Profile

Tu Tangata, Issue 15, 1 December 1983, Page 3

Profile

Newly appointed Maori and Island education director Wiremu Kaa grew up in an East Coast farming community where English was rarely spoken except by the schoolteachers even their children spoke Maori to their schoolmates. Despite this, Maori was banned in schools and the children strapped for using it. Though outlawed Maori remained the playground and underground language. “Kids used it for instance, when they were having problems with their sums, and they would ask another child the answer in Maori,” Mr Kaa said. The memory of being punished for speaking Maori remained vivid, he said. But unlike some of his contemporaries he does not feel bitter. “I should be bitter. But really I am not. The common belief, even among Maori leaders at that time, was that everyone must learn English.” He quotes Sir Apirana Ngata’s saying; “English first, English second, English third.”

Status

At 48 Mr Kaa exudes a reassuring tolerance, coupled with a youthful zest for life. “We should look forward with hope,” he said. His upbringing, in the Ngati Porou stronghold of the East Coast, and then at the renowed Te Aute Maori Boys College, was so thoroughly Maori he was barely aware of his minority culture status till he went to Ardmore Training College in Auckland when he was 18. “That was traumatic. It was the first time I’d been a minority. There were only about 60 of us out of 700 students there.” His benignly rounded features are unlined and a smile hovers at the corner of his mouth. His life-long philosophy of “taking the world as it comes” and finding it full of exciting things has stood him in good stead. Working side by side with girls was another new and strange phenomenon but an enjoyable one. When he left training college he was determined to see as much of New Zealand as possile so he worked his way through schools in North Auckland down to Wairarapa, ending with a headship at his own Rangitukia Primary School.

Fluent “Twenty years on it was a totally different scene. “I had my own policy and the department had an open view.”

His policy, in this and other overwhelmingly Maori schools, was to allow children to speak to each other in whichever language they chose, provided they were articulate and kind and did not abuse this right. However Maori was seldom used for teaching, though many of the teachers in these isolated schools were fluent speakers. “I guess we did not see fit at the time to use it. The climate in schools was not open to accepting it.” Given today’s environment, and a school with the same proportion of Maori speaking youngsters, he would probably use Maori for most of the curriculum, he said. In 1974 he shifted to Wellington and a position as adviser to the Eudcation Department’s Maori and Island division. He and his wife Jossie an itinerant teacher of Maori wanted to give their five children, now aged 18 to 26, the best possible educational choice. In 1981 he moved to the division's head office and was appointed education officer last year, taking over as acting head following the death of the previous director, Mr Allan Smith, in May this year.

“Multi-cultural” describes the makeup of New Zealand schools, which include children from Pakeha, Maori or Island backgrounds, said Mr Kaa. But the language, subjects and the ways of teaching are mainly European. Mr Kaa said a Maori child is often regarded by the teacher as “slow” because he does not volunteer answers as readily as a European child. This may be because the Maori child is used to the “turn-taking” system, where only one person at a time speaks and the others wait, he said. Mr Kaa said such misunderstandings occur because of the cultural gap between a Pakeha teacher and a Maori student. The Maori and Island Education is trying to “modify” the education system to be aware of cultural differences and to accept ways of learning different from the European norm. Mr Kaa said that since 1971 a target group for the section’s efforts has been the senior administrators in education, such as school principals and their deputies. Its work has been largely successful in convincing this group of the importance of multi-cultural education in schools, he said.

Most schools now offer courses in Maori language and studies, and Maori cultural clubs are being accepted as a necessary part of the school curriculum, on the same basis as subjects like music. There is also increasing use of Maori or Samoan or other minority languages

at official functions, such as school assemblies. Mr Kaa said that on a regional level the section organises courses in Maori studies for teachers. He said the section tries to encourage a “respect for the difference” between different cultural groups in New Zea-

land. Mr Kaa said the section is also involved in trying to make other groups aware that there are people in New Zealand besides the Europeans. He pointed to libraries with their European cultural base having nothing culturally familiar to the Maori or Islanders. He said the section is trying to encourage a more “inclusive” attitude among librarians, such as having displays about various cultures, so minority groups will feel they have access to this resource.

The section is partly responsible for making Multi-cultural Studies a compulsary subject at Teachers Training Colleges, said Mr Kaa.

From 1984 each student teacher will have 100 hours a year of multi-cultural studies, of which Maori will be a major component.

This means that from next year each new teacher will have some knowledge of Maori culture and values, said Mr Kaa.

He said the Maori and Island Education section was set up in 1955, but the pick-up came in 1974 with the appointment of education inspectors to the section.

The section presently comprises a director, four education inspectors and two administrative staff.

The problem at the moment is essentially one of resources, in the section as well as in schools, said Mr Kaa. If there were a further allocation of resources to Maori education, priority would be given to increasing the number of Itinerant Teachers of Maori and to providing more in-service training of Maori for teachers, he said.

But further funding is a “political decision,” he said.

Mr Kaa said the Maori community is becoming increasingly vocal in its demands for change, because there are more Maoris with the knowledge and skill to operate the European systems of communication.

There are also the activists who criticise the system from outside, he said.

By promoting the study of Maori language and culture in schools, the section hopes to develop a sense of identity and self-worth in Maori children.

The section also tries to help nonMaoris appreciate the ways and culture of the Maori.

“It is the right of every New Zealander to have access to the Maori language,” he said. This gives people the choice: As Willy Kaa and his colleagues in the Maori and Island Education section work for change in the education system, they may be encouraged in a recent statement by Governor-General Sir David Beattie: “We are not one people... we are one nation of many peoples.”