The time has come to turn my six weeks of travel through Hawai'i and New Zealand into a digestible project for consumption by other educators. I find the task almost impossible as I am still trying to make sense of the experiences I had this summer. What did I learn about the New Zealand education system? About Pacific Migrations? About the struggle of indigenous people to be acknowledged, respected, and treated with decency in their own country? About successful bicultural and multicultural education? What did I learn about my own country and our struggles educating marginalized people? What did I learn about myself? And, most importantly for this project, how can I turn that learning into a project that will help other teachers who have not been privileged with the experience I had to teach their students about New Zealand and further international understanding?

Some lessons I learned:

• We are more alike than we are different.
  

• I know precious little about my own country, particularly as it pertains to the annexation of Hawai'i.

• A country can control and ultimately destroy a people group by taking away their language. Consequently, language reclamation is a powerful and important task.

• The task of making a curriculum culturally responsive requires more than the addition of bicultural (or multicultural) materials; it requires a radical redefinition of what it means to teach and learn grounded in the culture of the teacher and the students. Often this redefinition will involve compromise on both sides, but the current model of adding multicultural information into a European style classroom does nothing to empower marginalized students nor does it teach students from the dominant cultural group how to interact in a multicultural world.

• The cross-cultural exchange made possible by Fulbright Hays summer seminars enriches the teacher's classroom not only through curricular material, but also by expanding the teacher's sphere of reference and putting a teacher in contact with other energetic and excellent teachers.

None of these lessons easily translates into a lesson plan that can be applied in the classroom--however, all of them have ramifications for the classroom.

This project is an online, annotated travelogue. The basic text of the project was written while I was traveling in Hawai'i and New Zealan--it was part of a blog (web blog--or online, public journal) that I kept for my students, colleagues, and friends. While I traveled I wrote honestly about the daily experiences I was having, what I was learning, and the questions that were raised by those experiences. These comments and observations were the occasion for many interesting email exchanges with people back home about the issues I raised. Since returning to the U.S., I have added links to more authoritative sources, links to video clips, more photos, and suggested readings whenever possible. I have also kept the comment function enabled on the blog. My hope is that students and teachers will find this travelogue to be a useful resource on a number of cultural topics and larger educational issues facing classrooms in the U.S. and in New Zealand. Perhaps it will inspire others to enter the conversation about what meaningful multicultural curriculum and classrooms look like.

I've been home for two weeks now and it is hard to imagine that this is what it looked like outside my hotel only fourteen days ago. In fact, we were worried that we wouldn't get out of New Zealand on time because the road from Arthur's Pass to Christchurch was closed off and on all week as was the Christchurch airport. Luckily Bob, our bus driver, managed to get us to the airport in a safe and timely manner and after 30 hours of traveling I made it back home. I was very happy.



School has been in session for a week now and I am still working to catch up on everything I missed in the last six weeks as well as the daily preparation necessary for teaching a new class. I'm loving teaching the seniors thus far and thought I would share with you a beautiful thing they wrote this week.

In response to a question about student-teacher relationships one student had this to say:

"A good teacher can make her students laugh and cry, smile and sing. She must be a great commander, rallying her troops. She must be able to touch each and every one of her students emotionally, not just intellectually. But this necessitates a willingness to study and understand her students as individuals, and not as just so many numbers or words on a piece of paper."

What a worthy challenge.

Today I went skiing for the first time ever. Ok, I tried to go skiing once, when I was 13, and I fell riding the rope tow to the top of the bunny hill, couldn't get up, got mad and stomped off the hill. I set off this morning planning to prove to my 13 year old self that I could successfully navigate not only the rope tow but the bunny hill as well. The ski resort we went to is amazing and is supposed to have fabulous view, or so I'm told. It snowed all day today and we were in a cloud most of the day so I didn't see much of the view. However, everything was very quiet and peaceful and the chair lift seemed to be a magical ride to nowhere.




Here's the one time I could almost see the view.

I am proud to say that I not only survived the rope tow, I also survived the Magic Carpet, the chair lift and even graduated to the green run after lunch. The green run was a little scary as by the time we got there visibility was so low that my instructor would say "follow me" and after about three seconds I couldn't see where he, or any of the other members of my class, had gone to. But I made it down the hill and am afraid that I have acquired yet another expensive habit.


Triumph!

Let play time begin! We are finished with the academic portion of our trip (with the exception of one last school visit on Monday) and have safely arrived in Queenstown. Here's what I did on the way into town.



Although I spent a few minutes shaking my head and saying "I can't do this," once I jumped it was so calm and smooth I couldn't believe I had been nervous in the first place. Now I'm ready for the next scary thing. If you are interested in the physics of bungee jumping check this out.

