Mātauranga Māori nurtures love of land

Te Kura Taumata o Panguru tumuaki Mina Pomare-Peita is combining mātauranga Māori and hands-on science to help students fall in love with the land.

Te Kura Taumata o Panguru stands proudly in North Hokianga. Its backdrop is the Panguru maunga and Te Au Warawara Forest, which is described as the wairua of Te Rarawa.

It’s only natural for the kura to have such strong connections to te taiao/the environment. But getting to a place where tamariki love the land has not come without hard work.

Te Kura Taumata o Panguru is a long drive from State Highway One. It is an area school in Te Rarawa rohe with about 105 students from Years 1 to 13, and a 100 percent Māori roll.

“In a place like Panguru, and in these country areas, you just become really resourceful,” says tumuaki Mina Pomare-Peita.

Mina is Panguru born and bred and grew up living off the land with the mātauranga, kupu, and pūrākau of Te Rarawa passed down to her. Her desire to ensure tamariki have that same mātauranga is the catalyst for the school’s strong ties to te taiao, along with relationships.

In 2015 Te Rarawa’s Treaty of Waitangi Settlement was passed into law, but Mina says prior to this she told a colleague that getting the land back would be a waste of time if the people didn’t know how to work it.

“People don’t know how to grow kai, how to work their land. They don’t even know the names of the mountains or where the water comes from,” she says.

“We need to teach our children how to love the land, because it is by falling in love with the land that they will feel part of it.”

And that’s where it all started.

Reclaiming mātauranga Māori

Mina is passionate about the importance of walking away from the mainstream and reclaiming mātauranga Māori – specifically tribal knowledge.

“We need to be saying ‘I’m Te Rarawa’ or ‘I’m Ngāpuhi’ and asserting that as part of our mātauranga Māori,” she says.

“I think as an educator I’ve always aspired for our knowledge to be acknowledged in the education system.”

Students Norma-Dee Peita (left) and Lili-Ola Baxter with their principal Mina Pomare-Peita.

She says a huge way of doing this is through te taiao.

So, Mina approached Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa with the goal of teaching tamariki to love the land through the mātauranga of Te Rarawa.

She asked for support to establish a camp where students could spend three to four days learning about the environment with kaumatua, kuia and experts in mātauranga Māori.

“You can talk about mana whenua, mana moana, mana tangata and mana atua. But if you don’t actually know what that looks like, it doesn’t mean anything – it’s just words.”

Camp kaupapa

The first camp – called Noho Taiao o Te Rarawa – was held 15 years ago with a small group of about 16 students. The kaupapa was so popular there is now a Noho Taiao in summer and winter.

The summer noho is held every January at one of the 23 marae in the Te Rarawa rohe. The winter Noho Taiao was established after other schools in Te Hiku asked for the same thing to happen in their rohe.

Mina says it changes every year but usually in the summer it’s quite dry so the students learn pūrākau of the place. In the winter they get their hands dirty with riparian planting, kayaking, water monitoring and lots of climbing maunga.

She adds that an important part of the camps is that tamariki are reclaiming the reo of their iwi.

“One year we learned, you know it’s really common now that people call teatree ‘manuka’ or ‘kanuka’. You never heard our people say, ‘Go cut down the manuka tree’ it was kahikatoa, so going back to the original name of your hapū is a big thing.”

Challenging the status quo

Mina isn’t afraid to question the status quo, in fact it’s in her nature.

But challenging ideas and standing up for mātauranga Māori has helped foster strong relationships with organisations like GNS Science.

In 2018 GNS came to the Far North and while in town it partnered with Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa to deliver an 11-day camp where students could learn from experts like palaeontologists and geologists.

Mina Pomare-Peita, tumuaki of Te Kura Taumata o Panguru, is stepping away from the mainstream.

But it was lacking mātauranga Māori, Mina says.

“I don’t know what they thought they were doing other than making these students listen to people talking about geological sciences without really asking us as Māori, ‘What are the benefits, who benefits from this?’”

So, Mina requested a meeting with the GNS boss. She says she invited him into her whare for a kai and told him the camp had not catered for Māori.

“We said for a start you must have it on a marae and you must sleep with us. We said western science is only one element, it isn’t the dominant element. Mātauranga Māori is – and we are waiting for you guys to catch up to us.”

Mina says it took a while for GNS to come on board, but they did. To date, there have been four GNS camps and another two are scheduled for 2023.

Weaving knowledge together

Mina says kaumatua have been involved from the start and says the camps weave hands-on science with te reo Māori and mātauranga Māori.

“For example, if they’re teaching the students about the water cycle or the rock cycle – from there we do the whakapapa o te wai. We also have that as a waiata so our students get to use those words.

“It’s understanding uniformitarianism – scientists call it a process which is looking at the past to unlock the future. We already know that, we call that anamata, onamata and inamata – the future, past and present.”

Mina says the kura now also works with NIWA, Northland Regional Council and Te Aho Tu Roa (Enviroschools).

“Our children are clever, and our people are clever, and if they’re with other clever people from other cultures they really just love it.”

Mina says her tamariki care for the local Te Au Warawara Forest by doing pest control, planting, water testing, fencing and bird monitoring.

She says even calling the forest ‘Te Au Warawara’ is a result of tribal knowledge.

“We grew up calling it Warawara but Nanny Whina’s son, Pāpā Joe Cooper said, ‘It’s Te Au Warawara’ so it’s about reclaiming all of the knowledge,” Mina says.

Mina wanted her students to love the land, and now it’s clear they do.

In 2021, Te Kura Taumata o Panguru won the Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Award for their work in te taiao. Mina credits their success to mātauranga Māori.

“If you truly want to put te taiao into a school or take the school into te taiao, you can’t do it based on a mainstream model. You’ve got to do it from your model, and you must go and find out what that model is for you.”

Te Kura Taumata o Panguru with the Panguru maunga and Te Au Warawara Forest in the background.