“I hope to give you a deeper insight into how you as educators can interact with these bright but damaged youth and how the education system is the place to build life-saving bridges.”

Taken from Māia Goldsmith’s activator session at uLearn21, this is the second of a two-part blog that shares Māia’s story.

This blog contains sensitive content, which may be disturbing or traumatising to some audiences. Discretion is advised. If you or someone you know may need support please contact Sexual Abuse Education NZ https://sexualabuse.org.nz/

Thoughts for your practice

To me, my experiences are just my life, so I sometimes struggle to view it as more than a story of overcoming barriers and beating the odds. I am also not an educator, so I am cautious about telling you how to do your jobs. However, in my discussions with educators, academics, students (and others who have found themselves an education system outcast), there are some recurring, interconnected themes. So, I have put together some focus areas that will hopefully be useful for your practice.

Be real. The first and easiest thing I can say is be real when interacting with these kids – don’t b***s***. Don’t ‘protect’ them from exposure by excluding them from the realities around them. These kids don’t have adults that sugarcoat things around them, they don’t believe in fairytales and happy endings, they are aware, exposed, and treated as adults in many cases. As sad as it might be, these kids have lived adult experiences. Sometimes, efforts to tiptoe around situations and soften blows can be patronising, offensive and even exclude us from our own lives. It puts us into a position in which we feel we are not heard, understood or ‘seen’. For kids who are used to things just happening to them, this can negatively impact their sense of autonomy over their own bodies and lives.

I speak here largely in relation to the handling of my sexual assault. There were procedures that needed to be followed, of course, but the teachers were so shocked, so hurt by MY experience, that they avoided me. They pulled back, left me out and didn’t inform or support me through any of what happened that day. Admittedly, they didn’t know how, but the police weren’t great either and the resulting damage was a huge blow that really separated me from the school system.

Active participants rather than passive recipients. This phrase should be familiar to some of you. It represents a way of viewing children and young people as active agents within their own lives, capable of understanding their surroundings and making decisions about themselves. These are not dumb, naïve little kids. Many of them have raised siblings or spoken in courtrooms – the effort to keep them as bystanders in their own lives can be internally conflicting and frustrating. Be real and honest, involving them in the processes, punishment, rewards, decisions that impact them. Give them a chance, showing you see them as active participants in their own lives.

This is much closer to the way things operate in alternative education (it’s a huge part of why they interact so well in that environment). So many kids just have things happen to them, they have no say in where, when or why. Continuing that experience in places of education grows more feelings of anger, anxiety, resentment and rebellion. See these kids as being active contributors in their own existence and they will start to show you how capable they are.

Compromise and flexibility. The next key platform to interact and build relationships with these kids is in your ability to be flexible and compromise. The power dynamics between students and teachers are created in the execution of the rules, which dictates how they see themselves within institutions. The punishment processes in school either provide for and allow, or withdraw and remove, the things these kids do engage with and enjoy at school. One of the first and favourite punishments is to remove extra-curricular activities or total engagement in classes. Being flexible and compromising is a way to encourage better behaviour and engagement in other areas.

Here are three examples of how compromising and being flexible has worked.

