Tikanga. There are numerous explanations of tikanga.
There are tikanga that govern behaviour on the marae.
There are tikanga that pertain to our homes,
and tikanga that pertain to our families
our sub-tribes and our tribes. There are many explanations of tikanga.
There are many aspects. It connects to all the things that we do,
our language, and aspects of Māori knowledge,
the aspects that pertain to our homes,
our true homeland, our land. Indeed, all tikanga is there.
Therefore, if we were to follow the themes that relate to us,
the Māori people, we must follow. We must make connections to tikanga.
For lots of people,
the very first point of contact is on the marae. So,
for a lot of our students and family and teachers,
they will see tikanga in action for the first time on the marae.
And so what is this thing of tikanga? And to me,
it's a way to behave and interact with people and my surroundings.
Te taha wairua, you know, the unseen world that keeps me safe.
So I know
in each circumstance, if I can follow tikanga
in how I interact with people.
How do I interact with my pakeke? How do I interact with my tamariki?
How to interact if I'm going on to a marae?
How do I behave if I'm hosting people onto my marae or onto my whare?
How do I behave at tangihanga?
How do I behave at hākari?
And tikanga tells me how to do that.
And what it does is it protects me, and my mana, and my wairua.
And it protects the mana and the wairua of the people who I am interacting with as well.
It gives me the mechanism to judge
what is pono, what is tika
and perhaps what is given with aroha.
But it does provide the blueprint for reading
and being able to anticipate what might be about to unfold
when I'm in a social context.
How to implement it in the classroom?
If a subject or a learning area is
ever entering in a te ao Māori space
through their content or through their pedagogy,
then that’s an opportunity to engage in tikanga. Isn't it?
And so if we are in the Food and Nutrition Department,
there's always opportunity to engage with tikanga in that space. One hundred percent.
If we're in the Outdoor Education space, there’s always opportunity
to engage with tikanga in that space. If I'm going to visit the domain of Tāne or Tangaroa,
there's a multitude of tikanga that you can follow to keep you and your students safe.
If you're in the technology space working with wood,
you know, you're creating things in that space, a lot of tikanga there as well.
There are multiple resonances, isn't it, with the way in which tikanga
plays out as we engage with people. And increasingly we're challenged
to think about
mātauranga,
ownership of mātauranga,
the whole ability to think about even data sovereignty
in terms of evidence, how it's housed, who houses it?
The whole idea of individualism and collectivism too.
So as I collect evidence about one person,
invariably, I'm collecting it about a whakapapa, about a group of people.
So what does that mean too, in the ways in which we engage respectfully
with communities?
What are your thoughts?
You have a right. There are other tikanga we need to follow in relation to
the collection of research data.
There are also tikanga on how to use the data collected.
The question is: Who does the information belong to?
Where did the information come from? Who will care for it?