One of our goals at our conference was to try and access a local person from our community that we could ask advice from regarding Maori culture.This afternoon we had a meeting with George Hawera who has offered to support us with our quest to find out about local Maori legends, waiata and tikanga so we can provide our tamariki with a more holistic and meaningful experience here at kindergarten. George said he was just as excited to be working with us as we were with him as it directly impacts on his grandson Tawera. We were able to ask George for assistance with protocol, waiata and contacts in our wider community.
As a team we have been looking for a farewell karakia to match with our changes to our mat time routine in the mornings, George had prepared a booklet of things that he thought would be useful for us and he included a farewell karakia that we could use. However it does mention the Heavenly Father and we are aware that there are many different religions that make up Aotearoa. We feel that it wouldn't be appropriate to include this in our karakia so will leave this out, as the karakia starts with these two words but also reads fine without them we will check with George to see if he feels it is appropriate to use an adapted version.  I acknowledged to George that on my reo journey I have often been hesitant to speak te reo in fear of making mistakes, George was very supportive and said as long as I try my best and use reo every day improvement will come. He also used the example start with two words use them lots then they will become four, four will grow to eight, eight will grow to ten and so on. He said that to keep reo alive it needs to be used. I found this to be powerful advice and will challenge myself to keep increasing my vocabulary each week, slowly building and increasing my knowledge, I have a strong desire to improve so that I can be a  role model to nga tamariki. I think its important that our tamariki see that teachers are learners too.
When we asked George if  he had any ideas about why we struggle to get our Maori whanau to enrol at kindergarten he said that he thought it was a generational thing, that many whanau have not had positive experiences at school and this has impacted heavily on the way they view education for their tamariki. I had never considered this view and felt it made a lot of sense. I felt sad that as a country we have many generations that this has negatively impacted, making me even more aware of why it is so important as an educator that we strive for best practice and help our Maori akonga thrive.