• A young girl I’ve supported recently has been battling molestation charges with her own father in Court. Unfortunately, she and her mother are losing this battle, which has begun to negatively impact her life. This girl was caught drinking and smoking during a lunch period at school. The school responded by removing her from touch rugby and kapa haka, not able to return until she can ‘behave’ for three months. All of her friends are involved in these activities – and they are her biggest support network. This 14 year old now just wants to leave school completely and I can see the anger growing in her, familiar to my own. Let down by the justice system, rejected by the school system, resentment and anger grows and eventually causes a clash.The makings of an ‘at-risk’ youth quickly becomes the making of a criminal. For any of you who know the history of gangs and gang creation in New Zealand – this, these messages given to broken kids, is where it starts. She’s a smart, mature, reasonable young hine, but she has days where she can’t focus in class. Days where she just wants to cry and scream about what her father has done to her and the situation she’s in. Days where she wants to be mad, or escape through alcohol and drugs – survive. The school system does not allow for these kinds of days and it certainly doesn’t reward her for all the other days she does hold it all together.I understand this girl has now left school, she couldn’t find any interest or reason to stay. To me this was a total waste, avoidable if the school had responded to her outbursts with awhi instead of rejection.
• My youngest brother was put on a special sports programme at school, a sort of sports academy for talented kids. The other kids in the class were born and bred success stories and very, very wealthy. At the time my mother was working over 60 hours a week and he was essentially raising himself (another common occurrence for many kids). He was often late, wrong shoes, wrong socks, untidy hair, not cleanly shaven – my brother had curly locks down the center of his back until the age of 16. As we all know there is a clash between what is a ‘tidy uniform’ and the ability to participate – well, he was berated for it.
  One particular day he was late because he had been up till 4 am talking to his best mate (who was a kid in the foster care system due to suicide). They called a disciplinary meeting, which I attended, to discuss his future on the programme.Like most Māori boys, my brother didn’t speak, he didn’t offer any defence – he didn’t feel he mattered enough for them to listen. I explained why he had been late that day, but also pointed out he was the only Māori on that course. He was probably the only one who didn’t have a father, whose father had been in jail for violent crimes his whole life. This young tane was being raised by a single mother struggling to hold down a mortgage and he was doing the best he could. The obstacles that existed for him as a 15 year old, to show up at school at 9 am every day, clean, tidy and with a packed lunch, were not present for the other kids in his class.I let them know he’d made it further in high school than anyone in our family. I said they needed to awhi and support this young man more than all the other students, because his journey to be there was more of a broken road than a golden pathway. The teacher was shocked and showed extreme admiration for my brother. She’d had no idea, and did everything I suggested to help him engage. She made huge compromises for him and he passed the course with flying colours – he is now studying towards an automotive engineering qualification. This was a good result, considering before the meeting he was keen to just leave school and work down at the docks.
• During my own time at high school there were many teachers that hated me, really. They’d withdraw me for walking in the class wrong, searching for reasons to berate me, and to be fair, I was always doing lots of things wrong. There were a few that stood out for good reasons, one in particular was my P.E. teacher. He nicknamed me ‘trouble’ and never kicked me out of class. He would know if I wasn’t sober, or that I was late because I actually wasn’t going to come. He would just look at me and say ‘three laps, go’, making me run three laps of the courts before I was allowed to participate.This mattered. To me, he was acknowledging I had come to class, that I had disrespected the rules, but said ‘fine, you can be here but you must give me extra’. Rather than rejection this was more of a challenge – he was saying you can do your b***s***, it won’t interrupt my class, I still want you to be here but you have to do something for me. It was a small compromise that made the world of difference to our relationship. This man was loved and respected by all the naughty students (and largely resented by other teachers). That was a strange dynamic but they also did not like how he bent the rules to save troubled kids. I always showed up for his class, always stayed and behaved. I respected him, because of the respect he showed me.

The more rigid and immovable the rules and expectations (and your enforcement of them), the more likely they are to break. It’s setting the bar way up there and saying ‘this is it, if you’re not good enough, you’re out’. When these kids have to jump seven other bars just to get to that bar, it sets the tone that they won’t ever make it. If we accept the big things are absolute no’s – fighting, drugs, alcohol, violence – we can maybe try to understand those small things, like being berated for dress codes, lateness, make-up and language. Doing this just sends small but consistent messages, ‘you don’t belong here and you’re not good enough’. A little compromise and flexibility on the small things will involve kids in their own existence, lessening the feelings of exclusion and isolation that eventually lead to them opting out completely.

Labelling and rejection is the third area of interaction I wanted to discuss. It looks at how, as educators, your actions and attitudes towards these kids can label, categorise and separate them, as well as encourage feelings of rejection from mainstream society.

The stories mentioned before are so familiar to me, of kids so obviously slipping through the cracks. How all the wrong decisions are being made to stop them progress, when something so small can really make such a difference to their self-worth. Some of you may not think it is your ‘job’ to fix these kids, or that rules are rules and should be followed and respected. Some may think that’s the standard and those who do not fit should get out. (Honestly, I’ve seen that is how many teachers conduct themselves.) But the impact on these kids and their engagement can be massive. To me, if a little understanding, a little compassion, a little compromise can change the way a child sees themselves and help their ability to belong, then why wouldn’t you.

