An introduction to Rauhuia: Terenga Huihuinga | Symposia series

Rauhuia aims to support all teachers to develop their leadership capability.  Teachers are leaders in their own right, teachers can grow their skills knowledge and confidence as leaders within the communities they serve. 
  
Rauhuia Terenga Huihuinga | Symposia series aims to introduce leadership perspectives, concepts, and contexts to the profession based on themes that came directly from members of the profession.  Strong themes drawn from our initial conversations focussed on ensuring well-being of leaders, understanding Mana as leadership, and understanding how the communities we all work in can support us and help us to lead the teachers, whānau, and the tamariki we are working with daily.    

The symposia are designed to be a brief introduction to a leadership context and a conversation starter for the profession. We have curated the presentations from the symposia to enable conversations to then continue in your setting, developing leadership capability at place.  
  
You can register for upcoming symposia and find videos of past symposia below, as well as questions that could be used to continue the discussion in staff meetings, mentoring sessions, and professional learning groups. 

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Register for upcoming symposia

Date to be confirmed

Mana o te whenua - Ahi Kā

How do we keep the home fires burning for future generations of leaders. Exploring concepts of intergenerational knowledge, future focussed education, and clearing a path to the future.

 

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Mana Oranga - Well-being

Mana Oranga – The Leadership Capability Framework highlights the need for leaders to actively attend to their own well-being.  This is often thought of at a personal level from a health perspective.  Through our conversations with teachers and leaders across all sectors it became clear that consideration for well being of leaders needs to take into consideration the connections they have with people and environment too. 

The Mana Oranga series explores well-being from multiple perspectives.  You can see the past and upcoming presentations from this series below.

Symposium one: Tino Rangatiratanga me te Mana Motuhake

The Leadership Capability Framework  highlights how capable leaders bring their knowledge and experience to make improvements to local and national professional networks.  Leaders take or make opportunities to develop things that are collectively more than the sum of the contributing parts, which others can draw from and use to improve educational practice. 

Pania Pāpa shares her passion for Te reo Māori.  Her learning has led to leadership which in turn is feeding the sector with new language development opportunities. Sharing her determination and her talent for language teaching and learning, she is leading the way for the communities she works with locally and supporting the development of te reo Māori teaching nationally. Hans Tiakawai in his kōrero discusses the concept of Mana Motuhake from a regional and local perspective.  His leadership and that of the teachers in the school  is enabled through understanding and meeting the needs of the community. A self-determining future focussed approach adds strength and provides a network to support the team in their teaching.  The leadership of a community comes from within the community.  
   

 

Questions to stimulate discussion and/or reflection:

1. How did you see Rangatiratanga me te  Mana Motuhake reflected in Pānia and Han's korero?

2. Look at the Rauhuia Leadership Capability Framework — what aspects of leadership can you see connecting with  Pānia and Han's korero?

3. What implications might their kaupapa | concepts have on your own practice as a leader, what impact might it have on the leadership capability conversations in your unique setting? 

Symposium two: Whanaungatanga me te Aroha

Whanaungatanga me te Aroha  The Leadership Capability Framework identifies that high trust relationships are at the heart of effective leadership and that leadership attends to the conditions and practices that are needed for the building of community to occur. 

Professor Meihana Durie explores the balance of opposites from a personal and professional perspective.  Understanding the need for balance in our lives and that of the children and adults we encounter in our settings daily.  Meihana considers Mauri  (Life force or energy) in many forms and offers ways to consider our well-being over a longer period and from a wider community perspective.  Yvonne Tahere and Janeen Marino share the journey they have been on over the past 25 years with their their kura and the community of Ōtaki.  They discuss what engagement can look like when you plan long term and you consider whanaungatanga|relationships from an  intergenerational perspective.  Understanding that good things really do take time and are worth the effort.  
   

 

Questions to stimulate discussion and/or reflection:

1. How did you see Whanaungatanga me te Aroha reflected in the presentations?

2. Look at the Rauhuia Leadership Capability Framework — what aspects of leadership can you see connecting with  Meihana, Yvonne and Janeen's kōrero?

3. What implications might their  kaupapa | concepts have on your own practice as a leader,   what impact might it have on the leadership capability conversations in your unique setting?  

Symposium three: Ngā Tūmanako me te Ngākaupai

Leaders have a sense of purpose and are hopeful for the future.  Leaders make decisions with their communities and trust them to determine the future. ​ The Leadership Capability Framework identifies that high trust relationships are at the heart of effective leadership. High trust relationships exist when leaders are respected for their deep educational knowledge, their actions and values, and the way they engage respectfully with others with empathy and humility, fostering openness in discussions. Leaders have good emotional intelligence and self-awareness.

