‘It makes me want to come to school’
Nga toi Maori carving class, Thursday, 10am. Manawatu College in Foxton.
‘‘We do things with aroha’’, teacher Glenn Mitchell explains. Each whakairo carving class starts and closes with a karakia and hongis, and is instilled with tikanga, purakau (traditional stories), and te reo.
This reporter is invited to join the karakia circle. No one flinches at her terrible hongis, which improve after a few cringeworthy false starts and head butts.
The school introduced the whakairo classes at the beginning of the year, after a group of teachers and pupils began practicing the craft at lunchtimes.
Demand from girls wanting to take part spurred a junior nga toi (crafts) class, which began midyear, and a senior nga toi class will be added next year. Nga toi includes bone and pounamu carving, flax weaving, and other arts. Both are NCEA subjects.
Principal Bruce McIntyre says the enthusiasm has spread to wider engagement at school and better confidence.
Year 11 whakairo pupil Danyel Jones says getting to know classmates and supporters from the community has been good.
‘‘It makes me want to come to school ‘cause I want to finish my board, and it gives me a better understanding of where I come from, from my Maori side.’’
Year 11 pupil Paora Tamihana hopes to one day pass the knowledge on.
‘‘Maori carving is used to tell stories and to keep stories ... that’s what the carving’s for.’’
Mentoring plays a big part of the classes’ success, with Mitchell joined by Foxton carver Ivan Ngarotata, and the pair firmly guiding the class and encouraging individual strengths.
The school has been supported by Gisborne Boys’ High, which won a Prime Minister’s Excellence Award for a pioneering whakairo class last year, and shared knowledge with Mitchell early on.
Pou carvings gifted by the Gisborne students hang in the corridors outside the Manawatu College workshop.
‘‘They are at the stage where they are adding a lot of details to their carvings, so it’s really good because the students come out and see the details in these,’’ Mitchell says as a boy pops out to check the walls.
KAROLINE TUCKEY