Monday, March 19, 2007

NEW VERSIONS OF ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS


Two achievement standards have been reviewed and modified. You need to look for Version 3 of the L1 standard AS90203 Examine population patterns, processes and issues AND the L2 standard AS 90333 Explain disparities within and between countries.

Check the Assessment Specifications carefully, and look for revised specifications for all standards after the end of March, particularly for AS 90333.

ISSUES RELATED TO THE ASSESSMENT OF AS90333 IN 2007
Concerns about the 2006 results for this standard have been noted by the National Assessment Facilitator, Steve Bargh. He spoke to the teachers who attended the NCEA workshops in Hamilton and Rotorua at the beginning of March.

Martin Newton, SSA geography for the Auckland region, has provided the following statement as further clarification.


"Several people have asked questions about AS90333 (2.3 Disparities) for 2007 :.

I have had a discussion with Steve Bargh the Geography National Assessment Facilitator from NZQA to get clarification.

The issue has been that the reviewed and latest version (version 3) of AS90333 clearly states that “This achievement standard involves the explanation of disparities in development within or between countries” (no change there from version 2!) but this or option is carried through in each of the Achievement Criteria for version 3.

Explanatory note 2 of version 3 of this standard has also been altered to make it clear that candidates will be able to achieve merit and excellence as well as achieved by answering about either disparities between countries OR disparities within countries. This is a small but significant change to the standard that was made in response to teacher concern about the huge amount of content coverage required to prepare candidates for answering about disparities both within and between countries under previous versions of the standard.

However the assessment spec for the 2007 AS90333 external exam suggests that both between and within still have to be taught – the spec looks to be out of sync with version 3 of the standard.

Steve Bargh acknowledged this point and concern as valid. The intent he agreed was that achieved, merit and excellence can be gained through answering about either disparities between or through answering about disparities within countries. This was the intent when the standard was reviewed and rewritten for version 3.

Steve will now liase with the examiner and a revised set of specs will be published for this this end of year external AS90333 (ASAP I hope!) making it explicit that A/M/E can be gained via two pathways - through answers that refer only to disparities between countries or through answers that refer only to disparities within countries.

How the examiner assesses to allow for the dual paths will be a decision for the examiner. Two sets of questions? - but that’s just speculating.One thing that I would be wary of, is that the standard version 3 remains ‘plural’ - “..... disparities within or between countries” and explan note 2 states that ‘at least two countries outside NZ .....” The examiner could ask questions (this is my thinking anyway!) about disparities within countries that ask for examples from two countries (eg. Explain why disparities in development occurs within countries, refer to two countries you have studied to support your answer) - I guess what I am saying is that it could be unwise to focus on a single country only in the disparities theme and think this would be OK for assessment purposes.

The revised assessment spec may help here but it remains the standard that should set the parameters."

Sunday, February 18, 2007

NCEA 2007
Changes to standards
Please check the version of the standard students are to be assessed against. Check the date on the standard to ensure you are using the current version of the standard and you are familiar with any modifications that have been made.

Assessment Specifications
The assessment specifications for the external standards have been posted on the NZQA NCEA website.
These need to be checked carefully. Changes have been made, particularly to standards related to the use of geographic skills and ideas.

Assesment Activities for internally assessed standards
Check that the assessment activities you plan to use match the current version of the standard. When selecting activities from the TKI website, choose ones with a recent revision date. These are not moderated activities, so they need to be checked with care. They should be appropriately modified to meet the teaching and learning focus of your school.

National Assessors/Moderators reports
These are not usually posted on the NZQA website before April. Special note should be made of the comments and recommendations in the reports related to external assessments.
Welcome to Geoteachers 2007

The new look simply takes advantage of the increased functions provided for bloggers. Please use this site to add your comments and questions.

