[Kaiako playing the guitar with a group of tamariki and a kaiako singing along]

[Tumuaki, Erin, talking to camera]

Erin Robertson: It’s definitely a role for a leader to be often training people into the process of writing paki ako or learning stories, but I find that we can sometimes become almost quite introverted in the way that we do that because people will work on their non-contact on their own and found that we had a bit of a gap, at one point in our team.

The sort of discussion that needed to happen to really get into the depth of learning was just, that part was being missed. People were thinking about it on their own but we found that it was only really through group discussion and sharing of ideas that people left the surface level learning and could get really deep into that and what they were needing where the gap was, was having a facilitator for that sort of professional discussion.

What we see from that, often when we’ve had those discussions is the evolution of ourselves and our kaiako in our own understandings of learning.

We’re creating working theories around our tamariki’s working theories, and from that I guess we are all experiencing ako in the way of that being reciprocal learning. My learning, while watching kaiako having learning, about the tamariki learning, definitely gets people to a much deeper level and I think probably they will enter into working with their tamariki in a different way, from having the discussions and are more likely then to be having discussions with each other as learning is occurring. But again, there is a requirement for a professional leader on the floor.

I think to be generating, or questioning, and wondering, and enquiring into the learning that’s going on, to model that for kaiako. The facilitation of that discussion is the thing that makes the fruit come from that beautiful discussion as well. So, I think facilitation and modelling of that wondering is probably the keys for a leader.