“We are taking a strengths-based approach. So that teachers can go from where they are now to where they want to be.” AS EVERY CHILD knows, learning to read means first cracking a code. The next challenge is reading to learn – when you move from just identifying the words to extracting deeper comprehension.

It never pays to underestimate the power of determination. When Patricia (Trish) Johnston (Ngaiterangi, Ngāti Pikiao) arrived to take up the position as Professor of Postgraduate Studies and Research at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi she asked about basic research at the Wānanga and was told by one staff member it was something they didn’t do.

This internship project contributes to a project exploring Mātauranga Māori further in terms of volcanic hazards. The research will assist to develop an authoritative compilation of scholarly, heritage and contemporary kōrero (narratives) that inculcate conceptual/theoretical forms of Ngāti Rangi, other hapū and iwi distinctive epistemology. The intern Hona Black will help bring together oral and written, published and unpublished evidence to support hapū knowledge sources connected to their environment, people, wāhi tapu and landmarks, to support the foundations of formative intellectual pursuits. Dr Jonathan Proctor is the supervisor.

Long lead times from research to curriculum materials are hardly a new frustration. But with materials sometimes lagging discovery by 20 years for Māori-medium teachers the delay is acute. They face challenges in low rates of te reo Māori literacy growth, and have few resources in non-language subjects or in materials reflecting a Māori world view. All of which, says Jenny Lee, made the knowledge exchange project, Uku, an ideal candidate for creating a new digital curriculum resource that her team at Rautaki Ltd, through Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, is on track to deliver at the end of November 2006.

Project purpose: The importance of producing more Māori doctoral and other postgraduate qualification completions, for Māoridom and New Zealand society generally is well understood – Ngā Pae o Te Māramatanga set specific goals towards it, the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative and Ako Aotearoa have funded research about it, and the Tertiary Education Commission provides equity weighting to encourage it amongst Tertiary Education Organisations. Despite this interest and support, there are still no clear, easily accessible guidelines for supervising Māori postgraduate students for Māori and non-Māori supervisors to draw on.

“We want our children to go out from school confident of who they are, where they come from and who they represent.” “It’s important the stories people tell about themselves,” Hāromi Williams says. At her office at Tāneatua near the Urewera, where she is Executive Manager of the Tūhoe Education Authority (TEA), she explains it’s a lesson she first learned forcibly when teaching adult migrant students in Sydney’s western suburbs learning English as a second language.

“Teachers enter the profession because they want to make a difference. This approach helps them do that.” MORE THAN 30 years ago when Russell Bishop first started teaching at Mana College in Porirua, he was struck by a single question: Why did so many Māori students start out well but still fail as they went through school?

How do birds navigate vast oceans, correcting themselves when blown off-course? The inner compass possessed by some animals is an enigma that has absorbed Professor Michael Walker, Joint Director Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, for many years. His breakthrough in extracting magnetite – the iron mineral also known as lodestone – from yellowfin tuna established a physical basis for this creature’s ability to detect the Earth’s magnetic field and was published in Science magazine in 1984. And, in November 2007, Science again gave extensive coverage to Michael’s work, saying his further research looked close to finally clinching magnetite’s crucial role in animal navigation.

For more then a generation scientists have known that life proliferates more rapidly near the equator. The problem was that up until recently, no one knew why this was so. And in 2006 when Dr Shane Wright solved the riddle in a Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga research project, the scientific world applauded.

Like all research centres, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga pursues research excellence through academic communities. But our brief also extends outwards – aiming to also benefit many other communities as widely as possible. In doing this, the Knowledge Exchange programme is a unique feature of the Centre, and an essential part of achieving social transformation.