COURSES
Hamilton 1 March, Rotorua 2 March - 2006 NCEA : What can we learn from the results
These days were scheduled following requests from last year's course participants for a repeat in 2007. Each day will offer an opportunity for teachers to look closely at the scripts of their own students and those of students from other schools in order to gain insight into how assessors made judgements about student performance.
Geography teachers may wish to focus particularly on AS9074. There have been a number of comments made to the social sciences advisor about poorer than expected student performance in the externals, particularly for Select and apply skills and ideas in a geographic context.
Steve Bargh, National Assessment Facilitator, NZQA, will be making a brief presentation to course attendees in the morning of each day and will answer teacher questions. Please email your questions to suzannes@waikato.ac.nz so Steve has an opportunity to research his responses where necessary.
Enrolment forms can be found on p106 of Choices. They have been emailed to all people on the social sciences advisor's lists and faxed to all schools.
Participants must bring copies of students scripts to the course.

14 March: Symposuim on Urban Sustainability
This event has been organised by the Waikato Branch of the New Zealand Geographical Society. The focus is indicated by the title. The keynote speaker is visiting New Zeland specifically for this event. Y12 and Y13 geography students are specifically catered for in the workshops, which will have a particular focus on planning and decision making for the future of NZ urban and regional environments.
For details about the symposium and resource materials to enable students to prepare, please check the NZGS website and/or emailed information.


14-16 March: Leading Learning Conference
This course has been designed for secondary teachers interested in leading learning initiatives inside their schools, particularly SCTs, HoDs, Supervising Teachers and PRT Coordinators. Conference flyers have been distributed to all schools.
Enrolment forms are in Choices.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The Examination Specification for 2006 states that, “Candidates will be required to demonstrate an understanding of the Maori concept of Manaakitanga.”

In the Waitomo Caves area manaakitanga is fundamental concept underpinning the way in which the people of our community relate to each other, host visitors to the community and the care for our environment, above and below the ground.

Josephine Anderson (Kuia, Ngati Maniapoto) defines the concept as: “Manaakitanga is both a responsibility and a desire to care for people and the environment. We demonstrate Manaakitanga in the way we extend hospitality to our guests ensuring they feel safe, comfortable and welcome, the way we come together as a community to support and help each other and in our kaitiakitanga [guardianship] of the land and its taonga [treasures]. ”

Key points:

Manaakitanga is a desire to:

· Care for one another within our community of 300 people
· Care for and welcome our half a million visitors each year
· Care for our environment including the land, water, caves, flora and fauna of the area
· Care for and maintain our living and non-living treasures, beliefs ideas, stories and traditions

Manaakitanga implies the host has a responsibility to provide guardianship:

· of the land (Whenua)
· of treasures (Taaonga)
· of visitors (Manuwhiri)
· of people (Tangata)

Manaakitanga is a deep rooted concept that recognises and celebrates kinship between:

· all peoples, past present and future
· people and the environment
· people and taonga






Some ways in which the Waitomo Caves community demonstrate Manaakitanga include:

· Caring for the physical and cultural safety of others by
o presenting attractions/activities, accommodation, food, transport and amenities that are tailored to the needs and abilities of the individual visitor
o informing visitors about the area, what to expect and where to get help and support if needed
o ensuring visitor areas are ‘noa’ – free from tapu or any other restrictions
o providing safe drinking water, sewerage and rubbish disposal systems and emergency services
o maintaining high levels of employment and educational opportunities for community members
· Extending hospitality to others by
o presenting high levels of service and quality
o sharing our taonga and whenua
o respecting and tolerating others’ ideas and beliefs
· Caring for our taonga and whenua
o Interpretation and conservation of the landscape and local taonga through the Waitomo Museum of Caves, education programmes, interpretation signs, effective guiding and community action groups

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

THE ROLE OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
The following article was published recently in the Australian newspaer as part of an ongoing public curriculum debate about the social sciences in the secondary school curriculum in Australia.
It raises some interesting issues about geography teaching and the role of geography.

