Tino rangatiratanga is the principle of relative autonomy – the goal is to gain relative control over one's own life and cultural well-being.
The whānau supports staff to proceed on issues of curriculum and pedagogy that meet Māori cultural aspirations. Māori are making choices and are committed to making them work.
Tino rangatiratanga is enhanced by effective teaching, which establishes a space for learning and self-empowerment in the classroom.
Students who understand how to succeed or to reach their potential will be more engaged and resilient. The power to learn and make decisions will rest equally with them and the teacher.
Effective teachers enable or empower students, who are aware of how and why they are learning.
They set up structures, models, or templates and class routines for clarity.
They plan ability groups on the basis of assessed skills and knowledge.
They set up flexible groupings, according to abilities and/or interests. Students need to be active and engaged for their learning to be self-empowering.
The art of interpreting and communicating an existing or newly created musical work to an audience through musical performance and/or sound production, or interpreting it as a member of the audience, requires considerable confidence and belief in self and others.
The skills of perceptive listening are developed to engage the 'seeing ear' and the 'hearing eye'.
Tino rangatiratanga or self-empowerment is nurtured through this heightened perception, and through conception, preparation, presentation, discussion, evaluation, appreciation, and critique.
These processes are all necessary to ensure the student feels confident and engaged with music and technologies.
Engagement is reinforced by the audience’s reception of and response to the experience, through self-evaluation, and through synthesising feedback.
Acknowledge learners’ expertise (for example, their knowledge of the significance of a particular place or cultural convention) and invite them to share their knowledge and experience with class members.
Take the role of a facilitator of learning rather than holder of knowledge.
Invite students who are familiar with relevant computer software to teach their peers and the teacher relevant skills.
Pair students from different curriculum levels to enable the more advanced one to teach their peer how to read and unpack complex texts when researching established art practice.
Encourage students to invent, that is, bring something new into being. For example, they chose an abstract noun (bravery, loyalty, integrity, compassion, courage, deceit) and use it as motivation for creating sculptural works, designing a public space, or making a badge.
Enable students to develop a sense of their own identity through making art works. For example, they could choose a relative they are close to and explore that relation’s whakapapa (and thus their own) and past experiences through making drawings, paintings, and prints about them. Refer, for an example, to the Visual Arts NCEA assessment resource 1.2A/1.3A Portrait of an Elder.
Set students a task to make a series of photographs about an issue or interest they feel passionate about (for example, abused animals, the human impact on the environment, genetic engineering, a sport, a band).
Through cycles of production and critical reflection, enable students to develop a clearer sense of who they are, what they value, and how to take their place in the communities of the twenty-first century.
Include students in creating opportunities to exhibit and publish their own work, both within the school and beyond, and engage in discussion and critique with viewers about the ideas, materials, and technologies used.
Involve students in discussion about where and how their work might best be displayed.
Make use of a range of technologies (exhibition visitors’ books, blog comment forms) to gather audience feedback and take time to reflect on and interpret this feedback.
As they make and display subsequent works, build in opportunities for students to respond to this feedback.
Many classrooms in Aotearoa include students with national and international representative level expertise in dance styles such as hip hop or Kapa Haka, for example.
Teachers can give these students the power to bring their knowledge to the forefront of other students’ learning in the dance classroom.
Use the 'student-as-expert' model where the student with knowledge in a specific genre or style of dance may, with direction, lead the class through movement workshops or sequences in the particular style.
Provide students with opportunities to express themselves through solo dance-making (choreography) exercises. This offers both challenge and possibility to the student.
Creating and performing alone is one of the most difficult tasks a student will face in dance, and this type of activity does need to be scaffolded and carefully unpacked.
However, if successful, the student will be completely self-empowered to explore their ideas freely and create a dance with is the embodiment of their own thoughts, feelings, hopes, or fears.
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Last updated April 23, 2012