Te pakeke hei ākonga: Māori adult learners

Publication Details

This report explores success in literacy and language learning for Māori adults. It captures the perspectives and voices of learners, tutors and providers in foundation learning programmes. It describes how Māori tutors reinforce and strengthen their Māori learners’ identities through ensuring that Māori tikanga and values pervade the teaching and learning environment.

Author(s): Colleen McMurchy-Pilkington, University of Auckland

Date Published: August 2009

3. Learners’ perspectives

Almost overwhelmingly, and on more than one occasion within the interview Māori learners talked about feeling comfortable. As well as the comfort of the physical environment, the strong relationships that their tutors had established with them was evident and gave learners a sense of belonging to a whānau, where each member is cared for and respected. This comfort came from having tutors who were either Māori or who had a strong understanding of Māori values and wairua such that they could connect with Māori learners in a spiritual/emotional way. Comfort came from the emotional security of “belonging to the whānau”.

This section considers adult Māori learners’ perspectives of their tutors. It examines the characteristics and practices of tutors, how Māori learners perceive their learning environment, the contrast between school days and being an adult learner, and some of the barriers to further learning.

3.1 Characteristics of the tutors

All the Māori learners spoke highly of their tutors. They identified such characteristics as caring, patience, approachability, passion, firmness, humour and commitment as being strongly evident in their relationships and interactions. Nesbit et al. (2004, p. 95) advise that accounts and recollections of radical educators confirm “that great teachers are those who bring honesty, compassion, humour and passion to their work”. According to the adult Māori learners interviewed, these qualities were evident in their tutors.

Caring nature

All Māori learners signalled the caring nature of their tutors. Strong relationships between the students and their tutor were evident from the way the students talked about their tutors and from the researchers’ observations of them working together. These observations were incidental to the interviews rather than planned. For example, while the researchers sat in classes waiting for the interviews to begin, or walking through the campus on their way to an interview or sharing a meal together, they often observed interactions between tutors or the CEO and their students.

She does it with kindness.

She speaks to us, not yells.

One CEO stressed that he selected staff who were caring towards the students.

Māori or Pasifika background if we can but as importantly we need to have staff here who have a heart for the people because the people that we’re dealing with here, it’s like they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care…we can upskill them [tutors]; we can’t teach them to have a heart. (CEO, PTE)

Belief in the students

Students not only felt cared for but a belief in their ability to be successful was communicated to them both orally and in the actions of the tutors.

Yeah we’re sky rocketing and then when you’re at school you’re sky rocketing straight down to the ground into the dirt.

Patience

Explanations and actions of the tutors demonstrated their infinite patience. No matter how confused the learners appeared, the tutors spent time with them to explain and re-explain the learning, sometimes three or four times.

Oh he was very patient, yeah. I think that’s what a good teacher is about, having that patience because you are going to have people like me in the class.

You might not be able to [do it] because you are struggling, here they individually come and help you.

And he always clarifies things; he’ll go over what he expects of us several times and he’s quite patient.

I admire his patience. If we still don’t understand he’ll go over it again. He doesn’t get hoha.

Approachability

The approachability of the tutors was appreciated by the students and this extended beyond the formal class times.

The tutors here get quite offended if we don’t ask for help. At school you want to ask for help but they don’t want to give it. Here they want to give you help and you don’t need it because they’ve already helped you so much and they still try and help you some more. If they have a problem they’ll come whether it’s after hours or not.(Tutor, PTE)

Passion

Almost all the students considered their tutors were passionate about their work and tutors communicated this passion in their actions and body language.

It’s the passion that comes through as a teacher, enables everyone I think to just go that little bit more.

Firmness

As well as strongly caring for their learners, tutors were clear and firm about having rules and setting boundaries and communicating these to the students. This also extended at times to ‘tough love’.

Like I forgot and so he’ll feel like pulling us by the ear and teach us one on one even without the whole class. That’s pretty cool. (Student, PTE)

She loves us like we’re her own kids. That’s how she treats us. She’ll flick our ears if she has to; she won’t really do it, but you know she will!(Student, traditional provider)

She’s our friend but she knows the boundaries.

Humour

The learners commented on the humour of their tutors: “Yeah having fun, being humorous”. Having a sense of humour seemed to make tutors more human and approachable.

He was humorous and just made it more easy to pay attention.

They got a sense of humour… And nothing is ever too serious.

Commitment

Students were aware of the commitment of their tutors, who worked hard on their behalf.

110, not just 90 percent.. Yeah its 110 percent every day you might as well say. Even when we’re on like 50 percent they’re still on their 110.

3.2 Practices of the tutors

Tutor practices reinforced the positive relationships between tutors and the learners. Tutors acted as mentors, set achievable challenges for the students, and based their teaching in real-life or hands-on contexts.

