom the school engages. Care is taken that engagement is conducted in an authentic way so that there is a full sharing of the community’s aspirations for their tamariki. These aspirations are reflected in the school’s educational provision which includes a wide range of Māori medium pathways. As Hoana says, ‘Building whānau and community capability is central to all we do at Newton Central School.’ Hoana operates a distributive leadership structure which recognises the mana and the dignity of all staff. It is an empowering arrangement and not an easy option. The commitment of staff to her vision has to be all encompassing. Her expectations are high. She presumes staff to be at all times reflective and taking action, because these are the two things that will change the reality. Much of her approach is grounded in the thinking of the Brazilian educational philosopher Paulo Freire and his concept of ‘conscientization’ which is ‘a process of developing a critical awareness of one’s social reality through reflection and action.’ Conscientization leads to learning as a critical process of uncovering real problems and actual needs. A Māori proverb neatly sums up the concept:
Year six children write what they think about ‘Parihaka’
Freire is well known for his publication ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ in which he writes, ‘No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.’ (Freire, 1970, p. 54). Hoana takes this message very seriously. Newton Central School has its own distinct model of pedagogy, management and governance. The school curriculum is bicultural. Speaking Māori alongside English is quite normal and children flick from one language to the other with consummate ease. There are total Māori immersion classes, bilingual classes and classes conducted in English. We hear so much about the low achievement of Māori children and the importance of lifting their success rates it creates a sense that there is something lacking in Māori children. Hoana disagrees and insists that Māori children simply haven’t been given equal opportunities. The difference between her children and those not yet experiencing success is that her children’s world view, cultural values and aspirations are accepted as the norm. She talks very little about measures of achievement such as national standards but if you want to know about Newton Central School’s achievement rates you will find they sit well above the national average in reading, writing and maths. Her children in total Māori immersion classes are also high achievers and when assessed in their second language, English, they out-perform their English only speaking peers. Being bilingual obviously has distinct academic advantages. Walking about the school is a very pleasant experience. The connecting pathways, the lush native vegetation and the beautifully appointed gardens and grottos create a feeling of visiting a close knit village rather than a school. The strong connections amongst the children and between the staff and children soon become obvious. Children moving about the school stop to greet you. They want to know who you are where you are from, what you are doing there and if they can help you find where you’re going. You feel at once included and important. Meeting a classroom teacher is a bit like visiting an old neighbour you haven’t seen in a while. No one is a stranger in this school and as a visitor you are quickly ‘brought into the fold’. I immediately become Whaea Liz. All teachers in the school are known by their first names, creating an intimate ‘family’ atmosphere. The whole
Children work together, helping and supporting one another
school community is indeed one big family. The children are proud of their classrooms and want to show you their work. They are also quick to praise each other’s work as if they have a stake in it themselves. When Hoana enters the class room they welcome her excitedly. It’s as if Father Christmas just arrived. Children rush to her side for a hug. She generously responds. They clamber to tell her of their latest discoveries, what they are doing and what they are learning. She is instantly engaged and like the children slips easily from speaking English to Māori and back again. We visit the Māori immersion year two class learning about Tudor England and the Vikings, in Māori. It’s pyjama day and the children have enthusiastically embraced the chance to come to school in their nightwear. My eye wanders to the elaborate
This class photo signifies the focus on ‘family’, strength in working together, and respecting each other
to inequities for Māori which persist today. Hoana is proud of the rich heritage the children acquire at school. Not only do they learn their history as Māori, they learn to question it, to reflect on the decisions made at the time and think about what those decisions might look like in a fair and just society. Like the younger children, these students are welcoming, engaging and eager to share what they have learnt. I am shown the comments that they have written in response to their recent study of Parihaka and the invasion by the troops, the looting, and the destruction. They use words like mean, unfair, crazy, in relation to the troops and suggested that they could have talked about it instead of attacking the Māori people and their children. These are thinking children who have developed a social conscience to be proud of.