The Geography Wars - Australian 28.9.06 Justine Ferrari

As part of a geography assignment studying the effects of of pollution on the environment, a group of
primary school children from Brisbane headed off to photo­graph the damage to Moreton Bay. But when they arrived, the waters of the bay were relatively pristine and there was no pollution to be seen.
Undeterred, the children carefully set about creating their own polluted part of Moreton Bay photographed it and just as carefully cleaned up the mess they had made. "Those kids knew what answer they were supposed to come up with" says geographer John Lidstone, associate professor at Queensland University of technology in Brisbane. "And when kids know what the answers are that they are supposed to reach, they stop thinking".
Students in geography classrooms across the nation are being asked to devise strategies to manage scarce water resources, for sustain­able use of resources, to minimise the degradation of our coastline or environment from farming, mining or other human activities. Often, the answer is in the politicisation of the topic or with the data they are provided, and time pressure precludes them making their own investigations.
Geographers are concerned that missing in the examination of some of society's most intractable issues is fundamental teaching of the basic processes behind these problems, the rainfall cycle, the theory of longshore drift of sand along the coastline, the formation of physical landforms and resources.
Also missing is the breadth of the discipline, the wider look at human society, its relation­ship with the Earth it inhabits and interaction within itself. "If you look at issues like environmental sustainability, it's essentially about how societies come to terms with managing and living in their environment," says Clive Forster, associate professor at Flinders University school of geography, population and environmental management in Adelaide. "If you want to understand what we may need to do to live more sustainably in the future you don't need to know solely about environmental issues. You also need to have an understanding of how societies operate and to be able to put together the economic, social and environmental perspectives. Tradi­tionally; that was the strength of geography; it produced people who had an appreciation of the three perspectives and how they needed to be seen in relation to one."
Geography teacher Sue van Zuylen, from Tara School for Girls in northwest Sydney, agrees that the lack of specialist geography teachers is critical. "The biggest impact in the classroom is the way the curriculum is delivered by the teacher, “and it's going to be delivered with greater passion and interest and enthusiasm by somebody expert in the subject than someone [for whom] it isn't their first love," she says.
In the first half of the 20th century, school students were taught "capes and bays" geography with its emphasis on naming the of world being able to draw maps of countries, knowing the names of capital cities, river systems, the highest mountains. During the 1960s came a rise in regional geography, with students writing profiles of countries based on subheadings such as population, climate, land use and vegetation, or writing about the industrialisation of particular countries. Since the late 1980s, geography has been dominated by environmental studies, a trend sparked by the rise in the green movement and entrenchment with the move in the '90s to teach geography as ­part of an integrated social studies course. The model originated in the US and was adopted in school systems across the world including Australia, predicated on a belief that a single discipline had all the answers, and it was better to teach children skills and knowledge in the integrated way they would need to apply them in the real world.
In Australia, the integrated social studies movement occurred at the beginning of the push for a national curriculum, which created a key learning area called studies of society and environment. Adding to the pressure to integrate geogra­phy into one colossal course with history, economics, civics and citizenship and legal studies were time-tabling pressures. School curriculums are overcrowded, forced to in­clude an ever‑expanding list of topics from sex education to vocational subjects. So teaching a little bit of geography, with a little bit of this and that, seemed a good compromise, as well as providing a way of trying to make the curriculum more relevant to students. And so the phenomenon of what high school geography teacher Steve Cranby, a member of the Australian Academy of Science's national committee on geography, calls SOSE‑ification of geography.
Only NSW stood alone, continuing to teach geography and history as separate, compulsory subjects in years 7 to 10. Victoria in recent years reintroduced an identifiable geography course, with a new one taught this year under its humanities umbrella. Lidstone, who was secretary for 10 years of the International Geographical Union's edu­cation. commission, points out that while the US started the trend of integrated social studies, it has recently undergone a resurgence in geography with a bill before Congress to make it compulsory in schools. "An American once said that God invented war to teach Americans geography," he says.
But Lidstone prefers the vision outlined by the first man to hold the title professor of geography, James Fairgrieve of the University of London, who said in 1926: "The function of geography in schools is to train future citizens to imagine accurately the condition of the great world stage and so to help them to think sanely about political and social problems of the world around."
Says Lidstone: "The two phrases, 'to imagine accurately" and 'to think sanely' still represent for me the essence of the enterprise.' But much of what passes for geography in schools today is what Lidstone describes as "naive environmentalism".
Phenomena such as global warming are presented as unquestioned facts, with no real examination of the debate. In part that's a result of not having geography teachers in charge of teaching geography. The main consequence of the SOSE‑ification of geography was a de-skilling of geography teachers. It's pot luck whether the teacher in a SOSE classroom is trained as a history teacher, economics teacher or geography teacher. Obviously, teachers are most comfortable with their own discipline. A history teacher forced to teach geography is going to struggle with the often complex science behind some geographical ideas, such as climatic cycles.