Reality teaching

Unlike their schooling experiences, the students reported that their tutors taught them in a practical, more hands-on way that made links to contexts they were familiar with. Tutors immersed them in the environment rather than relying on a book to gain feedback or learning. Examples included being involved in powhiri, manaakitanga (e.g. working in the marae kitchen, catering for manuhiri) or looking after each other, form filling, reading the newspaper, going on trips or being shown ‘how to’ in a workshop, followed by ‘having a go’.

We tell him a problem we’ve got and he’ll tell us his experience and how to solve it and we’ll go into the workshop and he’ll show us.

Linking the teaching of new skills to students’ experiences or prior knowledge is necessary to optimise students’ learning. The learning has real meaning and the students feel there is strong relevance to themselves.

He relates things that happened to him, experiences, and they translate straight into my life. They’re very real and they give me good ideas on how to go about studying and making that study work and he keeps reminding me that study smart is not hard.

Real-life contexts will be discussed further from the tutors’ perspectives in the next chapter.

Guiding and mentoring

Māori learners looked up to their tutors and respected them in their roles. They were seen as a mentor who guided and supported them towards success.

She’s a real awesome support person.

She guides us through everything.

Setting achievable challenges

The tutors got to know the students well and set them challenges or tasks that stretched them in their Zone of Proximal Development (Drewery & Bird, 2004).

We managed to learn how to go through obstacles that you never experienced before.

Interesting teaching

Students wanted their tutor to make learning interesting.

Just to hold our attention because if we’re not paying attention we won’t learn anything.

Supporting learning

The learners reported on activities or strategies used by their tutors to support their learning and to maintain a whānau atmosphere. These included having regular class meetings, going on trips so they could ‘live’ or gain practical experiences, workshops, work experiences, attending a formal lecture so we know “what it’s going to be like going to real lectures” (Student, traditional provider).

Most of the learning contexts involved supported group work or working with a partner, although one student noted that their tutor at times encouraged him to “experience things by myself rather than listening to the teacher or reading from a book”.

Learning is also supported when the students are not made to feel embarrassed when they make mistakes.

My kaiako acknowledges me as an individual, as a tane with all the skills a 50 year old has…so I don’t feel less. I don’t feel reduced when I have to sit here and make mistakes because we’re really learning. What I’m learning is about making mistakes and it’s really embarrassing sometimes to make a mistake but the environment is such that you soon lose that embarrassment and shame; you lose it in this environment. (Mature student)

3.3 The learning environment

Māori learners’ perspectives on the learning environment are discussed under the physical, spiritual/emotional, academic and social aspects of the environment.

Physical environment

Tutors went to great efforts to ensure there was a safe, friendly physical environment that was conducive to learning. The environment and atmosphere were comfortable, and students could relax and “we don’t need to sit up properly”.

It’s also really important in an adult environment for them to feel comfortable…we make sure that it’s a really nice environment. It’s a really positive environment. The teachers model that and so it’s somewhere they really want to come… somewhere that they can relax and feel comfortable because if they’re not comfortable in the environment, which happens in a lot of schools, they’re not going to learn. (Tutor, PTE)

Students commented that foundation courses are a great change from their formal schooling. It is not four walls and a whole lot of desks: “No, we’re free”, and “We can make the space ours.” One of the rooms visited had beanbags and large, round balls for the students to sit on and do their work. On another site, students had painted a mural on the walls in their room with and Māori patterns so it was more like a marae setting rather than a formal classroom. Students felt they had ownership of their space. If the room became too heated or noisy, tutors made changes to ensure there were a minimum of distractions in the physical environment.

We designed the room pretty much when we first came in. All the tables, all the chairs were stacked up in the corner of the room and we all entered into the room and he asked us, one of the first questions was ‘How do you want to set up your room? Do you want to sit on the floor? Do you want to set up the tables? Put them like this? Leave it up to you’. So that’s when it first started. It’s like our whare.

The physical environment had a family-like atmosphere, with small, intimate classes. Many of the learning activities were interactive, with hands-on experiences. Everyone helped each other to accomplish the tasks.

It’s all about family and togetherness and right from the very beginning of the class she said this is what I want you to learn. We are a family. Basically that was it, that’s what she got us to learn first, that fact that we are family and that we’re here to help each other rather than just let us carry on as at school and be our own little silos. She made us interact, which was good because she made it a family gathering. (Student, traditional provider)

Spiritual/emotional environment

The tutors, all of whom were Māori, took cognisance of the wairua or spiritual side of their learners. Māori values were manifest and lived in the learning environment for example, manaakitanga, tautoko, whanaungatanga including shared kai (food). Students appreciated their tutor “because she’s Māori and so she can understand” and this was particularly important if they had to take time off to attend a tangi (funeral).