Misunderstanding, or lack of regard to, the real-life situations these kids are in plays a huge role in how they begin to view themselves as outsiders. Outcasting, rejection and the use of terms like ‘at-risk’ and ‘troubled youths’ not only makes us feel categorised and separated, but also helps us categorise ourselves, sometimes even encouraging us to play the role. In criminology this is referred to as the ‘Labelling Theory’. Proposed by Frank Tanenbaum in the 1930s, this theory argues that the action of labelling an individual as a ‘criminal’ heavily influences that individual’s self-image and can provoke more deviant behavior to occur until the label is fulfilled. Perhaps there are similar impacts happening here. Terminology and categories are useful for practice workbooks and ticking boxes – but in real life they are perhaps perpetuating.

Throughout my years of getting in trouble, it was the messages of correction about the small things that really solidified my understanding of belonging and rejection. I knew smoking and wagging were bad, but I didn’t know wearing make-up at 13 was. Or that playing music while I walked down the hallways was unacceptable, or why. Kicking me out of class for these things just made me leave the school grounds and have a smoke – prove I didn’t want to be there anyway. Rejection, from the system and adults, really cements our sense of where we belong. If we are constantly labelled and told to get out, we will believe those labels and believe we belong on the outer.

For some, if they are honest with themselves, that is what they are trying to achieve. I have had hideous debates with very privileged educators who believe it is their job to deliver education, and nothing else. Some teachers truly lack empathy and understanding towards us, some just don’t like us or our ‘type’, and we know that. Many teachers come from a different background, they do not understand, nor do they want to, nor do they think they should. Friends who are teachers have told me of staffroom arguments about who would be ‘burdened’ with taking the whānau class – with many refusing, saying they did not want to be bothered with ‘those kids’. Nothing like setting a tone of rejection before the school year has even started.

Understanding and accepting position and difference. This brings me to your own reflection and your ability to acknowledge the differences in position. These stories may seem shocking to you, but they are not uncommon. And they represent a whole heap of kids that are being left behind by our education system.

They are stories and feelings shared by the majority of people I grew up with and associate with as an adult. I did a small statistical analysis of ten girls I considered close friends throughout my childhood. Five of us had experienced sexual abuse as children, three of those before the age of 14. Seven had grown up in households where drugs were a common occurrence. All except one had regular exposure to heavy drinking. Eight of us had violence in the home, directed at us in various forms. Four of us had immediate family gang connections and three of us had experienced other traumas such as death of a sibling or parent.

Of these same girls, five had engaged in self-harming, two regularly and at times it was life threatening. Five engaged in regular drug use and continued to do so as adults, all have used alcohol and cigarettes. Four became mothers before the age of 20. Only three made it past year 11, and only one graduated from high school. I am the only one with any qualification above NCEA level 3. These statistics are reflective of most of the people I know, most of the people related to me and all of the people I have found throughout my life. They may not apply to you or the people you know, but I ask you to be aware of them!

Kids like me grow up with a mistrust and fear about institutions and authority, police cars, police stations, CYFS, teachers, counsellors, social workers, all the different waiting rooms, all the shades of blue and grey. They all become one and the same to us, and they are often perceived as enemies to most of the adults around us. Their presence is associated with turmoil, violence, removal, separation, insecurity. We do not trust or welcome them. Unlike most of our peers.

Places of education, classrooms and teachers, become similar representations to us and are institutions that can either soften or further engrain these feelings. Six hours a day, five days a week, for 10 – 13 years will have some impact on growing minds. This place has the potential to save kids, to heavily influence their experiences and understandings of mainstream society. More importantly, to influence how they see their own position in these places. Even when I went to Uni, I never really viewed myself as a ‘uni student’ and I certainly wasn’t anything like the kids I was there with. The cultural and conduct differences were so deeply ingrained it was like two different worlds, a total world of privilege with an absolute unawareness of the privilege they lived in.

