Wairua and the relationship it has with learning te reo ... - Clear Net

Literature Review, Mainstream:
The mainstream compulsory sector of the New Zealand education
system encourages student development mentally and physically through
academic challenge and sporting activity with student spiritual 12
development sidelined in curriculum documents and tokenism. The New
Zealand Curriculum Framework document states it delivers a “balanced
education” (see Appendix 3), however reference to the spiritual is relegated
to introductory and explanatory sections rather than within the body of any
of the documents (see Appendix 4). This lack of the spiritual in policy
documentation indicates that mainstream New Zealand society “tends to
concentrate on the material and dismiss the spiritual, or at least hope that it
will look after itself” (Patterson 1992:98)(Stewart 1992:121) this is
subsequently reflected in our mainstream education system.
An incorporation of the spiritual from a Māori perspective within
mainstream learning institutions is therefore limited. Māori are given
‘permission’ to karakia and thereby incorporate an element of the spiritual
within an educational environment as an ‘add on’ to formalities (Raerino
1999:49). However within education spirituality has become largely exiled
from the institution. An exploration of spirituality does occur within
mainstream tertiary institutions, but such investigations are largely through
an exercising of the intellect. A personalised experiential connection to
spirituality is not developed, nor an experienced relationship with the
deeper parts of the culture. Distance is still retained from the inner self. As
Royal argues, perhaps “it is now time for us Māori to address issues
concerning our own spirituality in a Māori way” (Royal 1998b:1).
Most scholars researching Māori focus on negative statistics such as
the lack of success in the mainstream dominated system for students of the
Māori language. The need to “look for positive directions for change…by
locating successful programme models” (Cooper 2002)(Christensen
1993:8)(Jacques 1991:362) is advocated. Much time and energy has been
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Spiritual: “the higher qualities of the mind: concerned with or based on the spirit” (Sykes
1976:1106).
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