There’s a strong wairua in our class.

Māori values were very much evident in the operation of the teaching and learning environment. All of the learners talked about the whānau or family atmosphere that their tutors had created and encouraged in a range of ways.

We’re all family.

I think the whānau environment is good.

I bridged here because they had a great Māori environment.

There’s heaps of students here but there’s heaps of Māori teachers to encourage the Māori students to succeed. (Student, traditional provider)

I’m sometimes evilling everybody out to suss them out; they just come in all happy, cheery and sweet. You get that happy, cheery vibe anyway in the morning from Aunty A and Aunty D, and Aunty M lifts up her extra bit too. [Tutors are called aunty.]

Whanaungatanga, or positive, strong relationships among students and between tutors and students, was built into the everyday life of the class. Students were encouraged to manaaki or care for each other.

I base the programme on whanaungatanga and I spend a lot of time on this. It’s really about supporting one another as a whānau. (Tutor, traditional environment)

Whanaungatanga is strong at the wānanga.

And we all get along here…whereas if we’re on the streets we would have killed each other.

Living as Māori

The physical environment of the classes visited often reflected Māori culture, and tikanga Māori was evident in the daily practices of the class. Each day usually begins and ends with a karakia.

One of the things we do before we start our class is we do a mihi everyday and I think that was one of the main things that helped us break down our speaking barriers.

We have a lot of discussion on karakia. It’s not made compulsory [there are a few Pākehā in this class].(Tutor, traditional environment)

We begin and end each day with a karakia.(Student, wānanga)

Karakia at the beginning and end of the day. We have Māori values and rules; they’re just common sense, all the good, positive values that we want everybody to have [including non-Māori who come to this PTE] but we find it really empowering for our Māori students to come into an organisation like that, many of whom actually don’t even know their own identity…helping them along with that because…until they know themselves they can’t move on.(CEO PTE)

Most students were taught and encouraged to share on a regular basis their pepeha and to recognise their whakapapa connections to those in their class or with visitors. Some of the Māori learners did not know much about their Māori connections or about Māori values or tikanga. These aspects became an added teaching area for the tutors, who recognised the importance of each student knowing who they are. Thus the student was being strengthened both academically and culturally.

Tikanga is a big thing if someone passes away. You go, you can’t wait. Everything is dropped. Being able to just go and know when you ring your tutor it’s going to be accepted.

The above student mentioned that “Māori know Māori, there’s always connections. Someone always knows you or your whānau”. She cautioned against saying you are going to a tangi as an excuse if you aren’t really going to one. Someone will know someone who knows your whānau and they will know if there has been a death or not. “We were told to never say your grandfather has died [as an excuse to be absent] otherwise it could happen.” Another student talked about how “most Pākehā don’t understand; they don’t look at it from your perspective” if you have to go to a tangi. They think you should “only go to a funeral if it’s immediate family”.

Tautoko or support

As noted earlier, the classroom operated like a whānau, where there was an expectation that each person would support and care for the others. The Māori concept of ako – to be both a learner and a teacher – often came into play when those who knew more or had completed their activities supported those who hadn’t. The tuakana or more expert learner supported the teina in his or her learning (Pere, 1988).

The young ones help us. (Mature student)

Tutors created an environment whereby students would support or tautoko each other in their learning. This was seen as a normal aspect of the whānau environment.

We can do our work, help each other out.

My mates support me.

Hard for me to speak up and ask questions but it’s a friendly atmosphere for me.

Yeah some people come into this course that don’t even know how to read simple words and now they’re learning everyday things because everyone encourages everyone.

[When you don’t pass an assessment] you know all the bro’s are going to look at it and go ‘oh bro, I told you that you have to change that, or have to change that’.

We seemed to have built up a relationship between all of us. If one was struggling then we’d just have a chat about it and whoever could help would help so that just made it that much easier, not so much easier but the weight less heavy.

In being supportive the environment was non-judgemental and there were no ‘put-downs’.

If you’re not sure, you put your hand up and no one judges you or takes the fun out of you – we all support each other.

Not being put down and being made to feel like a nothing. (Mature student)

Everyone’s like a family and that’s really good. Nobody puts anybody down.

No put-downs, absolutely no put-downs.

Self-belief and confidence

Tutors worked hard to undo what many of these Māori learners had learnt from their school days, that is, a lack of belief in themselves. Feelings of success and being able to achieve have to be internalised and many of the adult Māori learners were showing signs of believing in themselves after many years of seeing themselves as a failure or not being good enough.

I can count to 120 no problem!