Which brings me to diversity, and what is considered acceptable and usable diversity. Diversity in ethnic culture, gender, sexuality and ability are all seen as positive and are generally encouraged. But I do not find the same warm welcome when it comes to diversity of class culture. Even at Uni, there are people of all colours, many successful young Māori, Pasifika, Asian, Gay, Non-binary, Trans, people with disabilities. But no poor people, no people raised in chaos. Out of 300 kids in my Criminal Justice papers, only two of us had sat in the back of a cop car, had been in an interrogation room. I was one of the only ones on campus with a community services card, who even knew what one was. I was one of the only ones who’d lived experiences like mine, making my ability to analyse and understand issues very different to my peers.

It made me aware of how untouchable University was to kids like me. None of my friends or their families had ever been to Uni. Yet all the kids there had at least one or both parents, if not a sibling or aunt or uncle, with Bachelor qualifications. Generations of success and privilege that does indeed span across ethnicity, sex, gender and ability, as long as they are all of the same class. Even the Māori, the majority of them Kai Tahu and long lines of success and wealth. Highly respectable whānau and exceptional young Māori, but so different to all the Māori kids I grew up with.

When you think of diversity and inclusion, be sure you are not just accepting usable diversity. Seek diversity that makes room for those a little rough around the edges. Those who don’t have the same views and experiences and have not walked the same paths. It’s deeper than ethnic or culture, it’s socioeconomic diversity. Really try to understand how the different paths and experiences affect how these people interact with and envision themselves in mainstream society. Those paths and experiences are different from yours, therefore you will find differences in language, meaning, interpretation and conduct (the same way you do for ethnic or other cultures). This also requires an understanding of your own position, what you understand, what you know, what you can do as a provider of education within the mainstream systems. You are the controller of the interaction with us kids on the other side. Your effort to bridge this gap in position is what makes the difference. Acknowledge, understand and seek to change it.

So, things get a bit messy over 40 minutes, so these final four points simplified, looks like this,

Be real. These young people may be children in age, but they are dealing with very adult situations. They’ve had a lifetime of simply being recipients and need to be treated as active participants in what is happening to them, especially in areas like education. Sharing with these young people, about their actions, situations, consequences and options, will help them feel involved and responsible for how things are playing out in their lives. They will be more likely to engage with their surroundings. Be real with them, and they will be with you.

Compromise and flexibility. How are you enforcing the standards, are they always necessary? Are they going to achieve engagement? Is there room for compromise and what might the impact of that be? Will it allow for this child to feel involved and valued just enough to keep them involved? Compromise builds relationships and mutual respect, if you can get it to work well. It may keep a kid in school just a few more years and even if it doesn’t, they will remember your effort and that someone tried.

Rejection and labelling. How are you being mindful of your own actions and interactions with and towards these young people? Your words, actions or opinions can heavily impact how these kids view themselves and even influence their actions. Are you further ingraining feelings of exclusion, rejection and outcasting? Or are you actively working to improve them?

Understanding and accepting position and difference. Understand and accept these kids have very different lives to what you know. They view society and its representatives differently, in many cases as hostile. You may not be able to understand, but at least accept, and leave that space open for difference. A difference that involves class, more than culture. Understanding this is key to bridging the huge socioeconomic gaps we see in society.

Reflect on your own position, your own understanding. As educators, reflect on your ability to make an effort to change how the system is interacting with these young people and positively impact their lives. 

I leave you with a suggestion on how to change and improve meaningful practice in education. It comes from an admirable and inspiring role model of mine I was honoured to work under during my time at UC, Professor Angus Macfarlane. 

If you or someone you know may need support please contact Sexual Abuse Education NZ – https://sexualabuse.org.nz/

Read Part 1 of Māia’s story.

Wahine Māori, Māia Goldsmith, faced multiple challenges from an early age. She was suspended, stood down and expelled – three times. Today, Māia has recently gained her second Bachelor’s degree. Her story shares what it was like to be “excluded from the education system” and the impact of being labelled an “at-risk” rangatahi.

