Te Puna Mātauranga Kiritoa: Teachers’ Collective and Individual Resilience in a Māori Modern Learning Environment

Abstract

This chapter introduces the notion of Puna Mātauranga Kiritoa (PMK) as a Māori name to adequately capture the intent of a Māori Medium Modern Learning Environment (MLE). Puna encapsulates the idea of a spring or source, mātauranga speaks to teaching and learning/knowledge, and kiritoa addresses the concept of resilience or being strong in your skin. This name was developed by the researchers and kaiako (Māori term for teachers) who were our research partners as part of a two-year Teaching Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) where we worked with a group of 106 Year 4 to 6 students and their six teachers (kaiako) as they grappled together to understand what it meant to be, to do and to learn pāngarau (mathematics) in their particular space. This grappling included understanding why this space had been developed in the way it had been, which was to allow teachers to work to their strengths to improve learning for students (ākonga). The research team worked within a Kaupapa Māori framework and interacted with kaiako as partners in the research process. Data were generated via interviews with kaiako and ākonga, classroom observations and project team meetings between kaiako and researchers. Findings illustrate that teaching and learning with a large number of ākonga and kaiako demands resilience from both kaiako and ākonga. Kiritoa was incorporated into our description of the teaching and learning environment because the word kiritoa conjures images of courage and links to notions of resilience. Furthermore, kiritoa is about being strong in one’s skin; being confident and firm in one’s identity. During the TLRI study, we observed many examples of ākonga (learning), and kaiako (teachers) acting with courage and confidence in a new teaching and learning environment. These notions of kiritoa inform our view of resilience presented in this chapter. Collaboration is a critical component of working in a PMK/MLE. Our findings intimate that collaboration between ākonga was a valued outcome, as was collaboration between ākonga and kaiako, and between kaiako. The intricacies and demands of effective collaboration are complex, requiring time, patience and resilience, when working in a large space with over 100 ākonga. The development of a PMK/MLE provides an opportunity to explore, trial, negotiate and collaborate to better meet the demands of teaching and learning pāngarau differently. We hope our work offers other Māori medium settings some insights and the confidence to make sense of the potential of an MLE in their context as a setting for pursuing their aspirations.