Lead Comment

​He mauri tō te tangata,
he whakapapa tōna,
he mana motuhake.
Everyone has mana. Everyone has a whakapapa, a genealogy, a heritage and an identity that makes that person no more and no less important than the next person.  When we learn to treat everyone with care and respect, there are fewer barriers to establishing and maintaining relationships.  Address the issues and not the tangata.
 
This whakataukii sits at the base of our Motueka Kahui Ako. It seems we all acknowledge the value of relationships, particularly between teachers and students. We are now learning about the different ‘starting points’ these relationships need to be built from. The positive impact of the relationships we have with families and whanau, and with students, and our colleagues, is what should give us the best possible learning outcomes.
 
It is great to hear about the relationships developing between primary and secondary teachers. Our upcoming Professional Development with Cognition will give further opportunities for this. Coming on stream later this year, we hope to bring in an Early Childhood perspective. Te Whariki, the Early Childhood curriculum that most of our centres use, puts relationships as core business. It will be interesting to learn more from this perspective. We know that many of our ECE colleagues are looking forward to learning more about how we care for and teach the students as they continue their learning pathway.
Let’s continue to address any issues together, so that we can grow all of our teachers to be in that North East quadrant!
Ali and Grant
August 2018