For our last day in Christchurch we visited two schools. The first school, Discovery One, is a primary/middle school that operates on the principle that "children's passions should guide education." Basically, kids work on what they are interested in learning about and teachers help to guide them in that process. The principal was very charismatic and I could almost catch the vision (as well as see a number of Uni students succeeding there) but for the most part kids were running around, playing Yu-Gi-Oh, and not learning much. I sat with a five year old at tea time who let of the longest, loudest, juiciest fart I've heard in a long time. She looked up at me with a smile and said, "that was me." She then proceeded to point out all the boys in the room who are in love with her and want to kiss her. They must have been impressed with her farting.

Today we visited the office of the Ngai Tahu. The Ngai Tahu are the most populous South Island tribe and they were the first tribe to receive a settlement from the Waitangi Tribunal. The tribunal was set up to give legal teeth to the Treaty of Waitangi and to allow Maori tribes to receive apologies and symbolic restitution for the losses they have suffered since 1840. The tribunal is still actively hearing claims from a number of tribes. Because the Nagi Tahu are so numerous and received the first settlement they have done a lot of work to stop the loss of te reo Maori, especially their own particular dialect of the language. It has been interesting to see the wide diversity of Maori tribes as we have traveled through this country. I suspect it would be easy, if one didn't interact with many Maori people, to assume, like we do about American Indians in the U.S., that all tribes are the same. The truth is far more complex and the tribes vary according to geography, historical experiences, and contemporary needs. Here is a map of Maori tribes c. 1870.

While in Wellington, we visited two fantastic resources that I haven't had a chance to mention yet . The National Library of New Zealand has a large digital collection and many materials accessible online for teachers. The New Zealand Film Archive strives to collect all film recorded in New Zealand and makes it available for teachers in country. It also has short films and other interesting articles and exhibits online.

It occurred to me that I could post photos of the South Island rather than trying to describe the landscape.


The view from the road in front of my hotel.



View from my hotel room, 5:23 PM.


View from the Kaikoura lookout.

I am in Christchurch until the end of the week and then the academic portion of the trip comes to a close. After Christchurch we have two days in Queenstown to do tourist activities--right now I think I'm going to do a trip where you bike down a mountain into a canyon and then raft out of the canyon. Hopefully the sun will be shining next Sunday--it was below freezing in Queenstown yesterday so if it is sleeting next weekend I don't know how I'll feel about biking. After Queenstown we spend one night seeing the glaciers at Franz Joseph and then two nights in Arthur's Pass in the Sourthern Alps and then it is time to go home. I am ready to be how but am also amazed at home quickly the end of the trip is upon us.

On Saturday morning we crossed over to the South Island. Everyone promised up that the difference would be stunning, but I had no idea how immediate the change in geography would be. The South Island has mountains that run directly into the ocean so one can look out a window and see snow capped peaks as well as hear the crashing of waves. It is really quite stunning. We spent Saturday night in Kaikoura, a sea-side holiday village famous for whale watching. We woke up early on Sunday to go on a whale watching expedition with the Maori owned Whale Watch Kaikoura.

Sunrise Sunday morning.


We were not disappointed in the whale watching. We saw three sperm whales and a large pod of Dusky Dolphins as well as many interesting sea birds. Here is a photo of the tail of one of the whales as he dives to the bottom of the ocean for food. These whales have to eat a ton of food every day to keep up their body weight.

Last night we slept on the Waiwhetu marae. It dawned on me that I haven't included any photos of the whare (meeting house). This is the building where all important meetings (hui) take place and also where guests can come to be fed and sleep. The Waiwhetu marae has hosted Kofi Anan as well as our distinguished group of Fulbright scholars. Here is the entrance to the whare. At the top of the roof is a carving representing the ancestor that the house is named after. The carvings along the line of the roof are the arms of the ancestor, the door the mouth, and the window the eye. Here is a drawing that labels the parts of the whare.



Here is where we slept. Before supper (evening tea, served two hours after dinner) we had a lecture on the house and what the different carvings and weavings meant. Every carving, called poupou, represents an ancestor (at this particular house, made for many tribes to use, they are from all over New Zealand, in other houses they are just from the specific tribe that built the house). The carvings are interspersed with weaving, tukutuku, that tell stories. The carvings and weaving are bordered by kowhaiwhai paintings which are also highly symbolic. In order to carve, weave, or paint, a person has to be apprenticed to a master carver, weaver or painter and learn the proper way to do the work. All three activities are considered tapu (sacred and taboo at the same time).