[How has the course helped you?] Positive things, yeah the positiveness here that, you know if you’re getting it from here then it makes you think well if I carry on [to further tertiary] I might get the same help from those people there too, so it will be easier.

Things we’ve achieved hanging up on the wall, like posters. Our stuff that we’ve done are hanging on the wall. You know just a quick reminder you can do it.

I’ve learnt more than I ever did at school. Here my reading’s picking up, I know how to spell more words and how to talk properly, you know to other people. Yeah I like it here.

My reading’s just picked up. My maths has gone up and up. I can read a paper now – I can read anything!

We worked for it [our mark]. We done it ourselves. We were proud of what we done. I didn’t know we can do that.

One of the tutors expressed his concern that, despite the effective work being done with adult Māori learners at the foundation level, as the students left and moved into a degree environment they were likely to be going back to an environment similar to secondary school – an environment that was not conducive to their learning.

There was always that preparation to get them to that tertiary education. I think our youth or a lot of our young people, what they’re seeing is they go from the school system into this system [foundation] which they’re very much conducive to learning within this environment. Then back they go into a tertiary education, the polytech or whatever, and one teacher at the front again, so they’re stepping back into that environment. That will be the only reason why they probably won’t step there. They’re more than capable of doing it but I think what they rebelled against at the start is very much that. (Tutor, small-town PTE)

3.4 Academic environment

Hands-on

The academic environment was organised in a way that contributed to learner success. Students were often given ‘hands-on’ activities, things that they could physically manipulate to assist their understanding. Examples included interactive games for learning, constructing, making a chart, crosswords, engaging in art, craft, drama or music for expressing ideas and developing language. It is not by coincidence that these activities also involved group or collaborative work as they built whanaungatanga, interdependence, and reciprocity that drive class relationships and ways of working.

If we haven’t finished we just get others in our class to help us get through the units.

Group and individual achievement

Group work was encouraged, with students scaffolding and supporting each other. However they also received clear messages about doing their own work where necessary. If they desired to move to other forms of tertiary education, students had to learn to complete tasks by themselves at times as tertiary assessment systems are geared towards individualistic task completion.

We support each other but we’ve got to have your own answers – we just help them try and understand the question.

Ways of working were both constructive and co-constructive although none of the tutors interviewed were able to articulate or theorise how they taught.

Like the tutor, he really just puts the ideas there and everyone, when he makes us do a group activity we have to build the information up ourselves with our own knowledge and we share it between each other.

We use our life experiences and different personalities, whatever intelligence, whatever you call that, awareness of different things and stuff and like the different groups, the different people that you work with like you learn different things off them.

Success-oriented

Learners were given several opportunities to pass their assignment tasks in an environment that was success-oriented rather than failure-focused.

We get three chances (to pass) – we get another test paper to fill out and we learn it again or he’ll help us. (Student, PTE)

All the students spoken to were passing their assignments. With positive expectations from tutors, and extra support from the classroom whānau and the tutors, all learners were successful. Anyone not passing usually had a large number of absences and ended up leaving the course or deferring.

Completed successful work can be reinforcing to the learner.

Sometimes when I’m aggro and I look up at the ceiling and along the walls and I see a piece of work that we’ve done together, sort of snaps me out of my bad vibes and wakes me up.

Clarifying

Unlike some of their schooling experiences, Māori learners related that their tutors took a lot of time to explain what they may not understand.

She explains it more clearly and what she specifically wants...and you go away and do it.

She will explain the question a bit more clearly or in a different way and then she’ll go through it with us.

Support from outside the classroom

The younger students tended to believe they did not have support outside the site of learning, although a few talked about family members’ support.

I have huge support from my grandmother and all of my aunties and uncles who are Māori. (Te reo course)

My nan, I try to like get her to teach me Māori. She’s like really strict man, far out. (PTE)

In contrast, the mature students were often encouraged in their studies by their family or those around them.

My kids keep me going…the encouragement “oh good you should have started ages ago. You should be a teacher”.

My aunty and my cousins and all that.

And just showing your kids that you can do it, don’t give up and learn how.

3.5 School days

When talking about their present learning contexts, the Māori adult learners made an inevitable comparison with their previous restrictive learning contexts at school.

It’s [present context] better than the school way, better than school.

It’s the school, their system don’t work in the school anymore. They don’t give you freedom… They give you instructions.. that’s it, you listen to them, you don’t get a choice.

Learners recalled their teachers, their beliefs about schooling and some of the activities they engaged in at school.

School teachers

Most of the Māori learners recalled that many of their teachers did not seem interested in teaching them at school. Either the teachers seemed under pressure to complete a pre-set syllabus or curriculum, or else the Māori learners could not keep up with the middle to top range in the classroom and got left behind. The Māori learners believed their teachers did not support them and assumed they did not want to learn. This resulted in loss of interest by the student and the teacher focusing on those who did want to learn, that is, those who were keeping up with the teacher. In time, many of the ‘non-learners’, who did not see much purpose in being at school, ‘were kicked out’ or dropped out of school.