Touching many hearts, Māia talked about her journey at uLearn21. “I hope to give you a deeper insight into how you as educators can interact with these bright but damaged youth and how the education system is the place to build life-saving bridges.”

Taken from her activator session at this year’s conference, this two-part blog shares Māia’s story.

This blog contains sensitive content, which may be disturbing or traumatising to some audiences. Discretion is advised. If you or someone you know may need support please contact Sexual Abuse Education NZ https://sexualabuse.org.nz/

Disruptive, aggressive, confident, loud, charismatic, friendly but intimidating and unable to follow the rules; troubled and trouble – words often used to describe kids like me in the education system. Usually followed by ‘we have many reasons for concern about your behaviour’ and ending with ‘you have so much potential we would hate to see you waste it’. Me and all my closest friends were expelled or ‘asked to leave’ high-school, some of us more than once. All of us Māori or Pasifika, all from what are considered ‘broken homes’. All with wide ranging traumas and experiences that none of our classmates or teachers could even begin to imagine.

Labelling and institutional rejection have strong impacts, creating mistrust and resentment within these kids that continue into adulthood. They contribute to the cycles of crime, poverty, unemployment, low-education, abuse and trauma, solidifying the ‘us vs them’ mindset and damaging an individual’s ability to succeed on both sides. As someone who has jumped the fence, I am here to open that space and talk about how we can do that for the kids still falling through the cracks.

Why are they so disengaged? Distracted? Disruptive? Angry?
How can they speak like that? Dress like that? Drink? Smoke? Swear?
How do we get through to these kids? Should we bother?

I will follow four main themes:

• The making of an ‘at-risk’ youth. Here we will explore how I grew up, what was normalised to me and kids like me. How these experiences eventually clashed with my participation in mainstream education, leaving me labelled, excluded and seen as a damaged young girl, placed in the ‘too hard’ basket.
• My experiences as an ‘at-risk’ youth. Continuing on from the first theme into how those experiences played out in the school system and what that looked like
• What I learnt from these experiences. As I grew up and reflected on my journey, what I learnt about me and kids like me, and what might have made a difference.
• Thoughts for your practice. This will be the focus of the second part of this blog, where I will look at some recurring interconnected themes.

My journey is often considered shocking and unique by many in ‘this world’. But many children and young people in Aotearoa have very similar experiences to me. As you listen, I would like you to remember that these events are not rare. Almost all the kids I grew up with have lived experiences like mine.

The making of an ‘at-risk’ youth

I am just one of many, and just one of those to jump the fence and get qualified, so people like you will hear me. Mine is a story of violence, and fear, of abuse in all its forms, of running and hiding and never really being safe. It’s a story of intergenerational poverty, trauma, and mental illness, and the resulting social, behavioural and physiological issues that follow from these experiences. And it’s a story that many will understand.

The more time I have spent analysing this story, the more I understand how it plays into intergenerational poverty and abuse that has followed on from the impacts of colonisation on Māori wahine. This story begins with my grandmother, giving birth to my mother on the floor of a shack with no electricity in rural Wairoa, with two broken ribs and a fractured spine after receiving another severe hiding from her husband. It’s her fleeing that abuse to the South Island ten years later, struggling in desperate poverty to provide a chance for a better life for her five children.

It’s my mother, being awfully bullied at school for her ‘Māori accent’ and the holes in her shoes. How she suffered a sexual assault at 13. How, after a lifetime of abuse from her father (and still having absolutely no contact with any formal or informal support system) she found that familiar violence in her mid-20s, when she fell pregnant with my younger brother to a member of the Mongrel Mob. It’s the story of lived experiences from the women closest to me, horrific and painful stories…I would not understand the depth of their impact until I arrived at Uni, discovering how different family history was for so many other kids.

These experiences are part of my story too, largely shaping my life as a young girl. From around the age of two, ten years of my life was spent on the run, in and out of Women’s Refuge, police stations and court rooms. Life meant being witness to sexual assault, a whole culture of extreme and cruel violence. We spent time in Mataura and Ohau down South in the shearing sheds, where alcohol, drugs, sexual abuse and domestic violence were daily occurrences, like clockwork. Every child there was exposed to it. The Mongrel Mob is hugely present there – meth, violence, prostitution and gangs are normalised occurrences. From an early age, authorities and institutions were targeted as enemies, as intruders and interrupters of our lifestyle.

