Aotearoa New Zealand

Principle: Grounded in Aotearoa New Zealand

We honour Te Ao Māori. It is part of who we are; it is our identity as it speaks to our sense of belonging. Steiner Waldorf schools are relevant to our time and place. We acknowledge Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a founding document of Aotearoa NZ

Te Tiriti o Waitangi

As stated the SEANZ Fellowship of Steiner/Waldorf schools recognises that Te Tiriti o Waitangiis the constitutional foundation of our society, that the Māori people are the tangata whenua, and that their language and culture are a fundamental and living part of Aotearoa New Zealand.

In practice this means

Steiner Waldorf Schools in Aotearoa New Zealand should strive to imbue their curricula with the unique spirit and history of this land and its peoples.
It is essential that the curriculum is embedded within the context of each school’s local community and the broader environment of Aotearoa New Zealand with its particular history, geography and culture. This will require schools to connect with whānau and the wider community to ensure that the curriculum reflects the unique characteristics of the community and location and utilises the resources of the community.

Ensuring verses are said in te reo Māori as well as English
Ensuring there is regular use of te reo Māori throughout the classroom
Developing an understanding of the alignment between the principles of te ao Māori - reverence, awe, heart, body, soul and a Waldorf-Steiner education

Whakataukī

Whakataukī play a large role in Māori culture. They create a point of self identity. They are used as a reference point in speeches and also as guidelines spoken to others day by day. It is a poetic form of the Māori language often merging historical events, or holistic perspectives, and connecting to the environment, with underlying messages which are extremely influential in Māori society.

Whakataukī can be used in a variety of ways in Steiner/Waldorf kura. They can be used to:

provide another dimension to curriculum content and delivery
enrich the content of particular Main Lesson Themes
repetition of whakataukī throughout the curriculum reinforcers and enhances the themes and impulse for each year and/or unit of learning
share knowledge and values in a meaningful way through a te ao Māori perspective
strengthen understanding of the language

While there are whakataukī throughout our curriculum kaiako are encouraged to research further appropriate whakataukī for their lessons and learning activities. Whakataukī can be sourced from a variety of places. Each region have whakataukī that are unique to them and once kura have developed a reciprocal relationship with tangata whenua of their areas, they should be able to source whakataukī which pertain directly to the place where their kura sit.

The list below only provides a small sample of possible whakataukī that could be linked to different Main Lessons and class levels.

It should be noted that whakataukī can be interpreted differently. This allows each individual teacher the freedom to work with these in a variety of ways. Please ensure your choice of whakataukī is appropriate for the theme of the class level and supports the developmental stage of the children.

Which Languages should be Taught?

Rudolf Steiner was surprisingly pragmatic when it came to choosing the two other languages for young children to learn. During his last cycle of lectures on education in England (Torquay, 1924) people asked him which languages would be most appropriate for a future kura. The only thing that should influence the decision was whatever the respective life situation required. The question as to which other language the children should learn in the Lower School was, to Rudolf Steiner’s mind, much less important than the fact that other languages were being taught at all.

When we apply Steiner’s view on this subject to the same question ‘Of which languages should we teach in Aotearoa?’ It is imperative that Te reo Māori is taught as a language as it ensures that we embed our education into the land and culture in which our kura exist.

Which Teacher?

In the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, a second language in the lower classes was often taught by class teachers. In smaller kura in Aotearoa this might also now be the case with the teaching of te reo Māori. This usually means that the class teacher knows their class very well, thus enables the teacher to work effectively with them.

Class teachers on the other hand, sometimes have the disadvantage of not being as proficient with the language as a teacher whose mother-tongue is te reo Māori, or who have studied their subject thoroughly. This is where having a speaker of te reo Māori among the staff is a great advantage. They are the “living representative” of the language the children are learning, and have the authentic body language that is such an important component of any language. If they also possess the other necessary attributes of a lower school teacher- among them the love and understanding of the children of this age group, flexibility, and a good sense of humour – and, addition to all this, an understanding of tikanga and kaupapa Māori and a sufficient repertoire of rhymes, stories, games and songs etc, they will be ideally suited to present te reo Māori in an authentic way, so to speak, and will not find it difficult to maintain the use of the language throughout their lessons.

Another pedagogical aspect should also be taken into consideration. It is essential for each kura to have a team of teachers working together to support the teaching of te reo Māori and supporting tikanga and kaupapa Māori within the kura environment.

The expectation is that there is a collegial approach between Class teachers and Specialist teachers to planning around themes and Main Lesson content at each class level to ensure the learning rhythms of the year are cohesive and consistent across all subjects.

Approach to Teaching Te Reo Māori in a Rudolf Steiner/Waldorf School

The Waldorf Impulse

The ‘Special Character’ of our schools is based on the understanding of child development indications given by Rudolf Steiner. The Māori Curriculum Guidelines are formed out of an inter-play between this ideology and an understanding of te reo me ōna tikanga, and kaupapa Māori approaches. This requires that different learning experiences be brought to the students at specific times and in certain ways. This may be most easily seen in the link of Māori studies with the story and history curriculums. These can relate to the developmental stages of the children in each class.

