Consideraciones para la utilización de la ‘M-NV’.

Understanding local history—particularly an area’s Māori history—can be a massive undertaking for schools, but is necessary to be taken seriously by iwi. As a starting point, one iwi participant suggested that schools should begin by understanding their own Māori history, because ‘schools, like iwi, have a history and whakapapa of their own…and teachers need to understand the history of their school and community to best be able to meet the students’ needs and to be more culturally responsive’. LTA invited schools to:

Read the landscape, read the landscape of your school, what’s the history of the school, if there have been changes in the role, peaks and troughs why has that happened, what’s the history of engagement with the school. Is the history of engagement built on success or have there been some huge issues in the past that have split the community and those kind of things so Māori have whakapapa but schools have a history too and you need to kind of know both of those and be more up to speed. The school also, all schools sit on land or a community that may have a marae or an urban marae like I talked about earlier where people gather and the land will have strong hapū and tribal history but how many teachers know that tribal history, how many know their local marae and know the key leaders in their tribal community and that’s one of the hard things is navigating who do I talk to, your Māori, are you local iwi, no alright so it’s really very difficult for schools.

Schools may be unclear about the difference between people from the local iwi and Māori living outside their own tribal area. LTA felt that schools’ understanding of key terms such as tangata whenua, mana whenua and mata waka is essential:

Too often Māori are labelled as being the same and treated as one tribal group that may have been the case in urban areas after world war two when Māori moved from rural areas to urban areas for example here’s our whakapapa links to the north, Ngāti Porou are linked ancestrally to Ngāi Tahu but come on we’ve been separated for 300 years and we’ve had quite a different tribal development. LTA spoke of the importance of schools understanding the local iwi dynamic and Māori community. She gave an example of schools engaging with Māori in the community who were not necessarily mandated to speak on behalf of local iwi:

It’s really important it’s another step and it’s really confusing for staff thinking oh what’s the difference they’re the local iwi and that probably is it at the end if you’re not engaging with your local iwi if you’re not engaging with your local whānau Māori but sometimes again it’s quite hard to work out those relationships and if you’re like me and wear mana whenua we get really annoyed when schools go and consult with somebody and somebody makes someone a kaumatua when we don’t actually even know who they are or we don’t think that person is a credible role model.

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A relationship with Māori currently living in a school’s community was acknowledged as important, but secondary to a relationship with mana whenua, who have authority over the land and tikanga in which the school and community resides, and are Treaty of Waitangi partners with the Crown in that area. Both relationships can co-exist, but LTA proposed that priority should rest primarily with mana whenua relationships at a strategic level, and secondly with whānau of Māori students attending the school, supported by the local Māori community at an operational level. This was illustrated in the following example provided by LTA:

My experiences of living in other tribal areas and how we engage with mana whenua with the people who have the money and authority over that land, it can be quite difficult. I remember living in Te Atatu North and driving to Mangere and it was hard in those times to see who the iwi were, who the local people were because Henderson, people from Henderson and West Auckland there are a lot of urban iwi living there, they’re away from their home areas so how do schools know who to engage with for a start, who does have mana over the whenua, is it the iwi kāinga, is it Ngāti Whātua who live there if you’re south of the airport, in Manukau it’s Tainui, how will schools actually learn this, who teaches them this knowledge because that’s really, really hard for schools to know who the iwi kāinga, there’s no course for teachers around this and I think that some of the teachers about who do we consult with and who says this person is a kaumatua, who says this person is a leader, so some of the things we’re going to talk about are really about the dynamics of iwi and how complex it can be for schools. It’s all right when you’re in little rural areas it’s very clear who the iwi kāinga are.

Communities of practice—including school, iwi and whanau—were considered a good way of developing educational policy and procedures for schools, particularly those focused on Māori students and their communities. When determining school-based tikanga, however, the school should look to mana whenua for guidance, rather than negotiate ways of doing things. This was considered an effective way of ensuring the cultural integrity of what schools implemented as their Māori cultural practices.