I started school in Seddon, under different names in witness protection. I think I was at school for about six months before we were found. I remember him jumping in the back seat, putting a knife to my mum’s throat and threatening to kill us all if we left. When he got out, my mum floored it and we were gone. We moved then, twice, and again six months later, to Motueka by the time I was six. He was eventually jailed for a long period of time. We had a chance to breathe and finally managed to make a life for ourselves.

As a child, I did not know the things I had grown up with weren’t normal, that cooking, cleaning and taking care of your siblings day-in, day-out wasn’t something most ten year olds did. Having seven step siblings, three different families, three different houses at Christmas wasn’t abnormal, and they certainly weren’t ‘bad’. My experiences were just my life, and they still are, until people reacted to them.

My experiences as an ‘at-risk’ youth

I was sexually assaulted at the age of 11. Like most things I had lived through, I didn’t speak about it to anyone. It was something I had witnessed many times before, something I had come to understand as a part of life. And I buried it, along with everything else that was painful and scary, and just carried on as normal. Nearly a year went by, and I hadn’t said a single word to anyone, but eventually confided in a friend. Unfortunately this did not go well, resulting in an outburst in class. Teachers quickly got involved and I remember feeling like everything was about to completely explode. Within the hour I was sitting outside the staff room, alone, while my teacher and senior staff discussed what they should do. I wasn’t allowed in, I wasn’t allowed back to class, I had to stay late. I felt like I had made a huge mistake and done something very bad. This was the first time I experienced the ‘drowning’ sensation I got used to as a teen and young adult, gasping for air on land.

They sat me at a desk and questioned me, saying I needed to tell them so they could help me. I wouldn’t tell them. I just wanted to go and eventually they let me. I walked home alone, finding a police car and two police officers telling my mother what they believed had happened to me, without me even being there or being made aware. A total sideswipe.

I didn’t know they would be there, let alone informing my mother I had been raped, without my presence or knowledge. It was totally out of my control, I was just watching it all unfold. I could see the devastation in her face, the guilt and the blame and I felt totally responsible. My role in the family was to take care of my brothers and help my mum, and this, this wasn’t that. I felt betrayed by the system, like they had intruded on my life, torn it open, inserting themselves and their procedures on me and my family, with no thought to how I felt or what I wanted.

It was like being raped again – by a system that was given permission to do so. I was so angry. In my mind, it wasn’t anyone else’s experience, it hadn’t happened to them. And yet I had to explain it, justify it, relive it, so that they could fulfil their ‘processes’. No one explained to me what was happening, what would happen or why. The handling of sexual assaults and abuse by authorities is a topic we could find endless criticisms on and an area in much need of support. For time’s sake I will not get into it right now, but this was devastating and everything changed after that.

This was significant for many reasons. It made reality of a memory I had pretended was just a nightmare, it devastated my mother and, when it came to institutions and authority, it really solidified my feelings that it was me vs them. At the time, the upheaval of my life was once again attributed to the intrusive ‘caring’ adults (who didn’t know s*** about me or my life). I was angry, blaming the school for the humiliation and isolation I now felt. I knew men could be bad, what I didn’t understand was trust being broken by the system. School had once been a safe place for me – now it was a trap.

Less than six months later, four weeks into year 9, I was expelled from high school for the most drugs ever found on a student in the South Island. Weed, pipes, tobacco, vodka, lighters, papers, everything. Me and a few other kids were caught up in the ‘incident’ and I was considered the ‘ring-leader’ as I had supplied most of the substances. The turnaround was unbelievable, from leadership awards and sports trophies to exclusion and front page news. I’d had maybe one detention throughout primary and intermediate, now all of a sudden I was outside the staff room while teachers discussed what to do next.

