#KiaAroha

[dianaako]

Team teaching at Kia Aroha College

The summer intensive course required three weeks of in-school experience. My house team, Manaia, was assigned to Kia Aroha College. I have heard about this school for their approach to decolonise and re-indigenise education in Aotearoa and raise warrior scholars.

“Kia Aroha College is focused on developing “Warrior-Scholars” —which we define as young people, secure in their own identity, competent and confident in all aspects of their cultural world, critical agents for justice, equity and social change, with all the academic qualifications and cultural knowledge they need to go out and change the world. ”

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the majority of schools are public following a mainstream approach but Kia Aroha College is a Designated Special Character school, something I haven’t heard before. The Ministry of Education defines Designated Special Character schools as “a state school that has a particular character which sets it apart from ordinary state schools and kura kaupapa Māori. The only students who may enrol at a designated character school are those whose parents accept the particular character of the school." However, the definition does not provide a clear view of how they operate or the differences with mainstream schools, our experience in Kia Aroha College gave us a glimpse on this. 

The school is divided into “villages” based on cultural background: Māori (Tupuranga), Samoan (Lumana’i) and Tongan (Fonoamalu). Within each village, students are grouped into juniors and seniors until year 12. In year 13, students from the different villages take lessons together at the library.

It was interesting to notice that students who are not Māori, Samoan or Tongan end up in the Tongan village. We asked the principal the reason why this happens, she says there is no particular reason but it has organically emerged. During some conversations with students from different countries and/or cultural backgrounds in Fonuamalu, it was mentioned they feel encouraged to connect with their own cultures and languages, something they appreciated and valued.

Team Teaching

I was fortunate to team teach with Matua Numia, an experienced Māori communicator, kapa haka performer from Tūhoe (honestly, I don't even know which words to use to describe him but I could say I saw how he embodies “being” Tūhoe, so awesome to witness), and with Sam who recently finished a master in English. My teaching experience mostly has been done individually, so this was a great opportunity to collaborate and develop other skills. We were assigned to Senior Tupuranga where we had to observe and team teach during our stay.

Cultural Identity, Tuakiritanga

We decided to focus our lessons on Cultural Identity where each one of us would concentrate on different aspects from the topic. Starting from the individual by Sam, to the Māori community by Matua Numia and finishing with global connections by me. Using a Marae as analogy, we tried to explain the different levels from the individual to the connection with the stars and the cosmos. My lesson proposal can be found here.

This approach aligned to Kia Aroha School lenses as a tripod where red is their culture or everything the child was born with, blue is curriculum or academic things and green is global or everything outside the classroom.

The final presentation unified the results of our individual lessons through installation and waiata performance. 

Connection to Standards

Standard 1: Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership  Standard 2: Professional learning  Standard 3: Professional Relationships Standard 4: Learning-focused culture  Standard 5: Design for learning  Standard 6: Teaching