Before, Cranby starts a topic with his students, he spends a couple of weeks teaching the theory underpinning the theme. One of the core topics for his Year 12 class is the Murray-Darling basin and the issues surrounding its use and management.
Cranby spends four weeks teaching his students about rivers, their formation and processes, how they work and operate, the definition of a sustainable resource and the theory behind it before embarking on the specific issues of the Murray‑Darling.
The problem is that not enough new geographers are being trained. SOSE students don't study anything called geography and the minority who do take on geography into their final years of school, or even university, come with generalist training or specialis­ing in an environmental study rather than disciplinary skills in geography.
"We are not producing our kind" Forster says. "There's not that degree of breadth that people had 25 years ago. They'll go on to become the new generation of academics but they won't be teaching as geographers, they’ll be teaching as someone who has done an environmental management degree."
Alaric Maude, secretary of the Institute of Australian Geographers, who was involved in writing the South Australian school syllabus 20 years ago, says the environmental thrust of geography has also splintered the subject. Not only is geography forced to compete with the plethora of subjects offered in schools today, it also has to compete against specialisations of itself: environmental studies, natural resource management, sustainable futures. "Geography seems to have become narrowed down” he says. "It's become very heavily environmental geography with not much emphasis on the core topics of human geography, such as people and. cultures, regional development, divisions between regions such as who's wealthy and who's poor, or why Western Australia is growing. Somehow the environment has become a major part of what teachers seem to see geography as but it's only part of our inheritance".
Maude imagines a geography curriculum that sets out questions students can investigate, including indigenous knowledge and use of the environment; land clearing and its consequences; water sources and their management, the coast and its place in Australian life; Australia as a highly urbanised country; and migration, settlement and identity.
Lidstone would like to see students acquainted with some of the "awe and wonder" of the natural environment, how mountains are formed, the population and settlement patterns of communities who live on mountains. "Geography is the study of patterns" he says. "You can have patterns of homo­sexuality, there's a cultural geography of bird flu. There's, a geography of the Internet. Its fascinating when you sit on the internet and suddenly notice different countries coming on line. It's connected to the Earth's rotation and as people come to work or go home, the people on chat sites change.
"At 8pm in Australia you get a whole different group of people than early in the morning. In the US. Internet providers employ geographers to work these things out on the time zones because they target advertising according to who's going to be online at any particular time. Yet I don't know that many schools teach time zones, despite more of us travelling than ever before. I learned about time zones when I was at school and I didn't expect I would ever be able to go on an aeroplane. Everyone can fly around the world today and we don't teach time zones."
Lidstone says the focus of geography curriculum on issues, to make it relevant and more exciting, is counterproductive. Students can find it depressing to focus on problems so big that adults and governments cannot fix them, and instead of appreciating the wonder of the world are taught only about the Earth's problems. "There's not much room for the geography of laughter, the geography of fun," he says. "Where are people happiest on the Earth? What does it look like? Is it to do with a pristine environment? If you want to live a happy life, where would you go to live? These are very nice geography questions.”
Taught a discipline and the skills of geographical thinking, Lidstone believes students will find the relevance for themselves. He tells the story of students at a girls school where the "very feminist geography teacher who was appalled to find her students were using computers to identify where in Australia was the greatest concentration of young professional men with high incomes who, owned, their own home.
"That's where they wanted to go to university, so they could find wealthy husbands. The teacher was so appalled that she banned them from the computer room. We might not agree with the topic but these girls were using geography and geographical skills to find the answer to a question that was important to them."
A CASE FOR PLACE
Geography teachers critical of merging the subject into the new vogue "studies of society and environment" argue that it undermines the integrity of geography and does not serve the interests of social studies, either.
SOSE becomes a mish‑mash and makes it harder for syllabus consistency between states.
The SOSE syllabus encourages parochialism instead of encouraging understanding of global trends.
Underplaying physical geography robs children of interesting inquiry into how volcanoes, mountains, rivers and glaciers are formed.
Teachers lose confidence when teaching SOSE because they studied to specialise.
The mish‑mash of SOSE is less likely to inspire enthusiasm in teachers, a key to passing on passion to students.
The argument is whether the focus should be on developing a disciplinary understanding or whether it should be an integrated studies approach based on contemporary issues.
Eventually, the rise of SOSE in schools will remove expertise in geography.
Geography is fundamental to understanding the society in which we live and issues from water usage and environmental sustainability to population trends, migration and Australia's links with the world.
MANAAKITANGA: TWO FURTHER EXPLANATIONS

