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Treaty-based multiculturalism: Making sense of diverse New Zealand

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Aiono Manu Faaea-Semeatu

treaty talks: te tiriti o waitangi

At CORE Education I have had the wonderful privilege of being able to learn more about what it means to be a New Zealander by attending various noho marae (staying overnight on marae) with whānau Māori (CORE Māori-Medium staff and staff who identify as wanting to engage and learn about Māoritanga and speak te reo Māori). I have valued the cultural learning in this space because, by staying on marae in different iwi around the country, I have learned to understand the importance of land and the emphasis that tangata whenua place on belonging to the land. This is a critical construct to remember where indigenous people often view themselves as belonging to the land, rather than the land belonging to them. Even though I was born in Aotearoa and people would say, as I grew up, that my English was quite good (an expectation if you are born in an English-speaking country), I was aware of the importance of tangata whenua, the indigenous people of Aotearoa, and what I can do as a staunch and confident Samoan New Zealander to respect and absorb similar values that resonate with my own cultural identity.

Te Tii MaraePart of the learning in these noho marae has centred on understanding the historical significance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the implications for how we see it in our daily lives. The last time I have really focused on learning about Te Tiriti was in high school for 7th Form History. I have used these opportunities of access to learning about Māoritanga to chronicle my journey through previous CORE blogposts. These have surfaced in three blogposts entitled:

  • Pasifika in Parihaka (June 2013)
  • Pasifika position on the bicultural partnership of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (July 2014)
  • Pasifika in Waitangi (June 2016).

I focused on the Treaty principles in the July 2014 blogpost, but have since learned from Alex Hotere-Barnes, Anahera McGregor and Rosalie Reiri that the Treaty articles are the main areas of focus that need to be at the forefront. This is because it is essential to have the words of the Treaty itself guiding us in ways that cause us to understand its implications for our lived reality. These articles can be summarised as:

  • Article 1 (Kāwanatanga — honourable governance):

Crown/schools to govern educational delivery in an equitable way

  • Article 2 (Rangatiratanga — retaining sovereignty):

Tangata whenua retain control over educational delivery

  • Article 3 (Ōritetanga — promote equity):

Māori and non-Māori educational outcomes are comparable

  • Article 4 (spoken promise — cultural/religious freedoms):

Cultural responsiveness and competence supporting language, culture, and identity

For me, the articulation of these articles in these noho marae has also acted as internal professional learning. I wasn’t really familiar with Article 4 before because it was a verbal promise, but I could immediately see the scope of how this connects with me as a Samoan and a Pacific Islander in how I live my life, and how I work as a consultant for CORE Education.

Last year I delivered breakfast seminars in Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin entitled Multiculturalism: Navigating the spaces between ethnicity, identity, and diversity. I touched on Treaty-based multiculturalism in these seminars as I felt that we should be moving towards trying to make sense of a diverse New Zealand that still has Te Tiriti o Waitangi at the heart of the foundation of our nation. I have since conceptualised this thinking into a model that includes six main phases in our timeline from a Pacific Island perspective:

pathway to treaty-based multiculturalism

The pathway to Treaty-based multiculturalism/diversity

1. Historical — 1840
The signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi was an agreement between Māori (M) and Pākehā/the Crown (P). The Māori translation of the document was the version that was signed by most of the Māori chiefs, whilst the English version of the document had different terminology, with different translations of kupu Māori, which was interpreted by the Crown to be upheld and binding. This historical view of the Māori and Pākehā partnership is what people who have migrated to Aotearoa need to understand and learn about as the founding document of the nation.

2. Introducing Pasifika — 1910s
The first major wave of Pacific Island (Pas) migration was during the First World War, with the success of colonisation following the signing of Te Tiriti, thanks to the advent of Christianity from the missionaries in the previous century. Niueans, Tongans, and Cook Islanders would serve as New Zealand soldiers in the Great War. Following on from the distinct bicultural partnership between Māori and Pākehā, the inclusion of peoples from the Pacific Islands would signal a subtle shift in the identity landscape. Niue, the Cook Islands, and Tokelau would remain in the protectorate of the realm of Aotearoa and be afforded New Zealand citizenship. Samoa, as a result of being under New Zealand administration during the Great War, would also enjoy New Zealand citizenship towards the end of the century. In this stage, with the introduction of the Pacific Islanders into Aotearoa, Māori, and Pākehā’s historical bicultural partnership bound them together as the founding partners of the nation.

