Being able to contribute to the success of others

  • Just seeing her accomplishing everything – setting her goals and smashing them - and just breaking out of our mould, has motivated me to do what she has done, and just further myself.

  • You’re not doing it by yourself. There’s so many more of you out there. Whether it’s in te ao Māori or not, you find your people and then you work with them - and then you grow.

  • Seeing Māori do really well is cool, and that builds up all the other Māori students as well.

  • My dad’s a shearer in the summer and I’m a rousey. So, being in the sheds and working hard is a big reason for what I’m doing. I want to be successful for my parents. Another big reason for why I want to be successful is for my school. We have a bit of a reputation for being the underdog that continues to succeed. Despite public perception, we always have students that thrive, and we always have students that love to succeed. So despite all of this, being a role model for them and eventually being able to give back to my parents is why I want to be successful.

  • An assessment I had this year involved the idea of researching a sustainable action. The action that I chose was cultural sustainability at our school. A part of this was interviewing students at our school, especially senior Māori students. I asked them for reasons why they think Māori were not achieving at our school. Forty percent of our school are of Māori descent, yet less than 5% are attending Māori subjects or have Māori activities in their lives, and I asked them why. The two reasons were that being Māori wasn’t important in a Euro-centric society, and the second was that they were not brought up with Māori being as important in their households.

  • Next year I’m attending Otago University. I’m going to be studying sociology, Māori studies and indigenous development. I want to study these subjects with the intention of working for the Ministry of Education. I want to bridge the gap for Māori in education. I want to increase Māori success rates overall, and I want to be the figure for all Māori students - to prove that we can be successful, we can be inspirational, and we will succeed despite everything that comes at us.

  • We do get support from our parents and stuff. But it’s getting encouraged by your own peers, and giving encouragement to people your own age. It shows that we’re not just young teenagers who just like to muck around.

  • Sometimes the people that help you succeed are the people that don’t really realise that they’re doing it. Like people that you look up to as role models so that you want to emulate what they’re doing. It gives you courage to be better than what is expected of you.

  • It’s been cool being able to teach the younger students what I learnt as a younger student. It’s all about the family, the whānau and sharing our knowledge. I learn things from the junior students every day, as well as they learn things from me.

  • My biggest success was probably getting Māori Prefect. There were other people going for it, but for me it felt really right, because I was connected with all the teina. I’ve grown with them through school. They’ve been my biggest support and I’ve been theirs. So it’s pretty cool for me to get a role that goes higher up into the school, so I can bring it back, if that makes sense?

  • Everyone who puts themselves out as Māori, we’re really close. We have a classroom and we just hang out in there. We support each other and we share our successes together and we grow together. We are just this huge whānau. We’re a little bit separate from everyone else, but it brings us a lot closer. We know that we can be ourselves, we feel good to be ourselves. We’re proud to be Māori.

  • It’s not just academic success. You can succeed in sports or be a role model to the younger generation coming up.

  • We’ve been mentoring some Year 10 boys. I went to a leadership day where they were running an activity. They led it, and it was just so cool to see how they had grown over the year. Given the opportunity, they can succeed. People believed in them and they were told: “You’re a leader”, and it helped them a lot.

  • I’m a part of the tuakana-teina (older-younger sibling) system, where you aspire to be a good role model for our younger students, and for all cultures. There are no barriers.

  • As a leader for next year, one of my main goals is to bring a lot more Māori students along the journey to success with me. I like to encourage it - to Tautoko (support) it any way I can.

  • We have a tuakana-teina set up. When I was little I was set up with a tuakana, and they would guide me and help me and advise me, and it was so cool. Tuakana help you through school with everything, like sports or education. They just help you. Now that I’m older, I’m a tuakana and I’ve got a teina, and helping them and giving them that support, it’s such a cool way to promote success and whanaungatanga. It’s... it’s just so awesome.

  • When I have got my degree at the end of university, I will be generous, and care for my family and community.

  • I must always hold on to the values and practices that have been planted in me by my parents and my elders on the marae - to always be humble; to remain on the same level as my friends; never to think I am above them; remain as one in the group. That’s when I believe I will be successful.

  • I think the same. “Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi engari he toa takitini. My strength doesn’t come from me alone – it comes from the many”. Relationships among our friends, that is the main thing – it is about establishing relationships and remaining humble in all things you do.

  • Success for me is being able to support the students of our school. It’s just an amazing feeling when you are able to help other people and make them want to do good.
  • Our school has the funding for a wharenui. It’s going to go up in front of the school. I think that will be a big contributor to student success. It’s something close to us, and something we as Māori students and the rest of the school will have.

  • I haven’t really had a role model to look up to in my family, because there’s nobody really that’s academically successful. So, really, I want to be the first person in my family to succeed at school.

  • I was selected for peer support. That was fun. I enjoyed that, and that helped me with leadership skills. Then being part of the PPP (Pause Prompt Praise) programme - that was good! It also made me feel happy, because you were helping younger Māori students along the way.

  • Like, if you see one of us pass, that means that we can all pass. We can actually beat the stereotypes.

  • As Māori, you want everyone to be there with you to help you along the way, and to help them along the way. You don’t just want to succeed for yourself, but you’re taking everyone with you.

  • I am doing it because I want to give back to my community. I think that’s what our goal in life is - just to give back.
  • It’s not the achievement itself. It’s what happens afterwards - being able to provide and give back to the people who have helped and supported you along the way.

  • I think being there as a role model was one of the biggest things that really made me feel like I was making a difference, when they felt like they had someone to come and talk to, they could relate to. I felt really special.
  • Doing the best that you can do academically, still holding on to who you are as a Māori person. Not just thinking of yourself and your immediate whānau; thinking of your whole iwi, your whole rohe, all your people. Wanting to help others, but holding on to who you are

  • Last year in our Māori class, we had a few Pākehā boys who hardly knew any Māori at all. We kind of thought that they weren’t enjoying it, but then you see them the next year coming back. It’s really cool to see that they’re actually enjoying it and learning it, like actually liking te reo Māori.

  • We hang down at our gym and there’s these Pākehā boys, and they start speaking te reo. It’s a cool thing to see. And then we can just go and speak it with them, just for fun, and they’re actually having fun doing it.

  • He’s Pākehā. He took Māori right from the junior years to senior year, and he’s near to a fluent level of speaking Māori. He’s been one of the only Head Boys since I’ve been there, that will get up on stage at the appropriate times and speak in Māori.

  • I guess being a New Zealander means you’ve got the best of both worlds.


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