Aro-Mind

In 2015, I have been involved an initiative whose focus and goal is the revitalisation of the Te Reo Māori in Hauraki. It has been interesting for me to return to the world of Māori language revitalisation, one which has taught me a number of things - chief among them being a renewed respect for teachers of the Māori language. Teaching a language is an art form and just because one can speak the language does not necessarily mean that one can teach the language.  I'm a good example of this fact. So, great is a my mihi to those Māori language teachers out there. There are those who, like me, speak the language but are not necessarily involved in Māori language revitalisation. With the recent move to establish a new Māori language governance entity, my vote is for those resources to go into the hands who are actually attending to the tasks of revitalisation, not those merely who speak it now and then. I agree with Tīmoti Kāretu when he says don't give the resour...

Humans are storytelling creatures. All day, every day we tell ourselves stories. We live awash in stories. Whether our own private stories bubbling away in our minds or advertising billboards, we live our lives 'in story'. And stories influence deeply our experience of the world and our interpretation of it. Stories influence us powerfully, so much so that the story we hold about the world becomes our world. In this sense, we create our own world through the stories we tell ourselves.