9 am Superheroes
It’s just after 9 am and I am sitting at my computer, alone. The sun shining through the picture window that I sit in front of so that I look fabulous on Zoom. But I don’t need to look fabulous this morning because it is just me, my doggo Sammy, and a day to reflect on the 9 am Superhero group.
For the last 17 days, the 9 am Superhero group has met to pull together work from a much larger steering group into an application to submit the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. Sounds a bit boring when you say it like that. Let me convince you how it is anything but boring…
All initial teacher education (ITE) providers in Aotearoa need to gain programme reapproval due to the release of the Ngā Tikananga Matatika mō to Haepapa Ngaiotanga me ngā Paerewa mō to Umanga Whakaakorranga (Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession). Rather than simply seeking reapproval of the current programme, the institution for whom I work decided to reimagine ITE. We determined to develop a programme that is authentically te tiriti o Waitangi led, where power imbalances in education are addressed from within the heart of the programme. A programme that is mana enhancing for all — kaiako pitomata (our new name for student teachers which speaks to the emerging teacher) and pou ako (our new name for lecturers which speaks to the support role and reciprocal relationship). The complete steering group for this project has been working together for nearly a year. In the last several months, we broke into smaller sub-groups and worked on parts of the project consulting with others and checking in to make sure we were staying true to the guiding tūāpapa (foundational agreement of the principles of how we wanted to work and the outcome we were seeking).
All of this mahi needed to be brought together into one cohesive document to submit to the teaching council — enter the Documentation Superheroes Group. Now you might be thinking the words documentation and superheroes do not fit in the same sentence and in fact, the juxtaposition of such terminology is jarring. However, I can tell you that I have never felt more part of a team, more valued in what I had to bring, or more in flow than I have over the last 17 days — I felt like a superhero.
Each day our team would meet at 9 am to check-in and prioritise work for the day. We had a list and we were determined to check it off. If one of us was struggling to complete a section we would all jump in together to offer feedback and support. The three of us determined that weekends would be put on hold and all three of us had very supportive families to hold the fort so to speak.
Although we were a small group of three, we had connections to the wider group, we knew the experts in certain areas and we could draw on their strengths. Particularly, the strength of Pania in helping us to grasp what it is to actually be te tiriti led, and although we are not there yet, we are much further down the road due to her strength and taonga (treasure) of te reo Māori. The theme that developed as we worked together was whāriki (weaving) and we wove knowledge and people and diagrams and ITE requirements and research and te tiriti and te reo Māori and a vision for the future, into the documentation. We also wove friendship.
As a group entering each other's houses every day via Zoom, we came to know daily rhythms. The cups of tea brought by family, children coming and going, life’s frustrations and fantastic happenings outside of the documentation. We laughed together and we learned that one of our group is a verbal processor (leaving Zoom unmuted you learn all sorts of things). We cried together (okay fine, they supported me while I cried). One of our group kept us all warm (literally) and feeling very loved with her knitting. And although I have only been in the same physical room once with these two wonderful women (and that was before I even knew them), I now count them as friends. Wonderful mana enhancing, intellectually stretching, authentic, and very human friends.
So my friends, here is my weaving of us and our journey. I hope we will have the opportunity to keep adding to it.