Perhaps I was a ticking time bomb, perhaps what came next was unavoidable. But I can look back now and clearly identify the series of self-destructive choices that quickly had me looking at myself as a sexually active, drinking, smoking thirteen-year-old girl, wearing heavy makeup and inappropriate clothing. I now understand this was a sort of armour, a protective shield, someone else I could be that was tough, unashamed, secure, brave – a way of taking control of me, for once.

I was seen as a highly ‘at-risk’ youth that was also ‘a risk’ to others. This was the first time I heard these phrases (but certainly not the last). They somehow helped solidify my position on the outside of all these other kids. I arrived at the next school with that chip on my shoulder – and a preference for being ‘risky’ over being ‘broken’.

I remember them putting me in a class and buddying me up with some of the nice girls from the school. These girls were nice, they came from wealthy, two-parent families, had never drunk or smoked and barely swore. One of them straight-up told me she did not think rape was something that happened in New Zealand, or at all. They were from whole different worlds. They were nice girls, and as much as they wanted to, they didn’t understand anything about the life I had lived. It took me a long time to understand that was not their fault, and also a good thing.

These kids pitied me and my ‘horrible’ childhood. They were the same girls who, because they were worried about me, narked on me to teachers for smoking weed – eventually getting me expelled, again. The same girls whose parents successfully prevented me from re-entering the school a year later because I was a bad influence and a ‘danger to their kids’…‘privileged interference’ made by those who just have no idea. My efforts to fit in with them did not last long. Within months I made friends with other ‘at-risk’ youth, finding friendship and comfort in our shared experiences, bonding as outcasts in the school system.

I remember feeling like none of the teachers, counsellors or authority figures actually cared or understood us. They just wanted me to fit in the box and behave, thinking that would make it easier for everyone. Well I didn’t want to fit in the box and I didn’t want to behave. A huge lack of respect and trust for the institutions had festered and I didn’t really care what they wanted me to do. By second term year 10 I was expelled again. Within that time I had been stood down two or three times and suspended, as well as all the detentions, exclusions from sports teams and extra curriculars, subject withdrawals and many days in the toybox. For things as big as alcohol and drugs, and small things like wearing too much make-up, or putting safety pins in my skirt.

It doesn’t really matter once you’re the one of the ‘bad’ kids, each and every shot fired reminds you of that. One of my best mates was withdrawn for having fluro paint on her shoes, she literally walked in one side of the classroom and out the other. We met outside the Dean’s office, both waiting for punishment or approval. To me, these were very clear messages that I was not accepted here, that we weren’t accepted here, that we weren’t good enough for this place and didn’t belong here. Eventually I convinced myself of that. As an adult, I recognise anger and outcasting was easier than pain and sadness, and the addictive comfort found in chaos and turmoil was difficult to overcome.

What I learnt from these experiences

I was on a mission to prove I wasn’t good enough, that I was bad, and broken and not worth anyone’s time, just like all the teachers and police thought I was. I was expelled again, sent to local alternative education that same day. This place saved my life. (For anyone who really wants to make a difference for ‘at risk’ youths – work here and get them more funding!) The people there do the jobs of teachers, social workers, counselors, parents and police (on funding peanuts), and the system calls it tutoring.

This place did many things, but a few will be most relevant to you as educators. It allowed for compromise and growth in a way that was different to mainstream schooling. Rules and structures were not immovable and rigid but related to our behaviour and participation. We had active roles in our learning and were given responsibility for different aspects of our environment. We weren’t immediately excluded from class for the way we dressed, spoke, our makeup, or small behavioural outbursts. It was a place that allowed us to be loud, different and who we needed to be – and didn’t punish us for it. Many people ask me what helped me turn my life around. This place played a huge part in my sense of self-worth and ability to find value in myself as a young person.

I became close with one of the tutors there, he was the same iwi as me and had shared a similar childhood. He was real with us kids, gaining a lot of respect because of that. We would talk about the world and I would share stories of my life with him. One day he said “girl, you’ve been dealt a really shitty deck of cards, you really have, but you get to decide how you play them, that’s what your life’s about”. No pity or b***s***, just honesty that planted the seed in my head that I would be responsible for what happened next.