The following two explanations are extracts from larger articles. The www. references are provided. These may be helpful when considering the concept in relation to the study of a cultural process that is not focussed on tourism. Collier also provides a challenge about how we are addressing the learning needs of our Maori students.

Sonny Tau addresses the NZRFC AGM in Wellington, July 2005.
(Photo courtesy of Sam Mossman and the NZ Fishing News.) http://www.option4.co.nz/Fisheries_Mgmt/fmmptau705.htm
Manakitanga


I think it is critical that you have some understanding of what manaakitanga means - as this is the phenomenon that underpins the Maori drive to continue providing for its exercise. Without this provision, Maori are absolutely marginalised when practicing reciprocal relationships and extending mana enhancement constructs to our manuhiri.
Manaakitanga has many meanings and I believe the Ngati Raukawa Rangatira, Professor Whatarangi Winiata, who is also President of the Maori Party, offered one of the most profound explanations of manaakitanga I have ever read. Professor Winiata described Manaakitanga in this way: “behavior that acknowledges the mana of others as having equal or greater importance than ones own, through the expression of aroha, hospitality, generosity and mutual respect. Displaying manaakitanga elevated the status of all, building unity through the humility and the act of giving” [1]

Remembering of course what the German missionary had said nearly 200 years ago, “these natives are a peculiar people. They don't measure their wealth by what they own but by what they give away. We must teach them to be mean.” This tikanga hasn't changed. Maori still seek after mana enhancement by providing the best kai available to their manuhiri. Kai moana is ranked among the highest mana enhancing mechanisms known to the Maori psyche.
Ngapuhi's Professor Manuka Henare summarises manaakitanga in this way: “manaaki tanga relates to the finer qualities of people, rather than just to their material possessions. It is the principle of the quality of caring, kindness, hospitality and showing respect for others. To exhibit manaakitanga is to raise ones mana (manaaki) through generosity.” [2]
Another Ngapuhi, Professor Cleve Barlow further explains manaakitanga in this way: “ manaaki is derived from the power of the word as in mana-a ki, and means to express love and hospitality toward people. The most important attributes for the hosts are to provide an abundance of food, a place to rest, and to speak nicely to visitors so that peace prevails during the gathering. If these principles are implemented a hui will more likely be regarded as a memorable occasion.”[3]
In the case of fisheries, Manaakitanga then is about our ability to feed our manuhiri with the best possible traditional seafood available. An argument based on this principle is very difficult to refute. Regarding Te Tiriti O Waitangi, all Governments are obligated to provide for this basic requirement of our Tikanga - having altered the status of kai moana in this country through various pieces of legislation. Kai moana then, is central to the practice of manaakitanga.
Having shared these definitions of manaakitanga with you, I now wish to reiterate –
“99.999% of the time Ngapuhi fish to feed our babies, we are categorised as recreational fishers”


www.uctl.canterbury.ac.nz/documents/r02collier.doc
“TE AKO HIKOHIKO (MÄORI AND E. LEARNING):
He Aronga (A Mäori Worldview)”

Hohaia Collier
Director
Māori and Administration Studies
Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa


To the non-Mäori our world is a series of tangential occurrences that they find no more than quaint anachronisms. They tend to reject the unexplainable; to them there is no logic in Mäori experiences. They have been taught that everything within their levels of consciousness can only be explained by the rigid laws of matter, energy and probability, by the rules of technology.

Although the non-Mäori industrial society has swept across our world, almost destroying it and its traditional belief systems, the wänanga learning environment and surviving pockets of indigenous culture within iwi have stalled and to an extent reversed the trend towards colonised methodologies.

The essential starting point for looking at Mäori pedagogies is the cosmogonic beginnings or the Mäori view of how the world began. Cosmogony was a blueprint for Mäori life. It set out innumerable precedents by which Mäori communities were guided in the regulation of their day-to-day activities.

