NZ's first Samoa bilingual primary class celebrates 30 years

Transcript

NZ's first Samoa bilingual primary class celebrates 30 years Photo: Olivia Taouma

OLIVIA TAOUMA:  What we wanted to do as mothers of children that have come through the Mua I Malae, the Samoan Bilingual Unit at Richmond Road,  past and present students, we really wanted to take a moment to capture all the history and really historical significant NZ history and Samoan history that has occurred over the last 30 years but we didn't want it to be about the what and factual, we wanted it to be about the why and about all the stories of all the people who came through.

SARA VUI-TALITU: You know in those pioneer days, what exactly was the struggle like back then?

OT: Well there wasn't anything there in the beginning and it was quite, that school, for its day and age, was such a forward thinking  school under the principalship of Jim Laughton, one of the few Maori principals of his time. He was quite passionate about culture and bilingualism and so in 1986 it was him and a whole group of the Pacific community, one of those leaders being my own father and my mother who were very involved with the Aoga Faasamoa which had started up previously at a pre-school of Samoan bilingual education and they really wanted to look at how they could support Samoan bilingualism into primary schools because it had never happened and the aoga faasamoa had just started a couple of years earlier in the pre-school education area but there wasn't anywhere for these students to go after and they'd only just opened the previous year the  kohunga reo and the Te Whānau Whariki which is the Maori Primary school unit at the school. And so they were very forward thinking in this way in their day and age in the 1980s and 1986 and it was a very interesting time. Salu Laurenson was the first teacher in there before Mr Markero and a whole lot of other teachers came up and through there.  

SVT:   So what do you think is the impact on some of these students who have now grown?

OT: Well it 's really interesting when you talk to some of the ex students who have come through there and you see that one of the things I have experienced as a secondary school teacher and a tertiary institute teacher is the fact that a lot of our young people really struggle in New Zealand with their identity. They struggle culturally and they struggle in the area of urbanisation and Westernisation of where they come from and who they are. And so the biggest thing I get  is when you talk to these students who have come up through these Samoan bilingual education language programmes that they are so at home and confident about who they are that it is not an issue for them when they get to the higher education of high schools and in tertiary institutes. That they can really focus on other aspects of their education and learning because they don't have that kind of inconfidence in themselves and their identity; that they really bloom and are confident learners in all aspects when they grow up.