Yeah I didn’t have really good intelligence when I was at school. I left cos I was having problems with the teacher at the school I was at… and I just had to quit and find a job or a course.

Well, when I used to go to school, all the ones that couldn’t read properly, it was like, oh you go and sit over there in the corner and just stay there. That’s why I played up at school. Well it wasn’t really worth going to school if they were going to stick you in the corner.

Another student pipes in: I know how you feel cos I was like that!

I got kicked out when I was in Form 3. Yeah, you know that sucks. Cos I wasn’t learning at school because the teachers…if they’re just going to stick you in the corner!

I left school when I was 15. They did the same thing over and over you know. It’s just, here’s a sheet, do that!

I was hardly ever in class because they gave me too many responsibilities. The library, …pedestrian crossing, before school, after school. I had to babysit one of my teacher’s children when I was nine. Every day, just doing dishes in the staff room, doing messages, everything. So I was hardly ever in class so I got behind.

Learning the same thing over and over again. You should have the chance as a teenager to be able to talk to your teacher but there, they don’t even give you a choice to talk. It’s not talking, it’s yelling. They start yelling at you so that makes you raise your voice.

And it gets out of hand. And it all ends up back on your shoulders, the student’s shoulders, not the teacher and yet the teacher was where the problem started.

They recalled that their teachers did not care about them or they put them down.

She was a put downer and yeah all the teachers didn’t care, they go smoke, want to go to lunch, come back from lunch, and they take their time.

A Māori learner who had attended a Kura Kaupapa school eventually lost interest in school and left because they “gave us kapa haka all the time”.

What students did at school

About one-third of the Māori learners who were not successful at school admitted that they had not been ideal pupils at school: “I was the worst student ever”. Maturity may have led to one learner reflecting, “Students need to meet teachers halfway.” They talked about getting smart to the teacher, distracting others and trying to get expelled. It is likely these activities had some relationship to the way that teachers perceived the Māori learners and the lack of encouragement they were given to participate or achieve success. One interviewee talked about drinking and smoking at school and blamed this on being given no boundaries by the teachers. On the other hand, many of the young participants (under 20 years old) in this study saw being able to smoke at intervals and when they finished their work in their foundation programme as an incentive or a reward to turn up each day and participate in their learning. They felt that, unlike at school, their tutors treated them as adults.

Several acknowledged they were good at sport and this became their focus rather than academic pursuits. Others admitted they were too shy to put up their hand to ask the teacher for clarification and thus slipped behind, eventually leaving school. About a quarter of the students said that someone close to them either got very ill or died and so they left school to look after their relative or because absences left big gaps in their learning. A number lamented they left school at 13, 14 or 16 years and the majority of those interviewed stated they had left school with no qualifications. In one group interviewed, several of the students were 15 years old and amongst this group was a 13 year old who had absented himself from school and it appeared that no school would take him back.

Beliefs about teachers

Most students recalled their secondary school teachers in uncomplimentary and negative terms. “Some [teachers] were there for the money and didn’t care about us.” One believed that “if an individual teacher has joy in her work, enthusiasm and interest this leads to a good atmosphere [for learning]”. Interestingly this sentiment about enthusiasm appeared to apply to all of the interviewees’ current tutors, but were largely absent in their teachers from school.

3.6 What are they learning in foundation programmes?

The aims of the foundation or bridging courses are to build literacy, language and numeracy skills that will enable adult Māori learners to move on to further study or to prepare them for positions of employment.

Whether the learning of other skills was intended or not, the students were also learning a lot about themselves, their identity, and social skills.

Study skills

Not all of the courses included numeracy, but literacy and language learning were a key focus. Students expected to improve their reading and writing, and a small number related that they could not read at all before they joined their course. Some of the courses teach the students about learning styles so they can better understand themselves as a learner.

Two groups of students, one group attending a university and the other an iwi-based Māori PTE, had enrolled in the foundation course to learn te reo Māori. Although te reo Māori was a strong feature of the foundation certificate, modules for literacy and numeracy were included.

Literacy skills

Literacy skills include oral language confidence or, according to one of the students, “how to talk better”. Written language involves learning about grammar, spelling, sentences and paragraphs.

We learnt to read and write more.

Having the literacy lady here at the centre is even better because it ensures that we’re doing it the right way.

I’m picking up words that I understand.

Just to upskill my reading, yeah so I know what I’m doing on the job, cos there’s a lot of reading…you get a piece of paper with where all the pipes go and all that, but I couldn’t read it.