3. Māori and non Māori — 1970s
The cultural renaissance of the 1970s in the Pacific region saw a revival of an indigenous movement — valuing the heritage languages, cultures, and identities of the Pacific. This revival of cultural focus would contribute to leading the charge for the revival of te reo Māori and the introduction of the Māori Language Act in 1987, particularly where te reo Māori was able to be used in legal proceedings. This is a huge contrast to the New Zealand of the 1870s, where the Native Land Court, a key product of the Native Land Act 1865, enabled Māori land to be purchased by Pākehā, which ultimately lead to some Māori dispossession of lands. Language being attached to the land is significant, and this third stage makes it very clear that the distinction of non-Māori to be grouped and defined as Pākehā (P) and Pacific Island (Pas), even as the Pacific nations themselves at this time were also experiencing a resurgence of indigeneity with their respective cultures.

4. Nationalism
Pacific Islanders in Aotearoa understand what it means to have affinity for the indigenous people of the land, as they have similar values and beliefs when it comes to traditional notions of the village and iwi, hapū and kāinga. Pacific Islanders also understand what it means to adopt a national identity, being a New Zealander in the sense that undertaking Kiwi aspects of life that include embracing the common language of communication — English — sees Pacific Islanders being able to navigate their way through Pākehā systems and processes. This means that Pasifika occupy a ‘third space’ where we contribute to a national understanding of identity because we are able to adapt and engage in both worlds — that of Māori and that of Pākehā.

5. Introducing Diversity
The introduction and subsequent increase of diversity in a historically bicultural Aotearoa happened for a variety of reasons. Economic growth with industry,  tourism, and education funded by foreigners, became a mainstay and ultimately resulted in the purchasing of farmland, state assets, and housing. New Zealanders started associating diversity with international foreign fee-paying students who arrived to take advantage of tertiary education offers. However, a 2011 report released by the Ministry of Education recording the numbers of enrolled international students showed a decline in student enrolments. This tunnel-vision perception also neglected to account for the population growth of our very own domestic diversity — New Zealand citizens with multiple ethnic backgrounds growing in a multicultural society that was still struggling to honour its Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations. If we think about this idea in terms of our multicultural children, we often find this domestic diversity reflected in their ethnic makeup, an example of which is highlighted in Shannon Vulu’s story of Growing a multi-cultural family.

6. Treaty-based multiculturalism
The final stage of the evolution in the presence of the Pacific Islands and other non-Māori ethnicities in Aotearoa New Zealand culminates here. What needs to happen in this space is that it is only when the historical importance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi — the partnership between Māori and the Crown — is acknowledged in all of its entirety, including how that applies to modern Aotearoa, that we will be able to entertain the very notion of Treaty-based multiculturalism. By understanding and having empathy for the human rights of indigenous peoples in their homelands, we will begin to walk the identity journeys of the ancestors that form the foundation for the diversity, and the continuing multiple diversities, that must be underpinned by the Treaty articles. This may also mean that recent migrants, who represent notions of international diversity, must also understand the domestic diversity that has preceded them. This learning could also be reciprocal in nature, where Māori, Pākehā, and Pasifika also learn about the wider world that is represented by international diversity.

As a consultant for CORE, I think about this in the ways that we support children in our schools. Are we serving the interests of our Māori learners, to champion how they see and act for themselves as Māori? Are we able to increase our own cultural intelligence by being able to locate Te Tiriti o Waitangi at the heart of what it means for us to be New Zealanders?

Key questions to consider for your next steps:

  • How do you incorporate the Treaty articles into your teaching practice, strategic planning, and educational leadership?
  • Where is our collective responsibility as a nation to ensure that we continue to thrive as a nation with our bicultural history, our multicultural present, and our ever-increasing diverse future?

I think about these questions in how we can raise the bar with our cultural intelligence to understand international diversity and our own domestic diversity in Aotearoa. These questions can only be answered if we are willing and motivated to push through, rather than pass by, our past.