I started to look at my peers, realising we were all just damaged young people, punishing ourselves for things that weren’t really our fault. Ninety-nine per cent of us were Māori or Pasifika, all with different degrees of trauma and issues with families that didn’t care (or didn’t know how to). Young people in pain, causing pain. It suddenly became so obvious to me – I decided I wasn’t going to live life punishing myself for what other people had done to me. I decided I deserved better.

Nearly 12 months later they tried to get me back into mainstream school. We had a progress meeting and it was agreed they would allow me back in on a trial – if I behaved I would be allowed to return to finish my schooling. I was so excited, ready to return and prove that I could fit in and be good, just like everyone else. Unfortunately, my previous objective of being a scary bad kid had been achieved and the damage had already been done. The parents of the girls I mentioned earlier had called, laying complaints, saying I was a toxic influence, a threat to their wellbeing and safety. They would remove their kids from the school if I was to return. The school agreed, calling my mum, telling her I wasn’t welcome back. I hadn’t even stepped off the school bus. This third and final rejection from the school system was devastating and a huge wake up call. They weren’t going to let me back in, I had succeeded in solidifying my position as a bad and dangerous young kid. High risk and a risk to others, I had built a hideous reputation for myself. If I wanted a second chance, it wasn’t coming from there.

I got angry, again, but differently this time. I was angry they had dismissed me and my efforts to change. They failed to acknowledge I had learnt from my mistakes and was begging for a chance to prove myself. I decided I’d use that anger to prove myself to them anyway. I used to joke that one day the school would employ me to come and give inspirational speeches about my success – this is my second presentation like this, this year!
At 15, after the third rejection, I left home and my hometown, moving to Christchurch with my boyfriend. I didn’t really have a choice, no institution in the Nelson region would take me.

I met another influential tutor my first year in Christchurch, a fearless Māori woman who’d had her first baby at 16, left home the same year and knew the struggle. She was tough as nails and bent the rules. She eventually got fired for helping me sort my Youth Allowance, giving me clothes and food so I could survive, and an array of similar ‘boundary-crossing’, yet life-saving, actions. Actions that made her hugely valued by students and a lifelong friend. She demonstrated to me that you can jump the fence, make something of yourself and truly make a difference in people’s lives.

She was a fierce role model, an example of what I could be for young people who grew up like we had, if I chose to. She was also a reminder that ‘ticking boxes’ and ‘minding tape’ would always be present. That the differences in how we care for each other, how we bridge the gaps, is vast. And I would have to learn to play the game and become highly qualified to make real change at the highest levels. It was a challenge to my younger self, to prove everyone wrong, take that life I deserved and show all the kids like me that they deserved it too.

She also showed me that people like us needed a place in that world, even though we were punished for our different conduct, that it mattered. That in the spaces and institutions where these worlds meet, there are huge clashes of culture. I’ve recognised these as being deeper than just ethnicity, but clashes of class culture and of what was or is considered acceptable conduct in mainstream society.

In the years that followed, I would win student of the year, complete a diploma in Beauty Therapy, enrol myself in anger management and, eventually, many different forms of therapy. The Diploma gave me the NCEA level needed to enrol at Uni, so in 2017 I did.

No one in my family had ever been to Uni and not finishing school past year 10 meant I did not qualify. Applications and enrollment were a struggle in themselves. It’s safe to say I struggled mentally with PTSD, anxiety and depression, due to the nature of my studies, as well as physically and financially, like many students do. Nevertheless, I graduated last year with a Bachelor of Criminal Justice and this year I will complete my second Bachelor of Arts in Māori and Indigenous Studies, Political Science and Human Service.

I think a huge part of my journey to University (and from there to today), was finally being in control and responsible for myself. The good, the bad, the failures and successes were mine to take, not hindered by expectations or barriers of what I was supposed to be. And I’d made the decision that I was to be great. I was going to make something of myself and create a life I deserved.

Explore the second half of Māia’s uLearn21 session in Part 2 of this blog.

If you or someone you know may need support please contact Sexual Abuse Education NZ – https://sexualabuse.org.nz/