Ka Whangaia
Ka Tupu
Ka Puawai:
Kia Kotahi
Te Takahi
Haere
Whakamua
(That which is
nurtured,
grows,
then blossoms:
Moving forward
together )
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Ka Whangaia, Ka Tupu, Ka Puawai: Kia Kotahi Te Takahi Haere Whakamua.
(That which is nurtured grows then blossoms: Moving forward together).
Whakaatu/Introduction
Retention and success for Māori students in tertiary institutions is all about TRUST! Institutions
need to believe that student’s life experiences and passion are sufficient as an entry
qualification if they the ‘academy’ are prepared to enter into a real partnership with the students.
This is not done by adding on time to study rather it is by providing academic up-skilling,
contextualised within the course, based on the experiences the students bring with them,
contemporaneously with the content of their course – in this case BASW (Bicultural).
Students need to be selected based on the attributes and passion they have for their chosen
course and then it is up to the ‘academy’ to up-skill or hone their academic skills within their
course content. In our region nothing will change unless we educate people who have
experience of worldviews similar to those they serve.
The BASW has a philosophical base on a whakatauāki Iti rearea teitei Kahikatea ka taea which
refers to the Rearea, a tiny bird in te Urewera which is able to reach the lofty heights of the
Kahikatea tree, one of the tallest trees in AotearoaNew Zealand. Since the kahikatea is a large
tree with shallow roots, when it grows separated from others it can easily fall down. By growing
in groves, their roots interlace and grow together giving each other strength and support. So it
is, that a second whakatauāki, E hara taku toa, i te toa takitahi ēngari he toa taku tini (My
strength is not from myself alone, but from the strength of the group) resonates with the
students. A third, He moana pukepuke e kengia e te waka suggests to students that if one
perseveres (academic skills) then ‘a choppy sea can be navigated’.
Once selected, the ‘academy’ also needs to recognise and frequently address, with the
students, what Professor Stephen Brookfield (2000, p.4) called ‘impostorship, cultural suicide,
incremental fluctuation, community and lost innocence’. It is the recognition and addressing of
these five things, along with appropriate academic support that impact on the success or not of
the student.
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Tauira tahi
One does not want to personalise these notions because it is more about the system than us as
students. It is as a result of our interactions with this system or process for learning, in which
many of us have had limited or unsatisfactory experiences, that we can relate to what Brookfield
(2000) is saying.
Firstly, ‘impostorship’ for us is better described by the following proverb, E nohotia ana a waho,
kei roto he aha. This literally means that one cannot tell from the outside what is contained
within. As tauira, our experiences of this notion are that at times we felt that we had no place in
this system/process of learning. We had left school very early because some of us had babies
and the schools had no place for us; some had a parent who had passed away; others in our
cohort were suspended from school, or dropped out asap; some were forced out to work
because we were female and therefore education was not a priority; some were involved in
gangs. As a result, we lacked experiences, as insiders, of any formal learning process and the
institute we were now in. For example, the first course booklets we were given reinforced this
feeling of “What am I doing here?” They described assessment requirements such as semistructured task, power point presentation, reflective journals, essays, triads! At times, we
wondered about our arrogance/presumption that we could fit in here. Everyone questioned our
reasons for wanting to go back to ‘school’ to put ourselves through the stress caused by tutors,
changes to the timetable, staffing or assessments! For what, they asked? To be a social worker!
Many of those who made such comments were long time recipients of paternalistic or
charitable, social work interventions.
Tauira Rua
The traumatic feeling described by Brookfield as, ‘cultural suicide’ can be assessed by the
statement, Whanau tu mokemoke. This suggests the feeling of being isolated from your root
cultural supports that had surrounded us before we committed to the learning processes
involved in the BASW programme. This process of learning separated us from those support
networks that were part of our previous world. Some of our mates or family members would ask
us “If we were now better than them?” They tried hard to get us to skip class to do other things.
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They couldn’t understand why we had gone back to class at our age! What is worse, is that noone else in our families has experience of education at places like MIT. For example, when you
talked about your day you found some of your networks tuning out because they could not
understand the experiences you were describing and the vocabulary you were using. However,
in spite of their questions and some people’s apparent lack of interest they are supportive (in a
bewildered way).
Tauira Toru
Turuturu a tai. Tururu a uta is what we call Brookfield’s (2000) ‘incremental fluctuation’. This
phrase is metaphorically, the feeling of the surging of the tide. We have times when we feel that
we are moving forward and at other times we think we are going backwards.
