Teaching a new Indigenous Research paper 2018...

 This year I am teaching a new Indigenous Research paper with a focus on Maori perspectives. This is going to be very interesting as it has 4 parts to it: Mana tangata (people), Mana reo (language), Mana whenua (land) and Indigenous research. Important components in Indigenous research.

It's a level 4 paper or first year foundation Uni equivalent paper that has been very interesting to teach over the last couple of years. The new focus in this paper recognises the position of tangata whenua (indigenous peoples) of NZ i.e. Maori as the first peoples of this land and the mana that they hold in their bodies of knowledge.

It's also a fees free paper that gives the opportunity for many community peoples to access the information that is not always accessible to them from University communities. In fact, from the last two classes that I've taught, some students have pathwayed into degree courses and further studies including several winning admission places into the Masters in Applied Indigenous Knowledge at the campus.

One of the things that I've been very grateful for in teaching the paper was that I learnt so much that I wished I had learnt as a first year Uni student so many years ago i.e. about the principles and importance of indigenous research and that indigenous ways of being and knowing as legitimate knowledge.

In remembering my early days as a high school teacher in my early 20s, I would highly recommend this course especially to teachers and educators who are teaching in mainstream schools particularly with Pasifika and Maori students. I wish that I had been armed with a lot of this knowledge as an educator as it would have sharpened my teaching skills ten-fold and would have been great for the students too.

I also think that it's very important that children and youth in our schools with indigenous backgrounds are given this important information to inform their identities and challenge the mainstream bodies of knowledge that think that Western paradigms are the highest forms of education because they are not and that is why we are facing many challenges with environmental issues, societal issues and behavioural issues that can't be cured through the medium of science  and Western education only.

If you are interested in knowing more about what this course offers, please contact me for further information as we go on field trips to various information and resource centres, we visit places of indigenous understandings and Marae. We also look at genealogical research for family trees and building up bodies of knowledge and understandings for indigenous cultures. We also have weekly tutorials with the option of day or evening classes.

And looking forward to this year's graduating class of Indigenous researchers from the classes of 2017, in July of this year, in celebrating work well done...