 

References

Jon Fraenkel, ‘Pacific Islands and New Zealand’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/pacific-islands-and-new-zealand (accessed 22 November 2017)

‘The Rarotongan Company’, URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/pacific-islanders-nzef/rarotongans, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 2-Dec-2016

‘Native Land Court created ‘, URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/native-land-court-created, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 17-May-2017

International Division, Ministry of Education (April, 2011). International Student Enrolments in New Zealand 2004-2010.

treaty talks: te tiriti o waitangi

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pasifika leaders' forum

Pasifika Language Weeks – Why should we celebrate them?

Posted on October 26, 2017 by Aiono Manu Faaea-Semeatu

The last New Zealand Census conducted in 2013 recorded the following information for the most common languages spoken by multilingual people. There are distinct regional differences and the rise of European and Asian languages. Despite more French-speaking people in Wellington and Christchurch, Hindi has replaced French as the 4th most spoken language.

language stats new zealand

Source: Statistics New Zealand.

The most commonly spoken languages in New Zealand are:

  • English – spoken by 3,819,972 people (96.1 percent of people who stated at least one language)
  • te reo Māori – 148,395 people (3.7 percent)
  • Samoan – 86,403 people (2.2 percent)
  • Hindi – 66,309 people (1.7 percent)
  • Northern Chinese (including Mandarin) – 52,263 people (1.3 percent)
  • French – 49,125 people (1.2 percent).

Every year the Ministry of Pacific Peoples launches various language weeks from the Pacific. The reason for this may not be clear in terms of the origins of these weeks. You would be correct in guessing that the language weeks celebrate the different indigenous or heritage languages of those Pacific nations who have made their home in Aotearoa New Zealand. But, probably what is not commonly known, is that the purpose of these language weeks has a wider vision that includes the Pacific Languages Framework.

The Ministry of Pacific Peoples has a vision that the Pacific Languages Framework is a commitment to ensuring that Pacific languages are flourishing. This vision will be realised by evidence of more people using Pacific language with skill and fluency in everyday situations, particularly children and young people. Those Pacific languages now at risk will be revitalised, and their future assured. Pacific people’s sense of personal and cultural belonging in New Zealand will be enhanced by the support given to Pacific languages. New Zealanders will appreciate and value Pacific languages as a source of pride in New Zealand’s rich cultural diversity. The government and Pacific communities will be working in partnership to maintain and promote Pacific languages.

Samoa, Cook Islands, and Tonga have celebrated their Pacific languages in May, July, and September this year. And just this month, October, the following have celebrated their languages:

Tuvalu – Sunday 1st October – Saturday 7th October

Fiji – Sunday 8th October – Saturday 14th October

Niue – Sunday 15th October – Saturday 21st October

Tokelau – Monday 23rd October – Sunday 29th October

Did you celebrate any of these weeks?

Challenge:
How can we ensure that our Pacific Languages will continue to be spoken, to keep them alive in our communities?

If you are interested in learning multiple languages, why not make one of them a Pacific language?

To celebrate the Pacific Language Weeks in your centre, school, or organisation in future, or to carry the point of these “Weeks” further, seek further information from:

  1. NZ Online
  2. Coconet TV
  3. Your local library
  4. Your local city council
  5. Pacific Education Centre

The Pacific Language Weeks are a great way to start recognising, valuing, and celebrating Pacific nations in Aotearoa, but you might be asking yourself, how can I offer some meaningful and practical support that will enhance the work we are doing in our team, in our school, and in our communities? How can we offer support beyond the Pacific Language Weeks? This would involve being able to help people who have yet to develop a disposition for working with people of other cultures, different to their own. This process is called developing your “cultural intelligence”.

I have blogged about this concept in a previous blog post about Multiculturalism. If you would like to attend a CORE Breakfast seminar and workshop, there is the final one for the year in Auckland on Friday 10 November. Be sure to register as places are limited!

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eye test

Bright Eyes: What does it mean to have a Pasifika lens?