Dr Jenny Ritchie's presentation positions the early childhood care and education sector in Aotearoa as one that should be recognised as providing insight and inspiration for the field of educational leadership. Such insights can be drawn from the history of this sector, which, being located outside of the compulsory schooling sector in this country, has emerged in response to a series of identified community needs, led primarily by women, and initially reliant more on community collaboration than government mandate and funding. It outlines how this sector has offered a site of resistance and a counter-narrative to colonialist authoritarian models of leadership inherited from Great Britain through our nation’s 200-year history of colonisation.

Katarina Alexopoulos and Tennessee Eccleston share their journey on where they have been, where they are now, and where they are headed to achieve the best possible outcomes for tamariki and whānau. They will share on their mahi around relationship building during, and post, lockdowns leading to the development and implementation of our localised curriculum and beyond. "Ka mua, ka muri" is a whakatauki that means "walking backwards into the future" 

 

Questions to stimulate discussion and/or reflection:

  1. How did you see Ngā Tūmanako me te Ngākaupai reflected in the presentations?

  2. Look at the Educational Leadership Capability Framework — what aspects of leadership can you see connecting with Jenny, Katarina and Tennessee's kōrero?

  3. What implications might their kaupapa | concepts have on your practice as a leader, and what impact might it have on the leadership capability conversations in your unique setting? 

 Symposium four: Wairuatanga me te Manawaora

The fourth presentation in our Rauhuia: Terenga Huihuinga | Symposia Series is by the Health and Wellbeing for Arts Education (HAWFAE) team. HAWFAE are a group of Drama educators who formed a tribe based on a common need to support their own wellbeing. Their aim is for their learning to flow through to their classrooms, students and the wider Arts community through presentations and the publication of their journal, UHO.

  

Questions to stimulate discussion and/or reflection:

  1. What is it about the experience or messages in the presentation that are resonating with you?                                             
  2. How do you keep Health and wellbeing front and centre as teacher leader?                                                                                   
  3. Rauhuia Leadership Space is about acknowledging and developing all teachers as leaders.  What is resonating with you about teachers as leaders? How has this been outlined in today’s presentation?                                                                  
  4. The title of the presentation is Mana Oranga – Wairuatanga me te Manawaora – E kaingākautia ana ngā kaiārahi mō rātau tonu. E honoa ana ngā kaiārahi ki ngā hapori me ngā horopaki ahurei e noho nei, e mahi nei rātau. Leaders are valued  for who they are.  Leaders are connected to communities and the unique contexts they  live and work in. How have you seen this reflected in what these teachers have done in creating HAWFAE? How did community and context drive their mahi?  What does it make you consider in terms of the skills and dispositions you have as a leader to help your community and develop according to your context​?

Thank you to the HAWFAE team for making their publication, UHO available for download:

UHO Issue Tahi

UHO Issue Rua

UHO was made with the support of Drama New Zealand via their Networks of Expertise funding.

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Mana o te whenua

Moana

Exploring Pacific perspectives on leadership. How we can connect with other leaders and traverse the vast oceans between our contexts.

The Pacific is home to a wealth of cultures, languages, and diverse landscapes. From the rocky atolls where the rising sea levels risk the loss of entire ways of life, to the lush mountain ranges and volcanoes that dot throughout the Pacific ring of fire. Large ports with multinational industry bases and global impact through to the family based along a white sand beach protected by a coral lagoon.   

In Aotearoa we are privileged to have a growing Pacific Island population, a wealth of Pacific educators and akonga. Our schools and early learning centres are places where Pacific pedagogies and knowledge should be valued and embraced.   

Our presenters, Michelle Johansson and Melanie Cottingham share their thoughts on how we can connect with other leaders and traverse the vast oceans between our unique contexts in education.   

About the presenters:

Michelle Johansson is a Tongan mother, theatre-maker and educator. She serves as Kaitiaki at Ako Mātātupu: Teach First NZ, growing exceptional people to teach in low-decile schools. She is Kaiwhakahaere at Māia Centre for Social Justice and Education and the Creative Director of the Black Friars. South Auckland, decile-one born and bred, she is proud to work alongside amazing teachers, warriors, storytellers, and change-makers to re-story Pasifika in the largest Polynesian city in the world, to activate indigenous knowledges, to grow future leaders, and to hold courageous spaces for our young people to walk tall in all of their worlds.