Upgrade the learning skills and learn what we missed out there and they teach us here literacy, numeracy and all that stuff and computer work.

When I started here I went down to the two-letter words. And I know how to write a six, seven, and,eight-letter word now, and spelling – she’s [tutor] primo!

We’ve just gone through learning how to construct a bibliography and speed reading, stuff like that, how to plan.

Students were given lots of tips on how to approach writing an essay as well as “learning ways of structuring our essays”. They were also taught “how to double check my work”, an aspect of being a successful learner. This included learning how to use a dictionary and to look up the meaning of words.

Learn to write it down and look up the meaning of it in the dictionary and then try to find where the word came from and what context and then to understand it, so enjoying that.

As their oral and written skills grew they were taught how to present their assignments for sharing, using information technology. Most students had access to computers for some of the time and learnt how to use the library catalogue online or a search engine to research topics they wanted to study. They were encouraged to “do a lot of reading research” as they became more confident with reading.

Alongside the building of confidence in their learners, tutors encouraged them to consider going into further courses and eventually into a degree. “We were getting tips on what to do to get a degree,” related one learner confidently. This comment came from a student who was studying at a traditional provider.

Numeracy

About three-quarters of the students indicated they did not like mathematics and found “mathematics a culture shock but hey you’ve got to learn it’’; or were not good at it (mathematics anxiety). However, they had begun to enjoy it with their tutor from the foundation programme.

The usefulness of mathematics

I need my mathematics because I have my engineering but yeah I need mathematics.

As their confidence and skills in numeracy grew, the students found themselves discovering more about the nature and function of maths

Made us realise mathematics is not just about number.

When you do mathematics here he describes how we use numbers and the numbers are becoming something that’s going to be carried on through life.

This year mathematics has really helped me.

Feelings about maths

I find the activities fun, not just a piece slapped in front of me and then do it.

She was just speaking all this number language that I can’t decode but now I can.

I really enjoy mathematics now – more involved rather than just listening to someone speak (boring).

Maths learnt is a lot more helpful than the ones I learnt at school.

I hate percentages and decimals so everything [in mathematics] is fine apart from that.

Pedagogical strategies for numeracy

This change in attitude towards mathematics is related to the strategies their tutors used to teach them numeracy.

We played games and he would always asks us the answer.

He would give us guidelines on how to use formulas and when to use formulas

to work it out and tell him.

Just always interacting with us.

Made us feel like we can enjoy mathematics rather than be afraid of mathematics.

If we were in trouble he would go into depth; he did not go too fast.

(Student, traditional environment)

We would feel confident asking for help.

[I liked] playing mathematics games and problem solving.

Keep learning new things everyday in mathematics and learning different methods and different strategies.

Well she writes down some sums and talks to me about them, and she also sets some homework for me to do. I’ve only had two lessons with her and most of my sums seem to be right, so I’m very happy. I’ve cottoned on to what she’s telling me. (Mature student)

It’s just that they are teaching us properly, that’s what it comes down to. Explaining it properly. (Mature student)

Two tutors from the same PTE outlined how they taught numeracy, while another tutor talked about focusing on hire purchase agreements.

Mathematics is used with tools we teach them like with music, carpentry, bone carving, because in everyday life whether they realise it, they’re doing a form of numeracy. It’s up to us to make them realise that they are, because in music you’ve got beats, you’re reading, you’re reading music, you’re forming music by doing all these things, mathematically and literacy wise. (Tutor, PTE)

Mine was DIY stuff, being able to use a tape measure, read a tape measure, being able to calculate and things like that. So I think in our environment there is literacy and mathematics going on but it’s done hands-on. It’s not done as a mathematical lesson. They eventually do write it in a book. (Tutor, PTE)

Yeah it was a good exercise doing the budget in class and then having a look at the costing if they wanted to get anything on hire purchase and how long it would be over time and what the interest rate attached to that is. (Tutor, PTE)

A tutor from another PTE also outlined how music became a context for teaching mathematics and literacy.

Music software programs are pretty easy to use and some of the peers are using them quite competently. We do numeracy through music… [Tutor] uses his for half beats and quarter beats and that type of thing so fractions goes into music well. (Tutor, PTE)

This tutor went on to relate how he used “a band of ex-trainees performing up in Auckland this weekend” as a budgeting mathematics exercise about “getting their costings together and that sort of thing”.

Another tutor advised that he gave the students a worksheet and sat amongst them. He was interested in reinforcing their self-developed strategies, where these were evident.