Waldorf teachers recognise the inherent spirituality of all students. They aspire to educate the entire person: the life of deeds through will-based activities, the emotional life through depth of heart experiences and the thinking life through timely experience of the world and its many-sided viewpoints. The students are thus enabled to experience an education of head, heart and hands. It is with this premise that we should approach the integration of te reo Māori and Kkaupapa Māori into our teaching.

The Waldorf Impulse in relationship with the learning of Te Reo Māori

General Aims

The aim of second language teaching in Steiner Waldorf schools is to encourage a positive attitude towards people of other cultures and languages, as well as fostering human understanding generally through establishing the ability to empathise with another person’s perspective and way of seeing the world. Learning second languages offers the individual other perspectives on his or her own language, culture, attitudes and thinking, thus helping the student see the world from a variety of perspectives.

The aims of learning te reo Māori are therefore composite. The first goal is for the students to be able to communicate in te reo Māori. Secondly, by learning te reo Māori, students gain an insight into the character, customs and traditions, literature, culture, and history of the tāngata whenua.

The teaching of te Reo Māori will also assist to validate the cultural roots of Māori learners in our schools. While contributing to the building of self-esteem and personal skills of Māori learners, it will help foster understanding of culture and where we stand in our unique physical and cultural environment, here in the South Pacific for all learners and teachers. The learning of te reo Māori will also help promote positive and constructive teaching and learning relationships.

Language is threefold in its basic nature. It facilitates self-expression, communication and provides a framework for dialogue, speaking and listening. Secondly, language is a means of structuring and representing concepts and thoughts. This enables the student to map his or her experiences. Thirdly, language can reveal to us much about the world. In contrast to materialistic conceptions of language, Waldorf education takes the view that any language has its own unique sound and this sound gives expression to something of the essence of the soul quality behind it. This is one of the reasons why the learning of a language like te reo Māori, is such a powerful formative force.

Teaching Methods

Initial contact with te reo Māori should be a broad experiential and contextual one. There is an intrinsic progression from oral to literate language with the oral element remaining paramount. In building literacy on orality, there is a strong emphasis on the gesture and situation. Language holds a middle position between movement which is internalised to become speech and speech which is further internalised in thinking.

Working intensively with language harmonises and extends the child’s affective responses to the world. Not only do the students become more articulate; they have more to say. Thus the process of learning te reo Māori can serve to meet the developmental needs of the child and help enable them to discover their own abilities in the language while developing their social skills.

During the first three years of instruction the focus is on oral work. The children are introduced to a range of activities, verbal exchanges (greetings, question and answers to everyday situations), karakia/verses, stories/pakiwaitara, counting rhymes, movement activities/korikori-tinana, waiata and games designed to engage them and carry them in the stream of the language without the need for translation or explanation. There is much repetition and new material is introduced slowly and deliberately.

It is not necessary for the children to have an intellectual grasp of all they hear and repeat. During this time they are able to develop sensitivity to the basic intonation patterns of te reo Māori in a way that will be much more difficult after the age of 10 or 11.

From Classes 4 or 5 a more conscious learning of language coincides with the new developmental stage the children are now entering. They continue to practice what they have learned but begin also writing and reading, as well as being made aware of the structure and spelling of the language. Drawing on what the children have learnt by heart and ear in the first three school years, the children start by writing what they already know and understand.

Throughout the Middle School, the children continue their oral work, which always remains at the heart of the teaching. This may take the form of acting out short plays or scenes. Reading material is introduced once the children are familiar with the letters and can read familiar sentences, usually in Class 5. The teaching of grammar is limited. Grammar is very much reduced to a ‘need to know’ basis in the Middle School.

The expectation of achievement of students learning te reo Māori in the Upper School will depend on the amount of time and teaching resources that are provided. But in general there should be high expectations of achievement, and learning should be relevant to the developmental stages of the student and the environment that they are in.

The main points of view may be summarised as follows:

students and teachers should share an interest in the themes that are studied, which implies collaboration in their selection
enthusiasm is the main factor in language teaching
presence of mind and openness to the world around us and our communities needs to be practised, in order to be alert to the latent questions that live in the souls of the students.

Introduction to Teaching Languages in Rudolf Steiner Schools

One of the striking features of the first Waldorf School, founded by Rudolf Steiner in Stuttgart in 1919, was that all students from Class 1 up were taught two languages other than their mother tongue and at least the learning of one other language is the intention of most Waldorf/Steiner Schools in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

In Waldorf/Steiner education it is emphasised that anything children are taught at school should be based on child development. In other words, a true understanding of the developing human being and their inherent talents should be at the heart of all teaching and education.

The encounter with a second language should not only serve to extend the individual’s horizon in a formal manner. It should also enrich the diversity in their inner life, nurturing their very soul. In early Waldorf/Steiner schools it was seen vital to introduce languages other than one’s own as a means of counteracting whatever one-sided influence any particular language exerted on the developing child. By getting to name and recognize the objects in the world around them in a new way through the medium of a different language, every child would be given the opportunity to break free from the confines of their own language.

Rudolf Steiner indicated that an education of this kind would prevent children from growing up into narrow-minded, nationalistically prejudiced adults. Instead of encouraging attitudes that ultimately separate people from one another, tolerance and mutual understanding between people should be consciously cultivated.

It was viewed that different languages in our world shape, the inner life and viewpoints of their speakers in their own ways – revealing unique and totally varying aspects of human nature.