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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 19. May 29 1975

A Pakeha Problem?

A Pakeha Problem?

Ehika!

How convenient for the students of first year Maori to have a bad lecturer to blame for their dropping out, their failure to learn very much. I agree that Rua would win no prizes for his lectures, but then who would? And remember that it is his first year too.

But all this is off the point. Last year in Peter McLean, students of Maori had perhaps the most pleasant, efficient, easy to follow, relevant teacher in the whole university. Yet what did he achieve in terms of pass rates, or more important, in terms of the number of students who were markedly more fluent at the end of the year? Bugger all.

This is the point, then, that the lecturer is by and large irrelevant. It's the students attitude and his kaha that counts. There's too many pakehas, purerehua (moths) they have been called, who came on strong about how they were sympathetic to Maoritanga, but they don't get stuck in and learn, practise, learn, practise and stick to it. They fly into the light but rather than stay and do the work, they bumble off to some other attraction. There is a proverb from the Kahungunu area: "Kav e hoki i te waewae tutuki: a apa ano i te upoko pakaru."

"Don't turn back because of stumbling feet, but only if your head gets broken."

Na Maitai