After the lecture and evening tea, it started to feel a lot like a big slumber party. Cindy, Juan Carlos and I came up with a series of quiz questions for the group and hosted our own quiz night. The categories were Language and Literature (sample question: In what Shakespeare play would you hear the line "the quality of mercy is not strained"?), Music (sample question: In what decade did Prince drive his little red corvette?), Movies and TV (sample question: Who was asked to play Humphrey Bogart's role in Casablanca but turned it down), It's Trashtacular (sample question: How many times has J Lo been married), and New Zealand (sample question: What is an "ankle bitter"?). All the teams did the best in the trashtacular category, much to their great embarrassment.

The three quiz masters.

Sample quiz question answers: Merchant of Venice, 1980s, Ronald Reagan, 3, and a small child.

Yesterday we got to visit an amazing school outside of Wellington. He Huarahi Tamariki is a school for young parents with child care on site for the mothers (and occasionally fathers) who attend the school. New Zealand has a large correspondence school for kids who live in rural areas but it also can be accessed by students like these women who find it difficult to be served by a traditional school. The school provides teachers who work individually with students on their correspondence school curriculum and they have several parenting, computer, and fitness classes that they do all together. The school was an amazingly warm and welcoming community. One of the older students was teaching a dance class to the younger students when her 7 week old baby started fussing in the nursery. One of the child care workers came and got her to feed her daughter and another student stepped up to teach the dance class.

All the girls I talked to at the school were so grateful for the opportunity to be at the school. Most said that if they weren't at HHT they would have had to drop out of school to get a job and their children would be in day care. At HHT they can see their kids during morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, and if they are nursing they are allowed to feed their babies as much as necessary. The school also helps them negotiate the social welfare system in order to get the benefits they need to stay in school.

I spent most of the morning with Maiata, who has a nine month old daughter named Naria. Maiata was working through an English packet on reading unfamiliar texts and was very excited to have me sit down and help her. While we worked she told me about her daughter and what it meant to her to be at this school. We learned later from the principal of the school that many of the students are kicked out of their houses when they get pregnant or are abused by the fathers of their babies and the school helps them find housing and get restraining orders, etc. Before we left Maiata gave me a letter and a photo of Naria. In it she told me that Naria had been without a name for a week but she finally decided to name her after her younger sister who had died of cancer at the age of 3. The visit was very moving because while these girls have had such a hard life in so many ways, the school was a place of real hope for them and it was wonderful to get to be a part of that for the morning.

Me and Maiata.

This weekend involved a lot of time together on the bus. I have to admit that I can be a little cranky when I'm forced to spend large amounts of time in a confined place. This weekend was no exception.

We left Auckland early Saturday morning for the Otara Markets--we had been promised that these markets would be amazing and satisfy all of our souvenir shopping needs. Sadly this was the best thing I saw at the Otara Markets.



After the markets it was off to Rotorua, sight of amazing geothermal activity and home of The Fo. The Thermal Wonderland was pretty spooky to see (and to contemplate what it would have been like to be the first people to come upon it and wonder what on earth was going on). The Fo, on the other hand, was hard to shake. Anyone who has smelled hot springs before should have an idea what I am talking about but as far as I can tell there isn't a word in English to explain the reek that pervaded Rotorua. Chantel taught me the very useful Spanish word, fo, which can only be said as if you are spitting it out, to describe the smell.



Images of The Fo.

After a smelly night filled with shocking British television, we left early Sunday for a monster road trip to Wellington. We spent nine hours on and off the bus driving through very lovely country but it is possible that my previously mentioned crankiness might have interfered with my enjoyment of the day.

This is an image of Huka Falls on the Waikatu River. Apparently people kayak through this water. Tiffany, our tour guide, said it is great to see but there have been some fatalities.





Mt. Ruapehu, one of the many breath taking photo stops on our journey South.

Monday we got to start the day late which was such a treat. I slept in a little, went for a stroll until I found a good cafe, had a lovely long breakfast (French toast with bananas and bacon, not, as I thought, on the side, but both on top of the French toast), and then did a little shopping. We spent the afternoon at the Ministry of Education where I started to get a few answers to my questions about transformative pedagogy (although nothing satisfying yet). I keep hearing the same name, Russell Bishop, mentioned when I ask questions about changing pedagogy to meet the needs of Maori students and he is at Waikato University in Hamilton. Unfortunately, we aren't visiting Hamilton. During my last day in Auckland I met another Fulbright Scholar who is also at Waikato doing work on restorative justice in the schools. I’m looking forward to learning a little more about his work as well.

After our time at the Ministry of Education, we went to the US ambassador's residence for a cocktail reception. I've never met a US ambassador before so I was pretty impressed until I learned that he got the gig because his company gave $500,000 to W's election campaign. It was a lot like a normal party where you don't know a lot of people and have to make small talk, only this time I had to make small talk with people who use napkins that are embossed with the seal of the United States of America. We did all get our photo taken individually with the ambassador in front of a big American flag. And he gave us NZ/US flag lapel pins.