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Aiono Manu Faaea-Semeatu

eye test

Bright eyes burning like fire
Bright eyes, how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes

(Art Garfunkel, 1978)

I’ve been working for CORE Education for about four years. Along the way, I have had the privilege and pleasure of facilitating professional learning solutions to support principals, senior leadership teams, and educators in all the different sectors that have Pasifika learners — early childhood centres, home-based child care services, primary schools, intermediate schools, secondary schools, tertiary providers, universities, and adult community education services.

But, this isn’t a blog post about how much I love working for CORE. Instead, I want to shed some light about the common thread that weaves through these different sectors. I have been working to hone my Pasifika lens — with a longitudinal view; by being cognisant of the transitions that exist in the education sectors, by building bridges to move freely and fluidly between them. This is the view that I would like to think that I impart to everyone I meet, who asks what a Pasifika lens looks like.

As a specialist in Pasifika education, it can be challenging to attempt to tackle the issues that individual educational contexts face. I may not be familiar with historical extenuating circumstances of particular Pasifika communities and how they have engaged with the formalised learning of schools. I might not be aware of what these schools have attempted to do in the past to not only increase community engagement, but also to foster connections with Pasifika parent communities that empower and embolden them to champion their children’s learning.

When I think about my work in schools, and how I can best use my skills as a specialist in Pasifika education, I see that I help schools to understand how best to use their data effectively to drive outcomes for their Pasifika students. This is a real passion of mine. You could say that I have been through lots of lenses in education — having been a product of the system myself as a student, a teacher, and now a human resource for teachers to improve their pedagogy for Pasifika learners. Having a Pasifika lens with multiple views has allowed me to experience the myriad of perspectives that I have come to know as being critically important.

I often get asked to provide a ‘Pasifika lens’ about schools’ strategic plans to increase Pasifika achievement. I do not subscribe to comparing Pasifika students by noting if their achievement results are on par, if not better than their non-Pasifika counterparts. Shouldn’t we be looking at how Pasifika learners achieve based on their own achievement, rather than in comparison to other ethnicities? It often feels, through the Pasifika lens that I was born with, that such comparison is designed to continually perpetuate this tail of underachievement rather than focus on their own achievement, their own success on their own merit.

How can I share my Pasifika lens?

How can I share my Pasifika lens with others? I have thought about this and the best analogy I can come up with is to look at the difference between an ophthalmologist and an optometrist.

An ophthalmologist is a specialist in the branch of medicine concerned with the study of disorders and diseases of the eye. They also differ from optometrists because of their different levels of training, and they’re able to practice medicine and perform surgery.

I feel that in schools I may be viewed as a Pasifika ophthalmologist, brought in because of my different levels of training in disciplines such as Music, Ethnomusicology, Anthropology, TESSOL, and Education. I might be expected to be able to provide expert advice to schools who have readily identified Pasifika achievement issues that have surfaced through their data. Schools recognise that when challenges or roadblocks start to appear in relation to Pasifika achievement, it is because they are acknowledging that low Pasifika academic results exist. Schools’ ERO reports should help to provide some key focus areas to significantly address discrepancies in their vision for Pasifika learners. Contributing factors that may have a negative impact on outcomes may lead to schools and clusters seeking to inform their pedagogies that are conducive to Pasifika excellence.

As a Pasifika ophthalmologist, I can test their vision, to test their Pasifika lens by customising and tailoring professional learning solutions that help them to understand that their actions impact on Pasifika student achievement. By catching the challenges early, schools can seek ways to foster language that can help to grow collaboration between Pasifika learners and their parents, families, and communities. By growing collaboration in this way enables the school or cluster to co-construct achievement strategies that are a main feature of the community focus of the ERO Pacific Strategy.

Do you see what I see?

A few questions come to mind when I consider how I can best assess what kind of vision schools and Communities of Learning have for their Pasifika learners:

  • How do you know that what you are doing is making learning and achievement better or worse for Pasifika learners?
  • How do you know that what you have written into your school charters, strategic plans, or Community of Learning achievement challenges that focus on Pasifika learners, have been formulated with sufficient consultation with Pasifika parents and communities?
  • How do we bring the Pasifika focus in your school charters, strategic plans, or Community of Learning achievement challenges to life in all classrooms? 

