As I listened and watched the event unfold, I couldn't help but consider the fact that very few Pasifika students were walking across the stage to receive their excellence certificate. In fact, I counted about 7 of some 200 students whom I recognised through their family names and features (although I may have missed a few).
I also listened to the guest speaker who himself had been a teacher, now retired, and a foremost developer of the NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement) English curriculum and an examiner who wrote many of the first English senior exams. He had also set up the Excellence awards ceremony for the school to recognise the efforts of senior students.
It struck me that as he spoke of excellence being from latin origins and meaning par-excellence i.e. standing tall above the many and being of excelling above the standard. I reflected on whether for our Pasifika communities that perhaps in the communal setting that type of respect is afforded to ministers and our elders and people of prominence rather than individual efforts.
I remember growing up that my parents had high expectations of us and that we could do anything - no excuse was afforded to us even though we didn't have a lot of $ in those formative years. At school, I remember a teacher telling our senior class at the local school that although our class was in the top stream, that at a 'normal' high school, we would be middle of the road. I knew he was well meaning and didn't say it in malice but he also had low expectations of what individuals are capable of doing.
As I continue to traverse the spectrum of compulsory education and the status of Pasifika students, I know it to be very important for the individual engage in hard meaningful studies (mostly rote learning) that equates to having a deeper understanding of how to attain that 'excellence' standard and the 'tricks behind the trade'. It means hours of dedicated personal time, sacrificing the now for the future and having parents or making an environment that allows for that dedication.
I remember many years ago, when teaching senior Pasifika students, I would talk to them about a different 'mind set' that in a sense you had to become a highly motivated individual who would have to make that mind shift and be organised to ensure that 'all the boxes were ticked' no matter what the circumstances are around you. It is a definite individualistic decision that individuals must make and that families can get behind to support.
As a concerned parent and educator, I'm considering my next move of engaging with the school to better inform parents, through a Pasifika parent/teacher/student forum to begin to discuss this, although I have been told that such meetings have occurred before (of which I haven't heard of) and then those of us who have been able to attain those lofty heights can share in a communal setting that 'tricks of the trade' and how to see more Pasifika students walk across that stage with proud parents and family clapping in support. That's if they want to...
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