Not without consequence: Tangata Whenua Tiriti educators in tertiary learning spaces

Tiriti o Waitangi education is not without consequence. The ākonga | learner experience is layered, with (at least) ethnicity, gender and age contributing to the positionality of understanding the content. It is important to recognise that contemporary facilitation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi education in tertiary learning spaces as happened in variety of ways. Facilitation in a two day workshop has been a common experience, while in an Otago Polytechnic academic programme, this has been layered across several weeks focusing on how the programme facilitates content as explicit, integrated and applied. The focus of this Master's of Professional Practice thesis comes from an educator’s experience of teaching the content as the sole facilitator in the room. It also arose from observing and participating in education with two facilitators in the room. A Kaupapa Māori approach underpins the research, which focuses on good practice for Tiriti facilitators in tertiary learning spaces. Whakawhiti kōrero | sparkling discussions align with a semi-structured style of participatory interviews. Kānohi ki te kanohi | face to face interviews and online interviews were held, with a small group of experienced tertiary educators within Aotearoa New Zealand. Arts-based research intertwines a response to both method and methodology approaches and pūrākau weaves with autoethnography and poetic inquiry as both analysis and response. For the participants and the researcher, praxis and practices weave together words and wairua, with an invitation to the reader to engage in an indigenous analysis process that evolves in reaction to writing the findings. The findings are a result of the series of interviews focusing on gender and ethnicity, which emphasise that for many tangata whenua Tiriti educators, facilitation of Tiriti o Waitangi content with two facilitators in the room, is good practice, and is not without consequence. Mahia te Mahi: Hard Head Heard Heart Narratives of HeaRT[d] mahi the hard mahi of challenge and conflict the heart mahi of remembering and decolonising the head mahi recognising those who have gone before and raised up the profile for tangata whenua to work in this space. the heart mahi of my tupuna, the ancestors the head mahi of skilled educators the hard mahi of resilience in survival the heard mahi of education, of liberation, of conscientisation: mahia te mahi it is not without consequence.