Me, Ann, Chantel, and Cindy at the ambassador's. Notice that we were only served clear beverages due, I assume, to the white carpet.


Me and the ambassador, Charles Swindels.

Tuesday we spent the morning learning about current political issues in New Zealand and then visited Parliament in the afternoon (for a good source on NZ current events visit stuff.co.nz). Some shocking facts about NZ government as best I understand them: New Zealand doesn't have a constitution. There is only one branch of government that includes both the legislature and the executive branch. As a result, from 1975 to 1984 the same man, Robert Muldoon, was both Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. Because there is no constitution, the judiciary system has no authority to overturn decisions made by the legislative arm of the government. On the bright side, a politician can't raise more than $20,000 NZ for a campaign so MPs aren't beholden to corporations in the same way US politicians are.

Chantel, Darla, and I had a meeting with a woman from the Ministry of Education after our tour of parliament. As we have been visiting schools and hearing people from the MoE talk about the national curriculum, we have had a number of questions about what students read in literature classrooms that no one has really answered. New Zealand has a national curriculum but it is written in terms of learning outcomes rather than specific content that must be covered. This has meant some really weird things for language arts/literature classrooms.

To begin with, English falls under the curriculum area Language and Languages so is lumped in with any foreign language learning and English for speakers of other languages (ESOL, or ESL in the states). This lumping together creates problems for both English language instruction and other language instruction, as you can well imagine. From what I can tell from my conversation with the MoE today, English education (of the language arts variety) is much more focused on literacy than any meaningful experience with rich and diverse texts. It isn't until years 12 and 13 (11th and 12th grade) that the learning outcomes begin to talk about students experiencing a variety of meaningful texts. Shakespeare is the only compulsory author and he must be taught in year 13.

All of this focus on literacy is very well intentioned and focused towards kids who are not engaged in their schooling—the thinking is that if teachers work to find out what kids are interested in and structure their literacy education around those texts, the kids will be more engaged and successful. This all makes sense on one hand, but I think the exciting, and challenging, part of being an English teacher is finding a way to introduce texts that kids might never encounter but can still relate to if they are approached in the right manner. I also resent the assumption that in order for students to relate to a text is has to be easily accessible--that's why kids read books with teachers!

Today we spent the day at the Auckland College of Education. It was a very full day (read: I was tired at the end) but a lot of really interesting conversations were able to take place. I have been thinking a lot about the difference between an additive philosophy of multiculturalism (you add in information about different cultures, i.e. Black History Month, but don't allow the other cultures to transform the values of your educational system) as opposed to a transformational philosophy of multiculturalism (the experience, norms, and values of other cultures transform the way you teach and education ultimately becomes a vehicle for social change). The schools I have visited so far claim to be committed to biculturalism and it is clear that they teach some information about Maori culture and history, but the structures of the schools remain essentially Pakeha (European). Today I was able to ask some questions about this to people who are responsible for teacher training. Sadly, no one was really able to give me a satisfactory answer to my questions, but I will keep asking them.

Because te reo Maori ran the risk of becoming a dead language, a number of Maori medium schools (te reo Maori immersion) have opened in the last ten or fifteen years. These schools are having a lot of success in developing Maori pedagogy, teaching Maori language, and preserving Maori culture but they are essentially segregated institutions (Pakeha are welcome, but only about 5 non-Maori students attend these schools in the whole country) and it doesn't seem to me that there is much interaction between the kura kaupapa and the mainstream schools in terms of talking about how to best educate Maori children. I'm hoping that next week when we are in Wellington and meet with another education college and the Ministry of Education I may get a few more answers.

Here is our entire group at the top of Mt. Eden, one of the many volcanoes that Auckland is built on top of. The man on the far left is our bus driver, Ken Going, who was a member of the national rugby team (the All Blacks, the name refers to the color of their uniforms, not their skin) in the 70s and was one of the first Maori players named to the team. Everywhere we go people say, "do you know who your bus driver is?!?"

This is me with Jacquelin. In the background you can see part of the Auckland skyline. She thinks the caption on this photo should be "Fulbright Scholars are always hard at work" but I want to use the caption to tell you that Jacquelin was born in Antigua, grew up in New York City, taught in Japan for the last two years for the U. S. Department of Defense and will be teaching in Iceland next year. She is so opinionated that I look like a wilting flower next to her!

