🐙 Rose Pere
Who Was She?
Dr Rose Te Arikitanga Pere (Tūhoe, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui) was a pioneering Māori educator, healer, and scholar whose work brought ancient Māori wisdom into dialogue with contemporary education and health practice. Her Te Wheke model stands alongside Mason Durie's Te Whare Tapa Whā as one of the definitive frameworks for Māori holistic wellbeing.
A deeply spiritual thinker, Pere drew on traditional Māori cosmology, tikanga, and healing knowledge to argue that Western educational models were incomplete — that they addressed only part of what it means to be human, and that reconnecting with Māori knowledge systems was not nostalgic but urgently necessary.
🌿 A Life of Mana
Rose Pere received an honorary doctorate from the University of Auckland. She was known throughout Tūhoe and beyond as a tohunga — a knowledge keeper. Her passing in 2020 was deeply felt across Aotearoa.
Te Wheke — The Octopus Model
Pere's Te Wheke model uses the octopus as a metaphor for holistic wellbeing. The octopus head represents the whānau (collective), while the eight tentacles represent eight dimensions that must all be healthy for the family and individual to flourish:
- Waiora — Total wellbeing of individual and family; the spiritual dimension of all life
- Hinengaro — Thoughts and feelings; mental and emotional health
- Taha Tinana — Physical health and body
- Whatumanawa — The open and healthy expression of emotion; the heart
- Mana Ake — Unique personhood; individual identity developed from cultural context
- Mauri — The life force; that which gives vitality and binds all things together
- Hā A Koro Mā, A Kui Mā — The breath of life from ancestors; whakapapa and heritage
- Taha Wairua — The spiritual dimension; connection beyond the physical world
Key Contributions
- Te Wheke Model (1988/1991) — An eight-dimensional framework for Māori holistic wellbeing, centring whānau as the primary unit of identity and health.
- Ancient Māori Wisdom in Modern Education — Argued that traditional Māori knowledge systems — cosmology, healing, relational ethics — contained sophisticated understandings of human development that Western education discarded at great cost.
- Collective Identity — Emphasised the whānau (family collective) rather than the individual as the unit of analysis for wellbeing and education — a profound challenge to individualist Western educational frameworks.
- Mauri as Educational Principle — The concept of mauri (life force) as something that can be built or diminished by educational environments — used by schools to evaluate whether their culture and practices are life-giving or depleting for Māori students.
Classroom Implications
- Consider the mauri of your classroom: does it give life, or drain it? Students — particularly Māori students — sense environments that diminish them. Ask honestly which yours is.
- Whatumanawa (emotional expression) is a dimension of health — not a distraction from learning. Classrooms that suppress emotional expression suppress a part of the student.
- Whakapapa (heritage/ancestry) as curriculum: students who know where they come from — whose they are — have a stronger foundation for learning. Build this into your practice.
- Recognise the whānau as the unit of wellbeing. What happens in the whānau arrives with the student each day. Pastoral care that ignores the family context is incomplete.
Academic References
- Pere, R.T. (1991). Te Wheke: A Celebration of Infinite Wisdom. Ao Ako Global Learning. · Google Scholar ↗
- Pere, R.T. (1982). Ako: Concepts and Learning in the Māori Tradition. University of Waikato. Working Paper No. 17. · Google Scholar ↗
- Durie, M. (1994). Whaiora: Māori Health Development. Oxford University Press. Companion framework. · Google Scholar ↗
- Barlow, C. (1991). Tikanga Whakaaro: Key Concepts in Māori Culture. Oxford University Press. Cultural foundations. · Google Scholar ↗