Studying the Treaty of Waitangi
Smoking, alcohol, animals and Christmas are all things the British early settlers brought
picture and story displayed on the wall. It reads : Ko Bloody Mary tēnei. Kāore pai ki a ia ngā tangata a whakapono ki nā whakapono rerekē. Six year olds in their pyjamas writing about Queen Mary’s (bloody) reign of terror, in Māori, is not what I usually experience on school visits, but then this is no usual school. We move on to a year six class where the children are learning New Zealand history. They learn about colonisation and how it resulted in negative outcomes for Māori. They study the Treaty of Waitangi, learn and write reports about the Native Schools Act of 1867 and the land marches. They study Parihaka and how Māori used passive resistance to oppose the Crown’s attempts to buy up land for Pākehā. They also carefully examine the 1981 Springbok Tour, and the 2007 Tuhoe raids. The children discuss and reflect on these events to understand the elements of injustice, of racism and deliberate oppression which have led
But you don’t have to wait till you are year six to learn about history. Children are introduced to the settlers of New Zealand as soon as they enter school. We visit a year two class that has been thinking about what the first British settlers brought to Aotearoa. The children have pictorially listed their suggestions. Cigarettes, alcohol, farm animals, guns, Christmas and the Queen all feature. They are also prompted to think about what they might have packed in their trunk if they were early settlers. Hoana will be pleased to see books feature along with musical instruments, tools, blankets and toys. The children learn that connecting with the past is important in order to understand how they got to where they are. Their knowledge of history gives them strength in making decisions about the future. They work together as one harmonious family, respectful of each other and like their teachers, are taught to reflect on their work and their actions.
The year six children reflect on the 1981 Tour by creating models
The Treaty of Waitangi is a seminal document of study for the year six children
The governance of the school follows a Treaty of Waitangi structure. It is a power sharing and consensus decision making partnership structure between the Board and the community which is represented by a Māori education committee, Te Whao Urutaki. The model is not usual for a school’s governance structure but that is no deterrent to Tumuaki Hoana Pearson who would like to see such a structure adopted nationwide. With her own school providing such a biculturally successful example, Hoana wanted to expand her horizons and share her experience for the good of Māori learners in other schools. S h e j u mp e d at t h e Making models and writing about opportunity to become the Tuhoi Raids of 2007 a facilitator for a local Te Ara Hou or Māori Achievement Collaborative (MAC). The MACs are an initiative to raise Māori student achievement, led by Peter Witana, of Te Akatea and the NZPF executive. They operate in partnership with the Ministry of Education. The MACs take a cluster approach and have the broad aim of changing the hearts and minds of principals so that they can begin the journey of strengthening
relationships and engagement with their Māori students, whānau, iwi and hapū and build strong relationships between Māori and non-Māori principals. It is a journey first of self-development then planning how to change the attitudes which are barriers to Māori student development and success in our schools. The MACs help to breathe life into the Ka Hikitia strategy by advocating a shift in thinking and behaviour, a change in attitudes and expectations. They are about personal responsibility and collective accountability. Like Hoana’s own philosophy of life, the MACs draw on Freire’s notion of conscientization. The principals are engaged in a process of critically reflecting on their own social reality to uncover the real problems and actual needs of their students and communities. Hoana is very clear about her future intentions. She is in education to make a difference for Māori and wants Māori educational success to be the norm. She will work to eradicate the idea that Māori language and culture is ‘other’ compared to the dominant Pākehā culture. Her aim is for society to change its ethnocentric attitudes and accept a Māori world view as completely normal and enriching for us all. Only then will our Māori children have the freedom to fully realise their potential and know they can reach for the sky. References Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Goran, P.D. (2009). How Policy Travels: Making Sense of Ka Hikitia – Managing for Success: The Māori Education Strategy 2008 – 2012. Fulbright (NZ)
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