If they don’t know how to do it then I’ll do it with them. I prefer to see how they do the equations before I show them how I do my equation because if they’ve already got a method that works for them then we’ll go with that one. (Tutor, PTE)

The mathematics tutor at one of the traditional providers, whose foundation programme staircases into a teaching degree, informed us that he bases his teaching on Poutama Tau, a Māori-medium programme based on the Early Numeracy Project in primary schools. This programme gives children new strategies to do the four basic operations of mathematics. Most children have only one strategy to do an algorithm and Poutama Tau sets out to change their thinking and encourages them to see other possibilities. Early Numeracy and Poutama Tau have proved effective with non-Māori and Māori teachers and learners respectively.

Cultural skills

Many of the tutors taught the students aspects of Māori tikanga, much of which then became a lived part of the life in and beyond the classroom, as noted earlier. One group had regular kaitahi (shared meals) with the degree students, with each group taking turns to be responsible for the preparation of the meal. They were learning catering and quantities and collaboration with each other, but also the importance of manaakitanga and whanaungatanga.

A number of groups shared that they had learnt about the Treaty of Waitangi from their tutors.

Social skills

During the interviews a number of the younger ones communicated that they had come to the course reluctantly. Many of them had been sent by Work and Income to learn skills that would increase their potential for gaining employment or increase their likelihood of gaining entry to further training or a degree course. All the courses had small numbers, which raised the importance of each learner getting along with others in the class. Tutors encouraged an interdependent environment, whereby each learner helped others in the class and in turn was not afraid to ask others for support.

You learn how to work with different people, that’s choice.

Cooperate with people.

[I learnt to] participate.

Relationships, or getting along with others and respecting each other, were a very important part of being a member of the class whānau.

Be kind to people. Be loving.

Students had the following advice to offer tutors of programmes, based what they saw in their own tutors.

To develop a student-teacher relationship as [tutor] does. She has one with everybody.

We just share each other’s opinions. I think it’s important, so she [tutor] has our support and she listens.

Treat you like family.

Survival and life skills

Those who had been unemployed or were at home prior to commencing their course had to learn some basic life skills and work habits like “getting up early in the morning”, how to be punctual, time management, goal setting, prioritising, and even how to get oneself to the course (arranging transport).

It’s just little and it’s silly but we went to a restaurant [on a class trip] and [tutor] taught us to eat properly and it’s just really little but who else is going to sit there and tell us how we should do it and how else are we going to know, so I thought it was pretty important.(Student, traditional environment)

She always reminds us to have good time management and you know if you’re going to study you can’t just study on an empty brain; you need to go and have some kai (food) and then come back again…she taught me about preparing myself for next year.

Good thing about this course, it’s based on everything, life itself!

In relating their teaching to everyday contexts and to the students’ needs, these skills were incorporated into the literacy and numeracy activities.

Like people come in and tell us, or if you want tenancy stuff like that. They teach us our rights and all that and about drugs and alcohol, the effects it does on you.

We learn about life. Screen printing.

Body building.

And how to make your own CDs and stuff.

Some of the tutors prepared personal or group challenges for the learners from time to time so you could “prepare yourself to go through difficulties and obstacles”. Later as a class they would talk about how the students set about meeting the challenges and in the process share strategies for surviving life in future study or employment. Students were learning about resilience and persistence.

What surprises me is that every day we just learn something completely different. The kaupapa is set for us and sometimes there’s no structure but we learn a lot of life skills and that’s what I think we miss out on in schools, is just general life skills and yeah I’m grateful.

Work/employment skills

Three groups of students interviewed were learning numeracy and literacy as preparation for a trade or a profession. Additional learning areas included effective work habits, computer skills, how to work with children (pre teacher aide or teacher training), learning to find problems in cars, and safety and some basic workshop skills (pre motor trade training). Some of these courses involved going to work experience once a week.

Te reo Māori

Two courses, although called foundation studies, were in fact te reo Māori courses that included two or three modules on study skills or preparing for studying in a tertiary environment. One of these programmes included a course on numeracy.

Māori learners who were learning te reo Māori learnt first through English and then in Māori to improve reading and writing during the course, although there was a strong emphasis on spoken and aural Māori.

Self-respect and the self

Many of the younger learners commented that they had been learning about themselves and “about our characters”. Some of the tutors had spent time at the beginning of the course encouraging students to talk about their early learning experiences and how these influenced their feelings about learning.

A process where you’re trying to find the true feelings…finding yourself like our personal lives.

And they don’t yell at you so you can’t yell back.

One tutor also reflected that the students often look to their family or others for approval when in fact the power is within them. They must learn to like and respect themselves rather than seek it externally from others.

Learning about the self involves being able to articulate and talk about important values in life and what the students themselves value.

Here we’ve got respect for each other.

Need to respect other people and other people’s opinions. I wasn’t like that before. I was like ratty as, all the time. Looked at me wrong I’d get ratty. So yeah teaches you to hold your cool, keep cool and calm, collect and breathe it out.

