Māori and education
By identifying issues that impact on student achievement in low decile schools with high ratios of Pacific Island and Maori students schools can improve the learning opportunities for these students.
What approach might be helpful in identifying culturally appropriate means of catering for Māori learners with special needs? This article reports ongoing research to develop and trial a cultural audit process. Reprinted from Special Education, set special, 1999.
Kaupapa Māori principles have the power to transform the educational experience of Māori students in mainstream classrooms. For example, tino rangatiratanga requires both children and parents to be involved in school decision-making. Taonga tuku iho requires schools and teachers to create contexts where to be Māori is to be normal and where Māori cultural identities are valued, valid and legitimate – that is, where Māori children can be themselves. Through ako, reciprocal learning, teachers and students take turns in storying and re-storying their realities.
The Hikairo Rationale is an approach to behaviour management which encapsulates an amalgam of contemporary theory and traditional Maori discipline. It provides a conceptual framework for understanding the nature of classroom management, and locates culture at the centre of this framework. The rationale has its roots in a study of a special school which values inclusion and listens to culture, in its quest to facilitate and maintain a secure, democratic, and positive classroom environment.
This article sets out to ask questions about the desire for dialogue across cultural groups – a desire which is strongly held by many Pakeha in education. Pakeha educationist Alison Jones, drawing on her experience of teaching Maori, Pacific and Pakeha students at university level, argues that behind the benevolent demand for learning about others’ culture and experiences may be a desire by Pakeha for redemption and ongoing dominance.
Ngā Kete Kōrero (The Language Baskets), a national research study commissioned by the Ministry of Māori Development Te Puni Kōkiri in 1993, has provided comprehensive information about the development of appropriate language assessment and teaching resources. It will help teachers to accurately identify levels of language and literacy in Māori and thus better inform teaching practice in this sector. This article outlines specific aspects of the Kete Kōrero Framework project and discusses some of the implications for teaching reading through the medium of Māori.
How can the New Zealand curriculum encompass Māori values and perspectives? Arohia Durie comments on the issues.
The notion of “kanohi ki te kanohi” contact between boards of trustees, teachers and Māori whānau is explored as a simple yet effective mode for developing genuine partnership between schools and their Māori communities.
In three separate research projects involving Māori and Pasifika lower SES students in the Auckland region, the dominant theme to emerge is the critical importance of the relationship between teacher and learner. When a positive relationship exists, students are more motivated to learn, they participate more actively in their learning, and the learning is likely to be more effective. The paper explores the components of the relationship that were common to students from primary through to tertiary study.
A research project looking at Māori student participation and achievement in science and mathematics education examined four junior secondary school programmes that targeted Māori in these subject areas. Students and parents were found to prefer activity-based programmes, provided they dealt with contemporary activities and topics of interest to the students.
