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.