A MAORI TEACHER IN A SOUTH AUSTRALIAN COMMUNITY

Tu Tangata, Issue 30, 1 July 1986, Page 52

A MAORI TEACHER IN A SOUTH AUSTRALIAN COMMUNITY

by John Moore

EDUCATOR OVERSEAS

NEIL Hammond is the Maori Principal of Willsden School, Port Augusta, 300 kilometres north-west of Adelaide in South Australia. The school has 250 pupils and 15 teaching staff, with an additional 150 pupils in a separate Junior Primary School under a separate Principal on the one campus.

Having spent four years at Fregon School, North-west South Australia, and having achieved his objectives, Neil saw that his own children had benefited greatly from being educated alongside his pupils. But with his elder son approaching secondary school age, it was time to move to a town which had secondary schools and a range of classes. So at Willsden School, Joshua is in year six, Damon is in year four and Laura is in year one having begun school there.

There was also evidence of a more experienced Neil Hammond who had been broadened in vision by his experiences in the bush, and by moving to a town school. Neil Tamaha Wharepapa Hammond, and his family are growing, maturing and acquiring a wider range of contacts and experiences.

General objectives

The general objectives of Neil Hammond, Principal of Willsden are the same as the Neil Hammond at Fregon that is to show the children how bi-ling-ual and multicultural education can have meaning for them. In particular he wishes to reinforce the children’s sense of their own worth so that they may carry enough of their own culture into the European culture to preserve their own identities.

Specific objectives

In terms of the South Australian primary school, Neil Hammond, Principal, sees this philosophy, developed at Fregon, as part of his role as a Principal. The objectives are being worked through as not exceptional things in themselves, but as an upsurge, a response to the needs of the community with which he works.

Neil believes that change begins with himself as Principal and should be regularly updated. He is continually confronting his performance as a leader, the climate of the school, the school programme and the criteria used to evaluate the performance of the school.

He reinforces that essential element of self-concept that people as people are important. Neil sees the management of self-esteem as important. Four primary kinds of experiences, he asserts, influence the development of self-esteem. They are:

• firstly, achievement and the accomplishing of goals, objectives and expectations; • secondly, having power and influence over events and people being important as individuals; • thirdly, being valued, a clear sense of being respected and cared about as a worthwhile person by people important and significant to everyone, of being valued for what people are and not for what they have; • fourthly, acting on beliefs - that is, the development of and permission to use behaviour which is consistent with important personal values. Everything people believe in should be consistent.

Leadership and self learning Neil believes that a leader such as a Principal, should be a self-evolving supervisor. He feels that in the past, not enough attention has been given to professional development of teaching staffs. In Australia, Neil has felt the desire to want to do something personally for his staff. Teachers, Neil believes, should be self-learners. He adheres to the following five assumptions:

• firstly, people are their own instruments for growth; • secondly, people learn to do what they do; • thirdly, readiness for growth is built by focussing on people’s strengths; • fourthly, learning occurs when people achieve new ideas and have an opportunity to interact with them; and • fifthly, people are more effective when they feel good about themselves.

He believes that his leadership role is to develop the concept of self-learning and in this way achieve professional development and self growth and become a more effective Principal. Neil Tamaha Wharepapa Hammond believes that people are their own instruments of growth.

“Professional growth underlies leadership growth,” Neil observes. “Continual questioning of what Principals do and Principals always improving their

performance should be taken for granted. And if staff see something worth doing, they will do it. Too often Principals are marketers or package merchants of cut and dried material,” he says.

Staff development of teachers Staff development of teachers in a school is essential so that they feel that they too are growing professionally as well as the Principal. Having rotating chairpersons for staff meetings is one way of emphasising this and Neil ensures that this change occurs.

The Principal should teach the classes of teachers who may be relieved to develop themselves personally while still on the job. Time to do this has always been the problem. Neil makes time by giving his staff time off and by teaching their classes himself. Staff go to inservice courses or prepare resource material and programmes in the time made available.

Child centred education

Neil still believes, though, that schools should be child-centred. Teachers and the pupils are the two key actors. All the pretty curriculum documents can always sit on the principal’s shelves the major action, is in the classroom between teachers and children. This action must be of the highest quality resulting in growth and development of the children and the teachers.

Communication

Neil believes that in a school effective communication rather than efficient organisation is the cement that holds a school together. His role as Principal and leader is to release the power of the staff - (a group releaser) to share and care for the joys and cares of the school’s population.

Contribution of Maori abroad

To young Maori in New Zealand Neil Tamaha Wharepapa Hammond, now aged 43, is an example of a teacher whose pupils and staff are benefitting from some of his field work in the bush at Fregon in North-west South Australia. He has also been a classroom teacher in New Zealand, in three states in Australia and in England. But it is only in South Australia both at Fregon and now at Willsden School, Port Augusta that he has realised his objectives. His advice to young Maori who want to make a contribution to people elsewhere in the world is still the same.

“Go and do it and enjoy it and, in the process, grow to appreciate your maoritanga.”

But he emphasises that what he has done is one way of achieving an ambition. It is not, he concedes, the only way.

Neil Hammond, as a young Maori in New Zealand, taught in Maori Schools but felt the need to travel overseas to see how other minority groups were coping with European society. Having worked in three states of Australia, the United Kingdom and then for three years as coordinator of the comprehensive programme at the Aboriginal Community College in Adelaide, Neil is now working among the Pitjantjatjara people. He feels that he has really come to appreciate and value his Maori heritage. His advice for the young Maori in New Zealand is to travel overseas, work with other minority groups and, as a result grow in stature as a Maori.

“People in the USA or South America, for example,” he says, “might possibly benefit from the advice and assistance, particularly in education, from young Maoris who want to work among other minorities. Similar skin colour for one thing gives Maoris an affinity which is acceptable to minorities in other countries. Besides that, there is the history of the extended family, of a rural/urban drift in population, of tribal affiliations and of all the problems and adjustments that come from over-crowding and having to re-adjust and re-educate according to a majority [usually white] population.”