Yesterday was another school visit day. I was assigned to Alfriston College in an outer suburb of Auckland. The school was really fascinating. It's the first new public high school built in New Zealand in 25 years. As a result they have heaps of money and had lots of time to conceptualize how they wanted to build the place. The principal spent a good two hours talking to us about the school and how the architecture of the school and the grounds reflects their philosophy of learning. For instance, they believe that 25% of learning takes place outside of the classroom so the signage of the buildings incorporates all kinds of GPS locations, rulers, golden rectangles, etc.

Each year they are adding a new grade of students to the school and with each year they have to invent the curriculum for the new group of kids. Currently they only have year nine students (confusingly, our 8th grade). They have made a commitment to putting together integrated thematic curriculum units (similar to inter-disciplinary units). The school is staffed entirely by teachers who have been hired in the last year and who knew going into the job that they would be expected to teach in this style. They have 90 minutes a week to plan together as well as two full days during each school term. It sounded very promising when we talked to the principal, but conversation with the individual teachers suggested that they haven't really bought into the philosophy. For instance, the grade 9 English teacher we talked to said she hasn't been able to teach a novel yet this year (they are in their second of three terms) because she can't fit it in. I suspect a slight lack of creativity on her part, but even still, it looks like a challenging undertaking and we teachers are hard to convince to do things differently than we have been doing them for the last 5, 10, or 20 years.

The school grounds were beautiful and very artfully designed although the classrooms looked surprisingly like IKEA--sparse, Scandinavian inspired, and like they would last about three years. All the rooms are wired for massive amounts of technology and the computer to student ratio is 4:1 and all the teachers are given top of the line laptops. It was really fascinating to listen to the principal and hear him talk about shaping school culture from the ground up. After our meeting with him I wished that I could make a school of my own choosing from the very beginning. The issues of school culture that we deal with at Uni (and anyone in education deals with) sometimes feel so deeply entrenched that it would be a pretty unique opportunity to get to wipe the slate clean and start again. Of course, as these teachers demonstrated, old habits die hard.


Here is a photo of the meeting house (whare) at Alfriston College.

Had another absolutely beautiful day for our visit to an urban marae today. The urban marae was built to provide a home for Maori people who have migrated to Auckland and want to stay connected to their Maori heritage.



There are a number of programs run from the marae, including Radio Waatea, a national Maori radio station, a driving school, and a funeral home. We had the privilege of listening to Willie Jackson, a former member of parliment who set up and now runs Radio Waatea. If we were in the US it would be a little like sitting around talking politics with Jesse Jackson or Al Franken (not the best comparison, but I'm trying). I continue to be amazed at how important everyone thinks we are and how well they treat us in return.

This morning as we boarded the bus for our schools, Chantel was singing the theme from "The Simple Life." She thought it was hilarious that I was assigned to the farm teacher. Thankfully, for everyone, I ended up spending most of the day at the main school and managed not to have to teach any agriculture themed lessons. Instead I spent part of day in Maori language and performing arts classes and the rest of the day with a lovely social studies/English teacher and his class. The kids I talked to were quite curious about America--the best question I was asked was if you could really score in America by asking someone to coffee. I assured Sheree that I had never had any luck with that tactic.


Sharee also wanted to know if I had seen the Twin Towers fall. When I said yes, on TV, she scornfully replied "we saw that."

Eric, the social studies/English teacher recommended several books and poets that I have been enjoying reading. These include Hone Tuwhare, Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Keri Hulme, and Apirana Taylor. He lent me a copy of a wonderful anthology of Maori and Pacific writing entitled Pacific Voices, edited by Bernard Gadd.

In the Maori performing arts class I observed, and then attempted to learn a waiata a ringa, action songs. The girls in the class performed beautifully and left me feeling very inept. Here is a video of Te Wakahuia performing waiata a ringa at the Aotearoa Traditional Maori Performing Arts Festival.

I did walk up to the farm and take a few pictures. The kids in the agriculture class were very sweet and also asked lots of questions about America. I showed them pictures of Uni kids and they thought they look very old for their grade! They were also quite impressed with the photo of the school I showed them. Everyone thought it looked quite "flash."


The outside of the agriculture classroom.


An ag student. She was very sad because her tomato plants had died when it frosted the other night. Her stawberries, on the other hand, were looking quite healthy.

The teachers at Northland College were overwhelmingly hospitible to us--today at lunch there was a huge "shared lunch" complete with a roasted wild boar, killed by the principal of the school. Their incredible generosity and kindness to us was quite humbling.

