Why Biculturalism? Helen Kinsey-Wightman
Christmas is a time of giving – this year it has also been a time of loss, both on a personal level and a global one. As a young teacher I tried to find innovative ways to grab my students attention and music was a big part of hooking intermediate students into topics. I remember using a Venn diagram to find differences and similarities between David Bowie’s Space Oddity and Elton John’s Rocket Man as an intro to a science unit on Space. I used the lesson several times and there was something about David Bowie’s music and his persona that fascinated and captured the attention of some of the more complicated students in my class. His death, 2 weeks after Christmas, filled column inches the world over. 2 weeks before Christmas my father-in-law died. He was recovering from a stroke and so his death was a surprise to us all. His funeral filled the local Catholic Church and friends travelled long distances to farewell him – his few surviving Navy mates from Operation Grapple, the British nuclear testing on Christmas Island, proud to see him wearing his Navy medals. My own protestant upbringing in England confronted death staunchly with a stiff upper lip and an appropriately solemn hymn. Children were not encouraged to attend funerals – when my grandmother died I was 11 and not allowed to accompany
the family to church. Since then I have discovered that there are many different ways to celebrate a life well lived and mourn a loss. In the Philippines, I attended my first Catholic funeral and was initially more than a little uncomfortable with the idea of an open coffin in my friends’ homes. But it was the way that children just ran around and were totally at ease in the situation that helped me to feel more comfortable. The way we mourned Johnson as a family and particularly the inclusion of children and young people in that process was a profound experience. It is not uncommon in a workplace to hear people make disparaging comments about Māori culture around tangi and the need to spend several days attending a funeral. The way in which friends and family wrapped around us in the days that Johnson was at home before his funeral, the way that food appeared and people cleaned and sang and told stories made a huge impression on me – I don’t think that sharing grief and sadness decreases grief but it seems to polish the sharp edges. When my youngest son’s friends arrived from his kura and kohanga he led them in and showed them his Pāpa and talked about his medals. There was no sense in which he was too young to understand or participate. The teenagers carried Johnson out of church and travelled with us when we took our proudly
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Nga Puhi Pāpa to his marae at Karetu, near Kawakawa. He had ancestry you can go to Samoa, the cradle of Samoan culture and attended a small country school and his last 5 living schoolmates language, and tap into your culture there. If you’re of Japanese who came were some of the oldest mourners. The youngest were or Scottish or Chinese or Thai descent, the same applies – you Manu and his cousins – that evening they sat with Pāpa and – have a home country to return to or visit. unprompted by adults – talked about their memories of him. If the language and culture aren’t given special status here in Attitudes and approaches to death and life are key to our own Aotearoa New Zealand, the simple fact is that in today’s Westernculture and in seeking to understand each other. oriented, English-language dominated world, they will struggle to Whilst I was at the tangi our Board and Senior leadership survive.’ (http://www.kiamaia.org.nz/news/2015/3/26/aotearoateam met to review community multicultural-or-bicultural) feedback and set goals for our Attitudes and approaches As our school staff, students and 2016 Charter. It has been hard community begins to imagine, to return to school not having to death and life are key to our explore and no doubt debate how been a full participant in that it will look and sound and feel process. However, I do believe own culture and in seeking to when we do truly recognise and that the time I spent at the marae understand each other. value Māori as tangata whenua has helped me to appreciate the (literally ‘people of the land’) challenge and the possibilities in I know it will help to remind the most challenging goal they set; To recognise and value Māori ourselves that there is no other school on earth that students as tangata whenua. can go to experience what that is like, so it must be here, in our In thinking about how we can go about achieving this I know school, today. that we will be challenged about a goal that identifies Māori in particular rather than working towards a goal about the recognition and value of a multicultural perspective. For those of you facing similar challenges I think the most powerful argument is one I first heard in a great workshop led by Hine Waitara on realising Māori potential. ‘We do have people from all cultures living here but New Zealand is the only ‘home base’ for Māori. If you have Samoan
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