This also included considering what they wanted to do in the future and learning how to set goals to work towards attainment of what they aspired to. Discussion sometimes led to some of the challenges they might need to be aware of for the future.

An increase in self-confidence, with a resolve to continue in the learning journey, appeared to be a result of learning about oneself, “just have somebody point me in the right direction”, and the course “taught us to have enough confidence and strength in ourselves to progress to the next hill I suppose”.

It’s all about self-motivation…this bridging course I think it enables you to say I can do everything because I know who I am now and I know what’s in front of me.

I was very shy and I never used to talk and at the start when I got up to say something I just cried but now I feel more confident because I know who I am, where I’m coming from and I know where I am heading.

To me that’s what it is about, Māori not having confidence because they’ve always been put down and in this learning environment it just gave them…that strength to overcome being whakama, you know shy… Whereas after learning who they were...they’ve got it all there. I just felt that yes, each one of them will progress and do very well. (Mature student)

Additionally they learnt that life may not have always been as they would have wished but there was no point in laying blame on someone else.

As we were talking I came to realise that people are responsible for themselves and so we don’t take on their baggage although we do help them to carry their bag and I think each of us learnt that.

Sense of responsibility

One of the areas most of the younger students talked about when discussing differences between their current learning context and their school days was the ability to be able to make choices and being trusted by their tutors and supported to make choices. At school they were told what to do and were bound by rules that they felt they had no say over. They felt as though there was no trust and no choices.

Just like school except it’s with family you might as well say, and you get freedom and choice.

A mature student talked about some of the other mature students on her course, several of whom had been in jail. She said they could go back to their old life when they came out but they “make a choice and come to a place which is like this, an awesome place, and change their future”.

Giving students choices helps them to have a sense of responsibility, but so does asking them to do things they may not want to do.

I do little subtle things to engage them. Sometimes they have to work with others they don’t know or like. It gives them a taste of what is to come. (Tutor, traditional environment)

3.7 Barriers to further learning

All the students talked about the positive aspects of their learning environment. However, there were external barriers to their learning that they shared.

Travel

Some of the learners expressed that travelling to their learning site was a barrier. Several of the small-town PTEs had their own vans that they used to collect the students each day. But one of the CEOs advised that funding was running out for this venture.

The iwi provider CEO said they used to provide transport for trainees but there was no longer funding for this. In the smaller centres some students walked or came on the bus, a few drove or shared transport with another student and some were dropped off by whānau. This could be problematic if the person they were dependent on for their ride was sick or on holiday.

One student commented that she found it hard to get to the PTE.

Cos petrol costs, half the time I’m on empty, I’m thinking am I going to make it the next day? I’m worried about petrol all the time. I daren’t go out at weekends, cos I’m worried about saving petrol.

When one of her fellow peers asked her if she had applied for the petrol allowance, she replied they didn’t give much, only $17 a fortnight. One of the other students commented that “$17 ain’t gonna give you a week’s gas; that’s only a day”.

Fees

Money was a barrier for many students. Although the majority of courses were free, or very low ($100 in the case of one traditional provider), there was a range of fees among the providers. The traditional providers charged $500 and $1,500 respectively, and one of the PTEs charged $2,900.

It’s free, everything’s free.

At school they always hassle my parents about paying school fees and it’s supposed to be free.

Even if their course was free, cost was seen as a barrier for many wanting to continue on to further training courses that charged fees.

No [I wouldn’t feel confident enough to go to polytech] you’re just looking at a big student loan. (Student, PTE)

You get heaps of money [from a student loan] but you’ve got to pay that back.

I’m not going to get a student loan because those are hard to pay back because you’ve got interest and all those other things.

I don’t want no damn stupid loan following me till I die!

In contrast to the above comments, a recent study suggests that in New Zealand those in the lower socio-economic classes are not necessarily deterred from entering tertiary education because of a fear of incurring student debt (Kemp et al., 2007). Further, neither gender nor ethnicity appears to be a deterrent to taking out a student loan. This finding is contrary to results from the United Kingdom.

Whānau support

More of the younger students indicated that they had no support outside the course. Some related that their family did not care about them or their study.

I don’t think I get much support from home; from my boyfriend I do…but from everyone else it’s almost like I’m doing a foundation course and it’s not that important.

My family don’t interact with me. This is my time away from them.

Several of the tutors stated that some of the younger students had been kicked out from home, had drugs or alcoholism in the family and were left to fend for themselves. One CEO of a PTE expressed a concern about several students who were homeless and said that she wished her PTE was able to provide hostel accommodation. Another tutor had taken in one of the young female students as a boarder because she had nowhere to live.

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