Yesterday was a long touring day. We got up early and got on a bus to drive to the Northern most point in New Zealand. Along the way we stopped to see the memorial for the Rainbow Warrior. The Rainbow Warrior was a Greenpeace ship that sailed around the Pacific disrupting nuclear tests. In 1985 it was docked in the Auckland harbor while protesting French nuclear tesing in the Pacific and French agents blew it up. It was a galvanizing event for New Zealanders who after 1985 signed a commitment to be a nuclear free country. On our first day in New Zealand one of our speakers characterized New Zealand as this "little country at the bottom of the world that isn't afraid to do things differently." Their willingness to be nuclear free during the cold war (at the expense of the ANZUS alliance) certainly typifies her statement.


Rainbow Warrior memorial

After a stop for morning tea and a stop for lunch, we made it to Cape Reinga which is at the very tippy top of the North Island. Interestingly, you can see the Tasman Sea meet the Pacific Ocean. It looks very choppy where that happens. It was real windy up there...


Juan Carlos bracing Lynn as she takes a photo.

On our way back from Cape Reinga we drove along the 90 Mile Beach. 90 Mile Beach is considered a "recreational highway" when the tide is low. When the tide is high, it's the ocean. It was pretty freaky to be driving on the beach as the waves crashed a couple feet away from us.


View from the bus on 90 Mile Beach.


At one point we stopped and went sand boarding. Basically, you climb to the top of a big sand dune and then rocket down on a boggie board, trying hard to keep your mouth shut so that you don't eat a lot of sand. I had a great time and after my second go I decided I would try to do a few tricks. Here is what happened when I tried to do a 360 near the bottom of the dune.



Today was our first day of school visits. I went to Northland College (a high school) which is a Decile 1 school that is 90% Maori. In NZ, schools are assigned a decile number based on the socio-economic status of their students. Low decile schools are poorer and receive more national funding. The school I visited (and will visit again tomorrow) has been reviewed a number of times by the ministry of education and has a new principal who is trying to turn things around. The school has almost 4,000 acres of land, most of which are a working farm. Currently they employ farmers to run the farm but starting next year, they will revise the curriculum so that students will be responsible for all the aspects of running the farm.

I expected to be assigned a partner teacher who teaches literature or writing; however, because I mentioned on my application (way back in October) that I was interested in experimental and outdoor education, I've been partnered with the woman who teaches farming. Unfortunately, they told her that I was proficient at adventure and outdoor education and she wants me to teach a lesson tomorrow. Don't really know what I can teach the kids in farm class.


Umi speaks with Millie (my partner teacher) in front of the new calves. They look cute until you get up close and see them walking around with poo hanging off their bums.

We didn't get to interact with many kids today, hopefully we will see some classes tomorrow. The ones I did talk to were researching American rap artists on the internet. These girls were particularly fond of Bow Wow. They are disturbingly into the worst of American hip-hop culture (note the gang signs)--lots of bling bling and misogyny. I suppose that, unlike Uni students who claim to be "ghetto," these kids are living pretty hard lives. One of the teachers I was speaking with this morning was telling me that Maori kids really identify with what they see of African-Americans in the media. Bizarrely, she called African-Americans the indigenous people of America. I explained to her that we do actually have indigenous people in our country who have quite a lot in common with the Maori, but that African-Americans were brough to America against their will.

Here are a few pictures of our day on the marae. The powhiri was a pretty an amazing way to start the morning. Our host was the captain of their waka crew and so decided to welcome us by the canoes. I've included a photo of the detail on the back of the small waka that the younger kids train in. The larger waka holds up to 120 people who take turns with the paddles. The waka that we saw were used for fighting, rather than traveling.


waka detail

After the powhiri the men learned haka, which is used to challenge and intimidate visitors. Here are Umi, Juan Carlos, and Daniel practicing their haka.




While the men learned haka, the women learned to make poi. Poi are balls attached to a braid that were traditionally used to hunt birds but are now used in dancing. Here are Lynn (one of the librarians), Cindy, and Chantel making poi.



Here are all the women learning to twirl our poi. Like all good things, it was much harder than it looked.



Click here to view video of women performing beautifully with the poi.

A brilliant New Zealand moment: The first night we were here, Juan Carlos, Cindy, Chantel and I took a taxi into town for dinner. At the end of our meal, we asked our waiter to call the taxi for us to return home. After a couple minutes he returned to the table and said, "The taxi company isn't answering their phone. I'll try one more time and if I can't reach anyone I'll drive you home myself as long as you don't mind riding in the back of a truck." Now, you have to understand that the restaurant we were eating in was packed and there were only two people waiting tables, yet he was dead serious. Luckily for him, the taxi driver answered the second time he called and he was spared.