Although
everybody feels this sometimes, it seemed that it happened to me more often than it should
have. It occurred, for me, as I had to meet new academic writing and technological challenges
and as I learnt to ‘tame my computer.’ When 2 or 3 assignments come one after another in
quick succession, it doesn’t take much for the tide to ‘stay out’ when you have few experiences
of formal education.
Tauira Whā
The ‘changing world’ or Te ao hurihuri which we use as the substitute descriptor for ‘lost
innocence’ is one of the hardest to manage. Our greatest shock since entering this
system/process is that we are expected to question/interrogate our beliefs and values. Until we
came here these were the “truths” that our lives were based on. Things like:
that only people who finish high school deserve/can come to MIT.
the belief that with education, I can make a difference!
that pākehā have no time for me.
that all people are equal in Aotearoa New Zealand but that doesn’t include me!
Having the reo won’t get you on in the Pākeha world!
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Having to reflect on these long held beliefs can lead to a real loss of part of our identity and
more isolation because those at home still have the beliefs and values we had when we began
here. We are between two worlds and to study we have to live by compromising parts of both
worlds.
Tauira rima
For Māori, community means people-he tangata, he tangata, he tangata. Our reason for
becoming social workers was not about us. It’s about the community around us, particularly, the
desire to do better for our families. That’s our motivation. Regardless of our ethnicity students
like us (non-traditional or second chance) work better in learning communities; just as the
kahikatea tree needs to link with others to stand tall so do we. We interact with each year class,
so if someone has to drop out- the question is when will you be back? We are developing the
expectation that we and our families have a place here. When no-one in the whanau has
experience of the academy, family nights like the one we had in September are important. It
helps the family understand what we are doing in this place. It’s an expensive exercise for
Institutes now but we believe in the future our families will be filling up the courses on offer in
such places. Do you know our tough it is to take the first step into the academy if such places
are out of your worldview, not the norm?
Tauira Ono
So how can you help Maori stay and succeed in the academy?
You need to help us visualize ourselves in this place. One way of doing it is to have people like
us as our tutors. You need to give space in your courses for our worldview to be acknowledged
and heard. You need to stop putting fences, hurdles (like NCEA, SC) as pre-requisites for entry.
Instead you should look at the positives we bring with us- our attributes, our passion and our
real life experiences. You need to trust us that we will take every opportunity to up - skill or
hone our academics when they are presented in a manner that respects our worldviews and are
contextualised based on our real life experiences. For example, did you know how useful fishing
and early childhood musical instruments can be in learning APA referencing?
We also need to trust you, our teachers. This takes time but the process can be hastened if
whakawhanaunga (links) can be made between student and staff. This requires the addressing
of what Bishop et al (2003) call “inequality of power relations in education”. It is hugely important
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to us that we know about our teachers, their families, the whakapapa of their life. Some
teachers find this sharing hard but…..finding out who you are is a base on which we can build a
learning journey. Your ‘academy’ needs to invest in staffing so as to have someone in each
school that can provide this support. Making an appointment for 3 weeks time doesn’t help you
with your essay now. You need to be prepared to float around in gown and trencher during
graduation week. This is catalytic for us. That’s us in a year, or two or three! You need to
understand how hard it is to get out of the three generations of the ‘benefit cycle’. Recognise
how challenging it is for us to be here. Most of us want to work in a good job as soon as
possible. Don’t make assumptions of the deficit kind. Use our strengths! Passions! and our
determination to do better for our families! - This is your part!
Take a look at our results. We are being successful.
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Most of you here today knew when you were quite small that one day you might go to Uni or
Tech.
None of us here come from families who saw this as an option when we were young.
As Barack Obama said on his becoming President,
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
We are the change we seek.”
No reira tena koutou, tena koutou tena koutou katoa.
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References
Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Richardson, C., & Tiakiwai, S. (2003). Te kōtahitanga: The
experiences of year 9 and 10 students in mainstream. Research Report. Wellington:
Ministry of Education.
Brookfield, S. (2000). Adult cognition as a dimension of lifelong learning. In J. Field & M.
Leicester (Eds.), Lifelong learning: Education across the lifespan.
Philadelphia:Routledge Falmer Press. Downloaded from
http://www.open.ac.uk/lifelong-learning/papers /393CD0DF-000B-67DB0000015700000157_StephenBrookfieldpaper.doc
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