Melanie Cottingham’s passion for Pacific education stems from her education experience. She commenced primary school in Rarotonga, then Wellington. She boarded at a private girls’ college in the Wairarapa and would travel to Tuvalu for Christmas holidays. She attended university, completing her Bachelor of Management Degree, and would travel often to Niue for Christmas holidays. Melanie has leadership experience in the public and private sectors, and also tertiary and Primary (Kura Auraki, Reo Rua and TESOL in Seoul) teaching experience. She is currently completing her Masters. Melanie is the chairperson of the Pasifika in the Bay Trust in Tauranga Moana. The indigenous Pacific trust delivers programmes to support teachers and senior leadership in early childhood centres and schools to enact the Action Plan for Pacific Education 2020-2030 and Tapasā: Cultural competencies framework for teachers of Pacific learners.

 

Questions to stimulate discussion and/or reflection:

  1. What is it about the experience or messages in the presentation that are resonating with you?
     
  2. Rauhuia Leadership Space is about acknowledging and developing all teachers as leaders.  What is resonating with you about teachers as leaders? How has this been outlined in today’s presentation?
     
  3. Look at the Educational Leadership Capability Framework — what aspects of leadership can you see connecting with Michelle and Melanie’s kōrero
     
  4. The title of the presentation is Mana Whenua – Enduring landscapes, Moana: Exploring Pacific perspectives on leadership. How we can connect with other leaders and traverse the vast oceans between out contexts. How have you seen this reflected in Michelle and Melanie’s presentation? What does it make you consider in terms of the skills and dispositions you have as a leader to help your community and develop according to your context?

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Maunga

Hoki atu ki tōu maunga kia purea ai e koe ki ngā hau o Tāwhirimatea.   

Return to your mountain to be cleansed by the winds of Tāwhirimatea.  

This whakataukī is often used to encourage people to reconnect with their ancestral lands or return to their childhood haunts, to re-energise, re-assure and to reflect. We are all likely to have maunga that we connect with, for some this is through whakapapa. For others we connect with maunga that stand as sentinels in our landscape.   

We may have experience of living in the foothills of the Southern Alps, along the grassy plains, in the shadow of Taupiri, or along the shoreline of Mauao.  Whichever mountain comes to mind, we all have our differing perspectives on maunga and how they connect with us and us with them.  

Think about the perspective that you view that maunga from; is it from a shoreline, from a forest edge, from another maunga?  Each of us sees the maunga from our own personal viewpoint, from our own perspective.  What if that maunga represented our leadership stance?  Would we be solitary or part of a range, impressive, visible, quiet, unassuming, private or available? Would we guide the way, stand at the back or lead on as markers on the horizon of each new day? 

When we consider how our unique educational context impacts on our leadership, we start to understand the concept of mana whenua, where our own mana and those of our team is directly impacted by the places and spaces we inhabit.  How does our workplace provide reassurance? How do we connect with our communities? How do we create spaces that re-energise our learners, our teachers and in return energise us as leaders? How do we find space and time within our settings to feel the winds of Tāwhirimatea, time to reflect and space to grow? 

About the presenters:

Stacey Morrison (Te Arawa, Ngāi Tahu) is a broadcaster, author, Te Reo Māori champion, language learning advisor and most importantly, a Māmā. Known for her various roles in radio and television, she and husband, Scotty, have become synonomous with the revitilisation of Te Reo Māori in Aotearoa. Their book series, Māori at Home has helped many families and teachers use Te Reo in every day settings. Jonathan Hughes is the Tumuaki | Principal at Pasadena Intermediate School, a Year 7-8, Co-educational setting in Auckland. As a member of the Board of Trustees, Stacey and Jonathan worked together to introduce a Rumaki |Ara reo class with strong ties to the English medium class activities within the school. This involved collaboration with community so that pathways made links to the identity of students and whānau. 


Together in this symposium, they will share the links between  community, hopes and dreams and how these combined with the technical knowledge of the education system to build meaningful results for ākonga.  A true testament to the impact that leadership from and with the community can have on our education system at a local level, serving the needs of our current education setting while keeping an eye on the long term outcomes for our wider community.  Connecting strongly to the Educational Leadership Framework, contributing to the development and well-being of education beyond their organisations.

Questions to stimulate discussion and/or reflection:

  1. What key messages from the presentation are resonating with you?

  2. Rauhuia Leadership Space is about acknowledging and developing all teachers as leaders. What is resonating with you about teachers as leaders? How has this been outlined in today’s presentation?

  3. Look at the Educational Leadership Capability Framework — what aspects of leadership can you see connecting with Stacey and Jonathan’s kōrero?

  4. The title of the presentation is Mana o te Whenua – Maunga: Exploring our immediate physical landscape and the impact it has on our practice.  Understanding the unique strengths of our community and their demonstrated leadership capability ​ How have you seen this reflected in Stacey and Jonathan’s presentation? What does it make you consider in terms of the skills and dispositions you have as a leader to help your community and develop according to your context?

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