Mäori have a holistic view of the world that derives from a belief system that links people to all living and non-living things. Mäori are descended from cosmogonic parents, Ranginui and Papatüänuku and their offspring, the atua kaitiaki: Täne, Tümatauenga, Rongo, Tangaroa, Täwhirimätea and Haumiatiketike. They share a common ancestry with other life forms and are therefore part of nature and biodiversity.

All components of ecosystems, both living and non-living, possess the spiritual qualities of tapu, mauri, mana and wairua. Mäori as tangata whenua see themselves as kaitiaki of these ecosystems and as having a responsibility to protect and enhance them. This responsibility of people to other living things is expressed in the concept of kaitiakitanga or guardianship.

As the people are intrinsically linked with the natural world, the mana of the iwi, hapü or whänau is directly related to the wellbeing of the natural resources within their rohe or takiwä. Understanding a Mäori worldview is an essential step towards any meaningful bicultural interaction.

He Aronga mo te Mätauranga
(A Mäori Worldview of Knowledge)
We are all here I suspect because we have a genuine interest for accumulating, creating and disseminating knowledge. In a Mäori worldview this was known as the Ako, Pupuri, Waihanga cycle. In ancient times this cycle coincided with the Matariki, Puanga, Whänui cycle of food production.

As Mäori was not a written language the oral traditions became entrenched in our narratives through karakia, whaikörero, möteatea, waiata, whakataukï, püräkau, and pakiwaitara. These oral icons of communication fell into the language categories of Ökawa and Öpaki or formal and informal language.

For a time these were jealously guarded but we now see many examples of non-Mäori who have become authorities on Mäori educative processes. Some have taken a purely scientific approach through philosophical inquiry, others have pursued the truth by modifying their position through questioning and conflict with the opposing ideas, while others like Ann Salmond and Joan Metge have engrossed themselves in the lives of their subjects to the extent of being adopted by them.

Te Tüäpapa
The Mäori worldview is based on a tüäpapa (foundation) of eternal principles which define their constitution for living. These principles are known as kaupapa. The late Rev. Mäori Marsden explained kaupapa as coming from two distinct words, kau, which he interpreted as appearing for the first time, and papa, the foundation. Philosophically then kaupapa are the first principles by which Mäori defined their world and their constitution for living within that world. There are many kaupapa but some that might exercise the mind of the educator are:
• Rangatiratanga;
• Manaakitanga;
• Whanaungatanga;
• Wairuatanga;
• Pükengatanga; and
• Kaitiakitanga.

I would like to give some insights into these kaupapa that might help you to understand and perhaps work within them when engaging with Mäori.

Rangatiratanga
I have taken the term rangatira to be, ‘a person of good character’ though others have attached the term ‘chief,’ which has connotations of tribalism. My objection to this term is that like the term ‘tribe’ which has been taken from the Latin ‘tribulus’ or the lowest level of social order, it is negative. I am therefore more inclined to the definition I have already given.

The late Bishop Manuhuia Bennett used the following aphorism as an expression of rangatiratanga:
• Ko te kai o te rangatira, he körero
The food of a person of good character is his / her word
• Ko te tohu o te rangatira, he manaaki
The sign of a person of good character is generosity
• Ko te mahi o te rangatira, hei whakatira i te iwi
The work of a person of good character, is to gather people together

Manaakitanga
Manaakitanga is the principle of elevation of the personal qualities of others with whom we have a relationship. The words mana and aki become immediately obvious. Mana can be described as the personal power and prestige that individuals have. The word aki means to uplift or encourage.

Manaakitanga therefore can be seen as a desirable principle of pedagogy where by the positive actions of the tutor the mana or personal qualities of the student are elevated and by the achievement of academic outcomes the mana of the tutor is likewise elevated. This state of mutual mana enhancement is an expression of the tikanga of ‘utu’ or reciprocal action.

Whanaungatanga / Kotahitanga
Whanaungatanga is the principle of relationship building. In a purely Mäori environment, the principle of whakapapa or kinship relationships based on genealogical descent would define this whanaungatanga. In a more general relationship like the learning environment, whanaungatanga is a more appropriate term. Amongst Mäori this is an almost automatic occurrence.

