Teaching, Lecturing, Tutoring in Indigenous Research...

Te Wananga o Aotearoa info leaflet for Cert. in Indigenous Research

Back to work today after a great holiday season with my family as my Indigenous Research class looks forward to four more months of studies before a final presentation towards graduation at the year's end of this Semester B, full year course.

It has been quite a journey so far in that as a EdD (Doctoral studies in Education) candidate with AUT University, North Shore (Auckland) it really made me re-consider the way/s that I had been taught about how to conduct research in the past from a very western or European perspective to now take into account indigenous perspectives and principles.

However, the interesting thing that I found was that in my first Masters thesis and fieldwork that I undertook and wrote about Samoa was that in being brought up in the faaSamoa (albeit offshore from the motherland) that it was within authentic setting/s within principles that I had been taught, I naturally then applied it to the ways that I conducted my research.

This has been one of the enlightening concepts that has affirmed me in the work that I've engaged with so far but has especially challenged me in ways that I need to be writing i.e. as an author of the information to pass on to the next generations and especially youth in the values and knowledge of Pasifika and Maori peoples.

The neat and exciting part of the studies/course for my students now is to carefully choose a (small bite sized) topic that they would like to apply an indigenous framework to and then research and present their findings by April. And the neat thing for me will be the privilege of guiding them on their journeys towards new understandings.

I would definitely recommend this course for educators and interested students who identify with being indigenous peoples but also for those educators or students who are working with indigenous people or who self identify within their indigeniety. What I particularly found interesting in teaching this course was that it definitely challenged the status quo but it also gave guidelines and interesting alternatives for students or "researchers" to go about their research with indigenous principles in mind rather than just generic.

I definitely have come out of teaching halfway through this course more wiser in the processes and also affirmed about what it currently happening in education for Maori outside mainstream. Maori researchers do not engage with the term "research" but rather use "rangahau" as their terms of reference which in actual fact is very different from wester research per se.

If you are, or if you know of any who would like to take them fees free, level 4 course based at the Mangere campus via noho (10 monthly weekends and one morning/evening weekly tutorial) for Semester A, please do contact me as there are only a few spaces left.

It's a definitely challenging course, for graduates as well as undergraduates and not one for the faint hearted as some of the issues that are discussed relate to historical events that have had dire consequences on many indigenous cultures. It is definitely one that I would recommend to every educator working in South Auckland with indigenous children/youth or with those who identify with Pasifika or Maori indigeniety. A definite eye-opener and you will never think the same!