We arrived in New Zealand yesterday morning and immediately got on a bus for Paihia, Bay of Islands. Paihia is significant for Maori/Pakeha (non-Maori) relations because it is the site where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. The treaty, referred to by some as the founding document of New Zealand, is an incredibly important document which, unfortunately, says vastly differing things depending on which language version you read. For instance, in the English language version it says that the Maori people cede sovereignty to the Queen of England. In the Maori language version it only says that they will allow the Queen of England to govern her people who are living in New Zealand. It is further complicated by the fact that even the English language version is written in some pretty tortured prose and there exist 2 English language and 7 Maori language versions of the initial treaty.

Tomorrow we will be visiting the marae (Maori tribal lands) at the Waitangi National Trust. This is the site where the treaty was signed. The morning will begin with a powhiri (pronounced po firi) which is a "ritual of encounter" that occurs anytime visitors (manuhiri) want to come onto a marae. From what I understand there will be prayers, speeches, and we all have to sing in te reo Maori (the Maori language) before we are allowed to proceed further. In our seminar this morning we learned that all people who enter a marae are considered to have waiwaitapu (literally, sacred feet) and it is necessary to go through the ritual of powhiri in order to figure out who the visitors are and if they can be trusted. Once the powhiri is completed, the manuhiri are considered tangata whenua (people of the land, or home people) and welcomed into the whare (meeting house). Everyone is excited and a little nervous about the experience.

It's a little odd to have suddenly landed in the middle of winter. Yesterday the sun had set by 6 and I couldn't figure out why it was dark and I hadn't eaten dinner yet. I also wasn't prepared for all the warm and hearty soups we have been served as my body still expects some ripe tomatoes and salad greens. In deference to the hemisphere where I am, I've changed the time stamp on the blog to reflect the time in NZ when I post my musings. I think I'm 17 hours ahead of CST.



7:30 am, outside my hotel room.

This morning we got up early and visited the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. I tend to avoid military memorials as I find the winner's version of history to often be a disturbing affair. Unfortunately, today wasn't any different--especially after our lessons in Hawaiian history.

According to the museum at the Arizona Memorial, the US got exclusive use of Pearl Harbor in exchange for tariff-free sugar trade with Hawai'i. The rest of the story (not told at the museum) is that Pearl Harbor was used by native Hawaiians to fish, irrigate their taro fields, and search for pearls. When the US asked for exclusive rights, the king refused. At that point, the US military surrounded the parliament house and demanded they write a new constitution that stripped the king of his power. This constitution, referred to as the Bayonet Constitution, gave the US what they wanted. For more on the Bayonet constitution, read here.

It seems to me that if we hadn't demanded rights to harbor, the Japanese wouldn't have attacked Hawai'i, and the harbor might still be full of fishing boats surrounded by taro fields. Perhaps this is a simplistic view, but I would have liked at least some consideration of the consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor for the people who live on the island.




Here is a photo of the oil that leaks out of the Arizona. When the boats were attacked on Pearl Harbor, 50,000 gallons of oil spilled into the harbor and it burned for several days. Still today the battleships leak oil into the harbor.


Arizona memorial


The Arizona underwater

Today was another fascinating day. We got a brief overview of the history of the Maori people and a quick introduction to education in New Zealand. So far, everything I've listened to has raised more questions than answers. I'm struck by the ways in which the issues indigenous people in Hawai'i and New Zealand struggle with, while specific to their cultures, are also so similar to the struggles of marginalized people everywhere. A theme that has come up numerous times already is control of language; who gets to speak their language and who doesn't, who makes decisions about official languages, which language version of a treaty is considered official, what language schooling is conducted in, all of these choices have amazingly powerful consequences.

We heard a poet read today, Brandy Nalani McDougall, a former Fulbright Scholar to New Zealand, who writes about the importance of language reclamation. Her poetry has recently been published in a wonderful anthology, Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English.

Now might be a good time to explain why this journey began in Hawai'i. Aside from the beautiful surroundings and it's location half way between New Zealand and the U.S., Hawai'i forms one of the three points of the Polynesian Triangle. Easter Island and New Zealand form the other two points. Between these three islands, and the many other islands that fall into the area of the triangle, including Fiji, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Tonga, the Marquises, the Society Islands, and others, there has much migration--so much so that the language, customs, and beliefs of the Native Hawaiians are very similar to those of the Maori. To learn more about the Polynesian Triangle, as well as the voyaging accomplishments of the Polynesian people, look here.

Today we visited the Kamehameha Schools. The K-12 schools serve almost 2,500 native Hawaiian students. Only native or part native students are allowed to attend the school and it is an incredibly well endowed and successful school. Because it is so successful it has found its preferential admissions policy under attack from a number of sources.

