Cultures, Unity and Professional Development (CUPD)

Abstract

The ideas presented in this paper are grounded on my experience as a teacher of indigenous Māori and migrant students over more than a decade. My doctoral research, in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), in which I addressed the nitty-gritty details or politics of a critical practice for teaching and learning the dominant language in secondary schools in Aotearoa-New Zealand, grounds the reflections too. As well, the speculations are grounded in my duty and service to my own whānau/extended family and hapū/group of families. Thus, I shall focus the discussion on the complex, intricate and imbalanced relationship between the prevailing discourse of Western science/knowledge and the wisdom of indigenous Māori people. The article is organized as follows: To begin, I shall introduce several of the intertwining relationships and local realities that ground the concept or framework I shall call Cultures, Unity and Professional Development or CUPD. Next I shall present ideas to understand Mātauranga Māori/Māori language and culture and then I shall discuss briefly Western science or the business of science. Also in this section I shall attempt to discuss the ambiguities, tensions, or complexities related to learning and teaching Māori language and culture. In the final section of the paper, I shall move the discussion back to the realm of pedagogy and curricula. In these ways, I hope to deepen and broaden the reader’s understanding of the relationship between learning and teaching Western science and indigenous Māori knowledge in the university. Let me stress that I do not speak on behalf of the international indigenous communities. For Tangata Whenua/the first people of the land, it is impossible to talk about a concept called Cultures, Unity and Professional Development (CUPD) without understanding that their land, body, spirit, language and culture have been settled and re-settled by English-speaking settlers from the United Kingdom. Followed by a better effort to talk with the New Zealand European/Pākehā people they have been brought up with, about what it is like to be re-settled by them. So, that is what I am going discuss indigenous Māori and New Zealand European/Pākehā ways of thinking and acting.