From a young age, Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga was a nanakia visionary, inquisitive and he accomplished a number of great feats helping others to live better lives. HīAko aims to enable Māori learners to discover their potential, ‘te pitomata’ and promote kaupapa Māori ways of engaging with self, others, and knowledge.

The HīAko challenge itself is fast paced, high energy and fun and uses kaupapa Māori approaches to find solutions to real life, localised problems that matter to ākonga and their whānau as speakers of te reo Māori. HīAko provides ākonga with the opportunity like Māui, to think, explore and find solutions to real life issues in order to enrich the lives of others. Māui was far from perfect and he was a great disruptor, which is what is needed also in this space.

HīAko

HīAko is founded within pūrākau, demonstrating a unique approach to learning based on four Māori medium learning approaches:

• Kia hīanga te ako – discover as you play, play to learn
• Kia tamaiti te tū, kia Māori te tū – being a child whilst standing in your Māoriness
• Mā te tamaiti tōna ao e hanga – the child will create his or her own world
• Ko te tamaiti ko tōna whānau, ko te whānau ko tōna tamaiti – each child brings with them whānau, whakapapa, stories and knowledge that are unique.

What is HīAko?

• HīAko is a learning programme which believes that whilst playing, huge learning is taking place.
• HīAko encompasses learning reciprocity, learning enjoyment, learning discovery, learning creativity, and learning collaboration.
• HīAko endeavours to awaken the potential within, so that new ideas and innovations may occur.
• HīAko is Māori-centric, fun, and fast paced.
• HīAko includes time for ākonga to collaborate together in teams to inquire, uncover problems that matter to them, which they would like to try and solve.
• HīAko encourages teams to research and query solutions to their problems and link with whānau, kura, hapū and the wider hāpori to assist ākonga with their solutions.
• HīAko is designed so ākonga get to play, tutu, learn, create and harness transformational change within a total immersion te reo Māori environment.

We would like to acknowledge Whare and Hohepa Isaac-Sharland, past facilitators of CORE who designed and delivered the HīAko programme and this content.