Where can I seek further assistance for my focus on Pasifika learners?

pasifika learner

CORE Education offers professional learning solutions that can address teaching as inquiry as an approach to investigate the impact of your pedagogy on your learners and community.

The courses are constructed for deep learning that will challenge your thinking while building on your prior knowledge of what already works for your Pasifika learners.

You will implement targeted actions either in your classroom or with your school community that make a meaningful difference. These actions will be decided by you, supported by evidence-based practices that you will learn within these courses. There are a range of learning tasks from face-to-face sessions, interactive webinars and online discussions.

CORE Pasifika online courses

 

Image Credit: Eye Test from Pexels CC0

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pasifika in waitangi

Pasifika in Waitangi

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Aiono Manu Faaea-Semeatu

Pasifika in Waitangi
Māori Navigators
L-R: Jason Ruakere, Teanau Tuiono, Anaru White, Shannon Vulu

The one and only time I had previously seen Waitangi was in a passing drive-by. Moana Timoko, a fellow CORE facilitator, showed me what Waitangi looked like under the cover of darkness. We drove past the night before a professional learning event at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Kaikohe. I would later find out that we had driven past Te Ti Marae and Tau Rangatira, before approaching the bridge on the other side.

When I actually set foot on Waitangi Treaty Grounds, it was for the last whānau hui with Wharehoka Wano before assuming his new role as iwi manager in Taranaki for Te Atiawa. I guess, in some small part, this blog post serves as a tribute to him for his inspiration to me as a contemporary Māori leader who now returns to his community to serve the needs of his people. He will be missed at Tātai Aho Rau — CORE Education.

I have written about Pasifika connections with Māori in two previous blog posts — Pasifika in Parihaka and Pasifika’s position in honouring the bi-cultural Te Tiriti partnership. I see this blog post as a culmination of the learning from these previous posts, reflecting on my understandings of Pasifika connections in the context of actually visiting Waitangi in the flesh. As a Pasifika person in Aotearoa, because I am conscious of being staunch in my own Samoan culture, it helps me to understand and value what it means to be Māori in Aotearoa. The events that have unfolded since the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi have leaned itself more to Pākeha benefitting from the agreement, whereas Māori have continually tried to regain tino rangatiratanga.

russell - hell-hole of the pasificBefore we went to Waitangi, a group of us visited Russell Kororareka, ‘the hell hole of the Pacific’ (the catch phrase plastered all over the island) to take note of the settlement. The Māori settlement quickly gained notoriety when prostitution arrived in the area, together with the whaling trade and new settlers. Busby had originally planned to have the town of Victoria built, but these plans were later scrapped when the capital city was moved.

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Multiculturalism: Navigating the spaces between Ethnicity, Identity, and Diversity using Cultural Intelligence

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Aiono Manu Faaea-Semeatu

When I think about the kind of work that I do for CORE in centres, schools, clusters, as well as with other education partner agencies, I more often than not end up talking about culture. Initially, my role as Senior Advisor Pasifika focuses on Pasifika cultures in relation to raising the engagement and achievement of Pasifika learners in Aotearoa. Now this role has expanded to include multiculturalism.

What has helped me to explain how to go about doing this (the engagement and achievement part) has been by looking at multiculturalism as a lens, as a way of thinking about, discussing and understanding our connections with the rest of the world.

Having grown up in Auckland, I have always heard the term multiculturalism bandied about — by far the most multicultural city in Aotearoa. The all-girls high school I attended would proudly tout at the top of each school newsletter that “We are a multicultural school.” If the high school music groups were any indication of that claim, it quickly verified it — as we had girls from every colour hue under the sun, with as many different accents as you could imagine.

What has changed since then is how multiculturalism is now seen on a global scale, particularly with how we understand what it means to participate in the world as a global citizen and to be culturally intelligent.

Dyne, Ang, Koh (2009) discuss a framework called Cultural Intelligence, that originated in North America, and is widely used by corporate businesses as a way to connect with potential trade partners in the Asian market. This framework can also be applied in other fields or disciplines such as sociology and education. The basic premise is that, in order to obtain cultural intelligence, you must observe and follow four stages:

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