Participants provided various examples illustrating the need for mana whenua input in school decision making. One example was provided by NT who explained when MP was concerned about TAS’s inconsistent use of pōwhiri. They wanted to be involved in setting cultural practice guidelines to support the school and ensure that any cultural proceedings complied with iwi expectations. NT explained this as follows:

[The] iwi was starting to get a little bit concerned about what pōwhiri started to look like, they were up and down there was no one that could say at TAS ‘we’re

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going to have pōwhiri to look like this and it’s for these visitors and these otherwise everyone is going to fail’ so it had to be put, the guidelines being put into policy so that the process of pōwhiri and how we would manage tangihanga [funeral proceedings] like how that is put into our policies so we’re reviewing it and our staff are accountable for the learning because we wanted kids, iwi wanted kids, that knew how to participate they’re learning about it they may not necessarily be doing it but by the time they leave they know what their role would be as a wahine [woman], what their role may be as a taane [man], how to participate in the things that were appropriate for their age and then be learning and developing and see the learning from there so we want to top down modelling of certain things but again otherwise we’re going to have the same conversation with the teachers to convince them that this was important, we didn’t want to have to always convince.

Other examples have been previously given. In each instance, established relationships with mana whenua would have supported schools in determining protocols and practices that would have better met the expectations of local Māori, enable the school to meet national curriculum expectations and create a safer cultural space for students, teachers and whānau.

Each iwi has its own preferred ways of working based on its goals and capacity. Some may prefer to be hands-on, supporting schools directly or as professional development service providers; others may prefer to work with educational organisations such as the ERO, Ministry of Education and New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is one way for iwi to strategically affect the schooling network. Others may prefer a combination or different approaches at different times, depending on current opportunities and issues.

Use of wānanga (educational gatherings) catering for large numbers of schools was presented as a preferred model by one iwi. They considered wānanga a way for them to set the agenda and share knowledge in a culturally-appropriate setting. Wānanga ensured that schools received consistent messages and exposure to high-level tribal expertise:

For a lot of people too what the wānanga does it reaffirms that Tūhoe identity Tūhoe Reo as an outside of being privileged to be part of the wānanga they found it something that I captured reaffirming tribal identity, strengthening Reo and it’s the transmission of knowledge and Reo from the experts who are quite often out of the rohe returning back to put something back into the community. (HW)

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At the beginning of each year two weeks before school starts we have a huge wananga that includes whānau, hapū, teachers, principals, boards of trustees and when we first started I think only about 20 came about 2007 now there’s about 115 who attend these big huge wananga, that wananga is about sharing knowledge from each of the communities to enhance the delivery of the framework. (CR)

One iwi participant explained her preference for iwi-developed teaching and learning resources to support facilitation of cultural content in schools. Provision of the resources ensured that iwi stories and history was shared from an iwi-centric perspective, and assured teachers that what was being taught would be an accurate and acceptable portrayal of events:

We’re revering local knowledge, cultural…this is something they wanted for their school was to understand sustainability from a Māori perspective…these …reflect our Ngāi Tahu identify, iwi get mana from being hosts and looking after kaitiaki of their resources so the notions and values here are both Māori and Pākehā about sustainability kaitiakitanga [guardianship] et cetera and the tangata tiaki from the local iwi, from local hapū. (LTA)

Each of these examples demonstrate how iwi may want to be engaged in communities of practice with schools, and provide insight about how schools and the Ministry of Education can support such communities of practice. It is evident that each iwi and school setting will influence the nature of the community of practice, including what the priority areas are and how the group will work together. Knowing the history of the school and its Māori community is an important starting place, with relationship building as an ongoing priority activity for all parties. Better understanding about how each community of practice member or group defines success will assist better alignment of activities and build greater respect and empathy between community of practice members. Paramount to the success of any iwi and school community of practice is knowing the ways that the iwi wants to be involved and being willing to shape the community of practice together to achieve mutual goals.

