What had you as a teacher, an educator, a Principal or a School Board member been wanting to change previous to Covid-19? What did you notice during the Pandemic lockdown period? What did you learn about what is important to you about education, about learning and teaching, or about business practice and serving the needs of your clients or customers? What did you learn about learning or working from home? What did you observe about inequities, opportunities, possibilities? What are you willing to change Post-Covid?

There have been some positive shifts in education in the past number of years that have become effective tools in achieving a greater focus on learning as opposed to simply schooling. Some of these include a move toward student-led curricula, inquiry based learning, education outside the classroom, project based learning (so long as each student has autonomy over their own project), enviro schools, and student leadership. And there are certainly others.

However, there are many things that continue to be broken in our education system. Some of those things are inequity, discrimination, disengagement, cultural repression, institutional racism, enculturation, standardised learning and testing, teacher-led classrooms, institutional power, cultural marginalisation, non-contextual learning, and cultural tokenism. Māori students continue to be disproportionately represented in these deficits.

The big question then is what are school leaders, Boards, and teachers prepared to do differently in the return to fully functioning schools? During lockdown, and in the return to school restrictions at levels 2 and 3, what was it that you noticed about what became important about education? What suddenly became unimportant, unnecessary, and less of a priority? So, now that we are at level 1, and for all accounts and purposes our education system is back to 'normal', what is it that you want to change? Returning to the 'status quo' must not be an option. Embracing change must be!!

There is much to consider, and a great opportunity for change exists. Are you willing to embrace change? Are you willing to listen to and consider the voices of students and their families? Let's rethink our priorities about education, about teaching and learning, and about what the future of New Zealand schooling is going to look like. Let's not go back to the Status Quo, and let's embrace not a 'new' normal, but the potential for 'no' normal.

I discovered after High School that there had been a significant ‘hole in my kete’. My lack of understanding of Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) had created a significant disconnect and a deep ‘hole’ between me and my culture. My undergraduate journey began to repair that hole when I enrolled in Māori studies at Massey University. I became more culturally placed than ever before. My identity became more secure than it had ever been, and I had the greatest desire to forever more make a difference for Māori however I could.

Too many of our Māori students enrolled in ‘mainstream’ education in Aotearoa are disconnected from their education because Mātauranga Māori is absent from their education and schooling experience. They leave school with no sense of identity of who they are as Māori. With no identity, there is often no purpose. And no purpose leads to disengagement and low achievement.

This seminar will provide participants with six areas of Mātauranga Māori that must be a part of every Māori student’s education. Students enrolled in Māori Medium already attain this knowledge, but there is a ‘hole’ that exists for mainstream students.

Participants will also learn ‘good, better, and best pedagogical practice’ options for implementing this knowledge. Come along prepared to make a difference, make some changes and disrupt the ‘status quo’.

Whether you work in the education sector, social services sector or the health sector you will work with Māori tamariki, rangatahi, whānau and kaumātua. Your organisation and your practice staff are obligated to honour the Treaty of Waitangi as part of your business practice. In 2018, PM Jacinda Ardern announced that “it’s time we address equality in New Zealand, starting with tackling areas where Māori are over-presented” (Stuff, 2018). Māori continue to be over-represented in educational underachievement, unemployment, child upliftment, crime, family violence, diabetes, stroke, and mental illness.

The recent ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement has made all of us look more closely at the existence and eradication of Institutional Racism which continues to be a contributing factor to these ‘over-representations’. Institutional racism has been identified in our Justice System and in our Education, Health, and Social Services Sectors.

This training will ask the big questions that will allow Government and business leaders, practitioners, administrators and front line staff to examine, assess and eliminate overt, covert, and unintentional racism. It will provide participants with tools, strategies and processes to develop and/or strengthen treaty-led practices as a means to strengthen Treaty required partnerships with Māori, which, if effectively practiced, can assist in reducing the national statistics that identify Māori as being “extremely disadvantaged socially and economically compared to other New Zealanders” (United Nations Report, NZ Herald, 2011). Participants will learn to understand the notion of different ‘worldviews’ and have the opportunity to view their business, organisation, school, or service through a Maori lens.