He ao ki tua… future opportunities. Leadership within Māori & Pasifica:

Connected Educator Month:  He whatunga tangata, he whatunga mātanga.

I came in a bit late and these are my random notes of the session…

We can all have a role of leadership with Māori students.  

They might get the best support from the caretaker or the librarian.  It is all about building relationships, make connections and then collaborate.

Build relationships:

Know who you work with and their strengths., your students and your communities.

How do we build these relationships:

Have heaps of respect and care.

·      energize, inspire, excel, triumph, passion, integrity and fun

Check the effectiveness of things, not just hope for the best.

Challenges within leadership:

Share the role:

Don’t think you are the only person who can do it.  Assign the tasks to other people to do the mahi with you. Be ready to change yourself both professionally and personally.

Check in with elders:

Check the advice from peers and elders to check you are on the right track.

Develop shared understanding:

Sometimes you need to develop a shared understanding, recognizing the perspectives are different.  What is the common kaupapa?  Need to negotiate, discuss and debate the focus. Do the mahi to your best ability then build a bridge and get over it. 

The kaupapa is bigger than all of us.  We need to serve the kaupapa.

Develop the trust in the leadership:

Establish a shared understanding.  Develop a shared kaupapa.

Dialogue open for people to share with the leadership team to develop these shared understandings and trust.

Manage conflict:

Not always see them as a challenge but an opportunity.  Look at the positive and take the step up over the obstacle as an opportunity.  Important to unpack conflict rather than let it fester.  Give time and planning to be pro-active not re-active.

Use a ‘blank’ unbiased facilitator to pull out the important points and treasures from people or go with a blank piece of paper rather than having everything set in stone before the discussion.

Feel and watch the reactions of people to see how it has landed.  This will let you know where to go next.

Benefits for the community if our leadership is connected with Māori and Pasifica:

·      It exposes our young people to a wider world – Video conferences, Skype etc.  If we can’t take our kids to the world then we will bring the world to our kids.  Share stories from local area http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Toku-Awa-Koiora/NZ-Research/Toku-Awa-Koiora

·      If you are not connected, then as an educator you can’t do your job.  We need to maintain visibility and viability as Māori to our tamariki and then to the wider world.

·      Shares the success of our students with the wider world.

·      Sharing teaching expertise with other schools – e.g. Auckland Samoan learning with Chch school to support and expose a need.

·      Connectedness starts with building a relationship and developing trust between partners.

·      Declaring to the community that we want to connect – listen to understand, ask what they want, promise to meet their needs and follow though.  This builds relationships.  Know the needs of your community.  When will we review and how will we review to check that this connection is working – newsletters, e-mails, text etc.

·      Address the issue quickly then spend the time looking at how to improve and build relationships.

Random notes:

Establish the point of the hui at the start of the session – to inform or to consult.

If there is an issue: acknowledge and apologise then give assurance – deal with things quickly.