The campus was beautiful and it was fascinating to get to meet and talk to the teachers at the school. I have to admit to knowing nothing about Hawaiian history. If pressed, I might be able to come up with the decade that Hawaiian became a state, but that is about all. I learned today that the U annexed Hawai'i illegally (through a joint resolution of Congress, rather than a treaty as required by our constitution) and, according to the international courts at the Hague, is illegally occupying the islands of Hawai'i. Umi, a Hawaiian member of our group going to New Zealand, is involved in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. When talking to him, I find my ignorance embarrassing.



Here Juan Carlos and I pose at Kamehameha Schools. Check out the view!

The group I am traveling with is amazingly diverse, intelligent, and well-traveled. We are 13 women and 3 men. 14 of us are teachers and 2 are librarians. The teachers cover all grade levels and teach history, English, ESL, German, and Japanese. We seem to be divided between people within 5 years of my age and people in their 50s. Being chosen to take part in the program is incredibly humbling and moving--the legacy of Senator Fulbright is not only a prestigious one, but also a moving tribute to world peace. He firmly believed that it is only through meeting people from other cultures that the people of the world will work to live in peace.

He said about the Fulbright Program: "Fostering these--leadership, learning, and empathy between cultures--was and remains the purpose of the international scholarship program...it is a modest program with an immodest aim--the achievement in international affairs of a regime more civilized, rational and humane than the empty system of power of the past."

Aloha! I've now been in Hawai'i more than twenty-four hours and still don't believe that this trip is actually real. We got to our hotel at about four yesterday afternoon and had a couple hours to settle in before we were to meet in the lobby to get a "cab" to our dinner reservations. I took advantage of the down time to visit the pool and then, after cleaning up, went to the lobby to find that the aforementioned "cab" was actually a limo. Unlike the rest of the world, I drove the Suz Jon 2 (a 1986 silver Toyota station wagon) to the prom, so this was my first ride in a limo. Dinner was amazing and ended with the choice of a fruit plate or the "dessert trilogy." As I've said before, it's hard to be me.

This morning we had our official welcome to Hawai'i and the Fulbright program. The morning began with an incredible traditional Hawaiian welcome. We lined up outside of the door to a large room and the one Hawaiian member of our group asked for permission for us to enter. Permission was sung and we followed in and made a circle in the room, holding hands with the people next to us. As we stood in the circle, our hosts explained and then sang a number of prayers (oli) asking for God to provide guidance and integrity in our pursuits. Once the chanting was done, we all introduced ourselves and were presented with a lei. Our hosts then did a number of hula dances for us, explaining the significance of the movements and chants before each new dance. It was an incredibly powerful invocation and made me wonder what all my days would be like if I began them by asking the divine to accompany my intellectual pursuits.

The most fascinating part of the morning was when I asked about the t-shirts that the performers were wearing. They said "Justice for all Hawaiians." Apparently they are all a part of a grassroots justice organization, Ilio`ulaokalani (Red Dog of Heaven), that employs all sorts of creative techniques in order to secure land rights for native Hawaiians. Vicki, our host, explained that the group formed when the Hawaiian state legislator wanted to pass a law making it easier for developers to gain access to Hawaiian land. The bill would require native Hawaiians to prove that their ancestors hunted, fished, and/or gathered on the exact land that they currently claim. As Vicki said, "we don't have digital pictures of my grandmother picking the flowers, and the fish we caught, we ate." The organization, Red Dog of Heaven, protested for 24 hours in the capital building, singing, drumming, and dancing traditional Hawaiian dances every hour, on the hour. As the night wore on, every time they began chanting and dancing thunder would crash and rain would pour down. After 24 hours of protesting, the sponsors of the bill came into the rotunda, ripped up the bill, and surrendered the point.

For more information about the annexation of Hawai'i and the modern day sovereignty movement visit Sovereign Stories.



This is Okalani, one of the Hula dancers who welcomed us today.


Here are Jacqueline, Ann, Vicki, Juan Carlos, and Chantel. Vicki is the founder of Red Dog of Heaven. You can view video of her speaking about her work here.

an.tip.o.des pl.n. 1. Any two places or regions that are on opposite sides of the earth. 2. Australia or New Zealand.

When the British first came to New Zealand they couldn't conceptualize a place further away from them than the Antipodes. Of course, for the Maori who lived in Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand, meaning Land of the Long White Cloud), Britian was an antipode.

I'll be leaving in ten days to spend almost 6 weeks learning about the culture, history, and education system of New Zealand/Aotearoa. Along with fifteen other educators, I will travel to nine different cities (plus Hawai'i, I know, it's hard to be me) in NZ and my plan is to keep any interested parties up to date via this blog. If you are interested in viewing my itinerary, please following the link listed on the side of this page.

I will miss all of you while I'm away and will be very happy to hear from you via the comments section of this blog. Have a wonderful July and August and I'll see you when I get back.