📖 Unit Overview
A comprehensive 6-8 lesson journey exploring Māori worldviews, values, and knowledge systems as the foundation for all learning. This unit establishes cultural identity and understanding of Te Ao Māori as a valid and essential knowledge system.
- Year Levels: Years 7–8
- Duration: 6-8 lessons (20-25 hours)
- Learning Areas: Social Studies, Te Reo Māori, The Arts
🌱 Growing Identity
Students reflect on their own identity and cultural positioning, developing awareness of diverse worldviews and knowledge systems.
📋 Kaiako Planning Snapshot
🎯 Ngā Whāinga Akoranga — Learning Intentions
By the end of this unit, students will:
- Articulate their own identity and cultural positioning using whakapapa language.
- Explain Mātauranga Māori as a valid and sophisticated knowledge system.
- Analyse Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a living document with contemporary relevance.
- Apply te ao Māori values (manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, kaitiakitanga) to real-world contexts.
✅ Paearu Angitu — Success Criteria
- I can describe my whakapapa connections and explain why place matters to identity.
- I can explain at least two ways Mātauranga Māori differs from and complements Western science.
- I can use evidence from Te Tiriti to support a claim about partnership or historical agency.
🤝 Differentiation & Inclusion
- Entry: Focus on Lessons 1–2 (whakapapa and identity). Use scaffold cards for key vocabulary. Accept oral responses for identity portfolio evidence.
- On-level: Complete the full 5-lesson sequence. Produce a multimedia identity portfolio and a community sprint proposal.
- Extension: Research a specific iwi's application of Mātauranga Māori to a contemporary challenge (climate, health, governance) and present findings with citations.
- ESOL / ELL learners: Provide visual whakapapa maps and glossaries. Allow students to build identity pepeha using their own cultural heritage — the whakapapa concept translates cross-culturally. Bilingual buddy pairs where available.
- Neurodiverse learners / ADHD: Post lesson purposes visibly at the start of each session. Use the Identity Portfolio as a running visual anchor. UDL: accept audio, video, or drawn responses alongside written work. Break the community sprint into weekly micro-milestones.
📋 Curriculum Alignment
🌏 Social Studies / Tikanga-ā-Iwi
Understand how leadership, tikanga, and rangatiratanga shape communities.
Understand how cultural practices reflect deep tribal and national identities.
🌿 Te Reo Māori
Communicate information and ideas through pepeha and whakataukī.
📖 Lesson Sequence
1. Whakapapa & Identity
Explore personal connections to whānau, place, and knowledge traditions.
Lesson 32. Traditional Knowledge
Engage with Mātauranga Māori as a foundational knowledge system.
Lesson 4-53. Haka & Expression
Analyse the deep meanings carved into performance, arts, and storytelling.
Lesson 64. Te Tiriti Partnership
Investigate Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a living document of agency and leadership.
Lesson 7-85. Contemporary Applications
Apply Mātauranga Māori to modern challenges like climate and civil equity.
📊 Aromatawai
Identity Portfolio
A multimedia collection of whakapapa maps, interviews, and cultural reflections.
Community Sprint
A project-based proposal applying cultural knowledge to a local community issue.
📎 Resources
Treaty of Waitangi Analysis
Critical analysis framework for Te Tiriti principles.
Dawn Raids Impact
Historical study of state intervention and community resilience.
📊 Assessment
Formative — understanding builds across the unit: whakapapa mapping and identity (L1), a mātauranga-and-Western comparison (L2), and using Te Tiriti as evidence for a claim about partnership (L4). Reflections and draft work show progress against the success criteria.
Summative — the two products from this unit's assessment framework: a multimedia collection of whakapapa maps, interviews, and cultural reflections; and a project-based proposal applying cultural knowledge to a local community issue. Assess depth of connection, use of evidence, and respectful engagement with tikanga.
🔗 Unit Progression & Next Steps
The unit begins with identity and widens to Te Tiriti and living tradition:
- 📖 Lesson 1: Ko Wai Au? — Explore whakapapa and pepeha as the foundation of identity and belonging.
- 📖 Lesson 2: Mātauranga Māori — Traditional Knowledge Systems — Investigate how mātauranga differs from and complements Western science.
- 📖 Lesson 3: Haka & Cultural Expression — Examine haka as living transmission of values and history.
- 📖 Lesson 4: Te Tiriti o Waitangi — Analyse Te Tiriti and use it as evidence on partnership and historical agency.
- 📖 Lesson 5: Traditional Arts & Storytelling — Explore how arts and pūrākau carry mātauranga across generations.
The unit feeds directly into the two assessment products — the whakapapa collection and the community-issue proposal.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ I can describe my whakapapa connections and explain why place matters to identity.
- ✅ I can explain at least two ways Mātauranga Māori differs from and complements Western science.
- ✅ I can use evidence from Te Tiriti to support a claim about partnership or historical agency.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Entry-level learners: Provide a whakapapa-mapping template and sentence starters; begin from the student's own connections to place and people.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach key kupu (whakapapa, mātauranga, tikanga, rangatiratanga) with visuals; pair the Te Tiriti text with a plain-language summary; allow home-language reflection.
Accelerated learners: Compare a mātauranga Māori and a Western scientific explanation of the same phenomenon and evaluate each; extend the community proposal with researched evidence.
Neurodiverse / Inclusion: Offer choice in how identity and culture are expressed (map, record, or present); keep tasks in predictable stages; allow quiet processing time before sharing.
Pedagogical Foundations | Ngā Tūāpou Akoranga
Ao Māori is not a cultural supplement to a Western curriculum — it is a distinct epistemological framework with its own knowledge traditions, pedagogies, and relational ethics. Three researchers whose work shows why these principles cannot be reduced to cultural decoration.
→ Explore all theorists at Te Whare Ako — Teaching Theory