Schoolchildren spend week in Maori pa

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32425, 12 October 1970, Page 7

Schoolchildren spend week in Maori pa

(By

ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE)

In an unusual experiment In social studies, 61 Standard 4 children from Porlrua East School, near Wellington, recently spent a week living in a North Island pa, learning at first hand about the habits and customs of the Maori race. The idea was conceived by one of their teachers, Mrs Sarah Johns, herself a Maori. Mrs Johns was brought up at the Waitahanui pa, about 10 miles south of Taupo, where her mother still lives. It was here that the children, accompanied by two teachers, two student teachers, and five mothers, stayed. Mrs Johns explained the project: “It all revolves round the social study programme, in which the children learn about other people and how they organise themselves. "They are learning the habits and customs of Maoridom by actually living among the people of Waitahanui.” About 50 Maoris live in the Waitahanui district, in individual homes in the vicinity of their meeting house, where the visitors slept, and their hall, which was used for living and eating purposes. READILY ACCEPTED I visited the Porirua children at the pa and found the local residents had accepted the visitors with enthusiasm. They were delighted to answer the many questions the children had, and their own children were more than

ready to join in games with the visitors. The average age of the Porirua school children was 10. Among them were six Maori children, only one of whom had lived in a pa. During the week, the children learned to live, work, / share and play together, as s well as observing how other i. people lived. Activities inj eluded physical education, t nature study, music, social i, studies and language. TOURISM Visits were made to places of interest in Taupo, so the children could observe the ; people there for aspects pej culiar to a tourist community. They visited an hotel, a ' pig farm, a sawmill, a hydro- ' electric power scheme, and the Wairakei geothermal , project. The programme was deJ signed to develop the self- * confidence, self-reliance, hidden abilities, and self-con-cepts of the children, Mrs ' Johns said. Mothers with the party did : the cooking, but the children were responsible for all the other jobs. When I visited them, several were writing letters home. None had suffered from homesickness. The other teacher with the I group. Miss Rosana Bouleris, was Greek. She said she had been interested to note that : many Maori customs were similar to those of her own people.