Vaughan Rapatahana

“My poetry and my education writing flow from different awa…

One delta where they occasionally mingle is when I read my own toikupu in a class (or more frequently, when I read a student’s work to the class).

I’m a poet, writer and the author of teaching resources on poetry, as well as several bilingual te reo Māori/English language resources. I’ve taught in schools in Aotearoa, and also spent many years teaching overseas. I’ve taught in Kura Kaupapa and mainstream schools and trained and worked extensively both for Special Education (as it was called at the time) and as a Resource Teacher: Learning and Behavior. All of this helps considerably with writing classroom resources. I now also visit schools through the excellent Read NZ Te Pou Muramura Writers in Schools programme, so am further involved in classroom experiences and expectations. 

It’s vitally important for students to be able to think about and write poetry, it’s a key activity — creating, performing, and listening to it. Poetry can be used to express emotions, beliefs, and describe experiences in unhindered ways – especially if students are presented with different examples of poems that show this. In Expand your Mind with Poetry, a critical aspect of the resource is the example poems that demonstrate this to students before helping them build their own skills.

Though they come from those two different awa, there is a symbiosis between my own creative work and my education resource writing. Hokē Te Whanokē  — Bod the Odd, a story about embracing difference, written as a bilingual Māori/English resource is a good example. As is the forthcoming Te Whakaako Toikupu, a bilingual poetry teaching resource. This book brings together examples of original poems written in te reo Māori, and so includes my own poems, such as tahi kupu anake.

Making an educational resource is a co-operative process. Often the work is in response to a need the publisher has discovered. The author creates it in conversation and other creators, designers and proofreaders are key to coming up with a fine finished product. 

Wherever I’ve taught in the world, I’ve seen examples of the connection local writers can offer students. When I worked in Hong Kong, I chose poetry and short stories written by local and indigenous authors because students do clearly relate to writing where they can see, feel, and share their own experiences. But they also benefit from exposure to books from viewpoints, and about experiences, other than their own. Especially if their society is made up of several or many cultures. 

When I came to write Poetry in Multicultural Oceania, the kaupapa of that resource meant I went out to poets from different cultural and language groups here and overseas to seek poems. Aotearoa New Zealand is an increasingly multicultural country and will continue to be from now on. Even more reason for students of all ages and backgrounds to read and relate to work created by a range of writers — often from quite divergent stances — with empathy.  I also attempt to include new voices in my resources. In this way, students encounter different — often younger — perspectives.

As for feedback from students, when I go into schools, I see and hear students of all ages really getting into the creation of their own poetry and being prepared to stand up and share it with expression — this is feedback enough!“

Vaughan Rapatahana is a poet, writer, and author of works in a range of genre, including poetry and bilingual teaching resources.