What is a significant moment of learning from the last season?

This year as I walk around the school the juniors are still likely to respond in the manner outlined above but the Year 11 learners are more likely to respond to the question, ‘what are you doing?’ with the response ‘an assessment.’

How did I come to this moment of learning?

Who is speaking into this learning?

Why does this matter as a teacher for social justice?

How will this look in my practice moving forward?

There is a noticeable push at our school for students to complete assessments and to gain credits in their subjects. All the teachers here at Tāmaki plan and teach to their internal and external assessments. We are all pressured to ensure we get our ākonga over the NCEA “line” so unfortunately ākonga don’t learn for learning’s sake. 

I am a teacher who teaches te reo Māori, but I am also pressured to teach to the assessments. My ākonga did well in their assessments in 2021, with some receiving endorsement. This was hardly something to celebrate. Why? Because if I were to ask these same ākonga to say or write something in te reo Māori unassisted, they would not have been able to complete the task. I not only felt like I failed my ākonga, but I felt that I failed my language. I’m out here trying to help revitalise our endangered ancestral language, not complete these ephemeral assessments.

The aim of te reo Māori in kura auraki should be to instil the passion and love for the language so that ākonga can continue to pursue learning it when they leave school. Instead we focus on completing assessment and continue to exhaust ourselves by trying to play catch-up on te reo that ākonga have little exposure to outside of the classroom.

This year, I have taken a different approach. I have completely removed the scaffolds and have tried many strategies to teach ākonga who have little to no comprehension of te reo Māori. It is completely opposite to what I did last year. I have been teaching the language. Assessment work is a by-product of what we are doing in the classroom. Now we are in term 3 and I feel like my ākonga know way more than what they did last year. There is always room for improvement and I intend to push forward with just teaching and learning te reo Māori.