Māori Perspective - Student Interview 1

I have started going to visit the classrooms of all the Māori teachers at school to observe how they approach teaching. First visit link here, and I have a few more to do over this week.

To start to get a student perspective, I had a great conversation with a couple of my Year 12 Māori students today. I explained to them how teachers are expected to do an inquiry and how gearing your teaching towards Māori students was an expectation in the teaching standards.

So far they have been taught by three seperate Māori teachers and all of them have been female.
They have recently discovered they are related to one of the newer Māori members of staff. They feel this will not affect how they interact as they do not know each other and they are not taught by this teacher. So far they have compared Pepehas.

When they have these staff members, there is a general use of more Te Reo Māori in the classroom and they feel more confident about using it in general conversation.

When I asked them if the Māori staff members had different / higher / seperate expectations of them, their behaviour or their achievement and they said that they had not noticed a real difference and it was more personal to the teacher rather than the ethnicity.

I told them how as teachers we are advised to work on a good relationship with students. They totally agreed with this and told me they generally enjoyed the talk and stories that their teachers give them. They also advised teachers to "read the room" at times and not force the relationship path if it is sometimes not wanted.

These two students today are also very active out of school and are taught by Maori teachers in these activities too. They feel these teachers motivate them really well as they are really enthusiastic about what they are doing. These teachers speak Te Reo Māori a lot to the whole group they are teaching, encouraging the non Māori students to join in.

They came to Auckland about 5 years ago from a smaller town in New Zealand and have noticed a definite difference in the expectations from the teachers.
More information was given to me about this part of our talk and I was shocked.

What do they want more of?
They want teachers and students to support Māori activities more, like the Kapa Haka.
They want the Māori students to acknowledge their culture more as they feel like some students hide from it.

I loved my talk with these two students today. They were really open and helpful with all of my questions and appreciated when I told them what I was doing and why.

I absolutely have plans to talk to more of my Māori students to get their insights too.

Classroom Observation 1 - Ms George

Ms George

Year 8 English p

Observed actions in the class

Lines up outside.

Talks to them about what they think happens in English.

Asks for input and students call out their answers.

She tells them all the kinds of things they do in English and they seem surprised at all the different things they get to do.

Shout out examples.

Gets them to work in pairs but also gives them a choice to work by themselves if they would prefer.

Does an example on the board - makes them feel confident by not caring about the quality of her drawing on the board.

Allows them to talk together before they start the task so they can plan together.

The talk is productive and they start to plan who is doing what in the teams.

Some time given to work, then more input, walking round, individual inout, answering questions.

Encouragement for individuals and tables.

Sitting with them discussing their day quietly with individual and pairs.

Time limits given for work to be completed.

Class working in groups, stalking and working. Talk is about the work and what is on the walls of the classroom as this is the first time they have seen it.

Everyone looks at everyone else’s work.

Everyone guesses what the nursery rhyme is from all the other groups.

Getting them to remember what they have learned in other sessions today.




Questions after the class

Do you think that the Maori students in the class behave differently for you being a Maori female teacher?

Yes. It is not something that I can put my finger on and they probably couldn’t either. It is an inbuilt thing in them that they just do and they respond to me in a certain way,

I say their names correctly from the start.

I relate to them in a way that non Maori teachers can’t do.

I have positive relationships with students who are more troublesome for other staff members.

This does not mean I get more work out of them sometimes but I do not have the behavioural issues at all.


What differences do you see in how you teach to how you see other non Maori staff teach.

I give them time in the lesson to settle in, especially after interval and lunch time, instead of launching straight into class work.

I interact with them a lot. We talk and chat while the lesson is going on. I am approachable to them so they feel like they can talk to me.

There are set routines that they settle into and just get on with it without much nagging.