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Puna Kōrero Two: Iwi Voices

Chapter 5:

5.1 About Iwi ... 138! 5.2 Successful Iwi-School Partnerships ... 139! 5.3 Ministry Funding via IMER ... 141! 5.4 Accounts from Iwi ... 142! 5.5 Themes Arising from Puna Kōrero Two ... 149! 5.6 Successful Iwi-School Communities of Practice ... 163!

This puna kōrero investigates the ways that particular iwi and schools work together to support Māori student achievement. The focus is on iwi experiences. Evidence from current initiatives working with schools demonstrates that achievement is higher and learning is more effective when whānau and iwi are valued partners in the education process, and when those partners are open to learning from and with each other (Biddulph et al., 2003; Bishop & Glynn, 2003; Macfarlane, 2010; Macfarlane & New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 2004; Ministry of Education, 2008a):

Collaboration with iwi and Māori is essential to improving the education outcomes for Māori students. Partnerships enable whānau, iwi and Māori organizations to develop and implement local initiatives that facilitate the involvement of parents and whānau in their children’s education. They can also support community demand for improved outcomes. (Ministry of Education, 2008a, p. 29)

To investigate how iwi that participated in this puna kōrero were working with schools to support Māori student achievement, semi-structured dialogic interviews framed around a predetermined set of questions were conducted, with five representatives from four iwi authorities. A sixth representative from a fifth iwi authority provided written responses to the same questions, but no interview was held. The questions were developed to help understand how the different iwi representatives understood communities of practice; how they defined Māori student success; what they thought it would take to build optimism for Māori student success in education; their thoughts on the Ministry axiom ‘identity, language and culture’; the successful experiences they had had of iwi and schools working together; challenges they had faced and support they thought would be beneficial to iwi-school communities of practice to support Māori student achievement. The participants were JG from NKII, MB from Ngaati Whanaunga Iwi Authority, HTW

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from Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board, NC and NT from Mōkai Pātea Services Trust and HWh (pseudonym) from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu.

The chapter begins with discussion of who iwi are and how they function within wider New Zealand society. It then examines theories of successful iwi-school partnerships and scrutinises the distribution of Ministry funding to support iwi education initiatives. Next, it identifies and describes each of the iwi participants and their accounts of their education activities. The participants ask that their voices be heard, so that others may learn from their experiences. The emerging themes from the interviews are identified and discussed and iwi defined models of successful iwi-school communities of practice are provided.

5.1 About Iwi

Statistics New Zealand (2013b) defines iwi as ‘the focal economic and political units of the Māori people of New Zealand’ who use Māori descent and kinship-based hierarchy of waka, iwi, hapū and whānau. Iwi affiliation data collected in 2013 as part of the national census allowed for a multiple response variable, wherein people were able to identify up to five different iwi each. There are some issues determining iwi populations due to a large percentage of people identifying as Māori but not identifying their iwi (110,928 people, or 16.6 per cent in 2013), and also those who identify with iwi but not as Māori (nearly 16,000 people in 2013). As a functioning part of New Zealand society, it has been necessary for most iwi to establish a recognised tribal authority, often established as an incorporated society or trust. One purpose is to provide a recognisable corporate body with which the Government can formally engage. The iwi participants included in this research were each formally employed by a legally recognised iwi authority who was also receiving Iwi-Māori Education Relationship funding from the Ministry of Education. The participants were working in or were responsible for the education portfolio of the respective iwi authorities.

MB from Ngaati Whanaunga summed up what many iwi think is an important basis to engagement of schools with iwi. He said ‘schools need to realise that the school is in the rohe/takiwaa of the iwi, not that the iwi are in the rohe/takiwaa of the school’ (MB). He and others believed that once schools recognise this, they would be more likely to look to

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iwi for leadership and guidance to inform what they do (i.e., regarding curriculum and decision making) and how they do it (pedagogy and practice), rather than being seen as a last resort to support Māori students because alternative avenues have failed.