The root word whänau, which can be loosely translated as family gives a hint as to how Mäori see the learning environment. The classroom is referred to as te whare ako or learning house and those within that house are whanaunga or family members. It can be seen then that learning in a Mäori worldview is a collective activity where learning is enhanced when the participants know and are comforted by knowing with whom they are studying. Whanaungatanga is very closely related to another kaupapa, kotahitanga, which can be defined as unity of purpose.

Wairuatanga
Wairuatanga can be defined as the spiritual wellbeing of the individual. Wairua, the spirit, can be uplifted or it can be negatively affected by the environment that the student or the tutor finds him / herself in. While it is not suggested that all classes are preceded by karakia, the tutor should be aware that some Mäori students may put themselves in a zone at the start of the session where they seek a positive ethic and wellbeing in an attempt to be in harmony with others and the learning environment.

Pükengatanga
Pükengatanga is the expression of skill or the achievement of a standard of knowledge set by the learning institution. To be considered a pükörero is to be considered a skilled orator. The root word pü in itself denotes a skilled person but in the term puäwai, it means to flower or reach one’s potential.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

MANAAKITANGA: AN INTERPRETATION IN RELATION TO TOURISM DEVELOPMENT
The following interpretation of the concept of manaakitanga in relation to tourism development was developed in 1997 by Janelle Vala – Marketing Coordinator, Rotorua Education Network. http://www.rotoruanz.com/home.asp

Hamish Mcmillan, HOD Geography and Social Studies at St Kentigern College, has used the explanation of the concept to create a Y13 activity. Hamish passed it on to the Board of Geography Teachers (NZ BOGT) for the benefit of the wider community of geography teachers.


Achievement Standard Number 90702

Title Analyse a cultural process


The Examination Specification for 2006 states that, “Candidates will be required to demonstrate an understanding of the Maori concept of Manaakitanga.”

Manaakitanga as explained by the ‘Maori in Tourism Portfolio Group’ Chairperson in 1997 when the ‘feel the spirit’ Tourism Rotorua brand was developed:

“Manaakitanga is an all encompassing phrase. Manaakitanga is a very powerful way of expressing how our community has cared for one another, how Maori and European cultures work together, how we care for our 3 million visitors a year. Manaakitanga is a feeling, it implies a responsibility upon a host and an invitation to a visitor to experience the very best we have to offer”.

Branding background and Manaakitanga as explained by the joint industry/council board 1997 when the ‘feel the spirit’ brand was developed’:

In developing Rotorua’s new identity, a true and significant Maori dimension was considered fundamental. We required a strapline which would embody the bi-cultural essence of Rotorua. A literal translation of ‘feel the spirit’ would have been easy, but would have added nothing of value to the brand. Manaakitanga is a feeling, an invitation, and a responsibility. It implies guardianship – of the land (whenua) treasures (taaonga) visitors (manuhiri) and people (tangata). When Manuhuri (visitors) tread their first footprint upon new land, manaakitanga begins. The invitation is issued. A responsibility is placed upon the Tangata Whenua (people of the land). Manaakitanga seeks common ground upon which an affinity and sense of sharing and respect can grow. It is a deep-rooted concept in Maori culture. Together, Te Arawa Maori and European were among the first to host visitors to New Zealand. Over the years this has developed into an unmistakable and unique kinship between the two cultures, a spirit of respect and unity which is embodied in Manaakitanga.

Key points:

Manaakitanga is:

· a feeling of community care for one another
· how Maori and European cultures work together
· how 3 million visitors a year are cared for
· an invitation to a visitor to experience the very best the destination has to offer

Manaakitanga implies the host has a responsibility to provide guardianship:

· of the land (Whenua)
· of treasures (Taaonga)
· of visitors (Manuhiri)
· of people (Tangata)

Manaakitanga is a deep rooted concept that seeks:

· a common ground upon which an affinity and sense of sharing and respect can grow
· to developed the unique kinship between the two cultures, a spirit of respect and unity that is embodied in the concept

Task:

Demonstrate your understanding of the concept Manaakitanga by briefly explaining the way the concept relates to the cultural process you have studied this year.