Opinion: ‘Meaningful’ experience at Kura Reo

Shannon at her first Kura Reo. From left Solita Turner, Trent Harris, Shannon Mihaere, Josie Butcher and Nathan Harris, at Makirikiri Marae last year.

By Shannon Mihaere

For the second year in a row, I made the trip to Dannevirke for the Rangitāne Kura Reo. Last year was the first time I attended a Kura Reo. I had heard how difficult Kura Reo could be as a beginner and had braced myself to feel rather out of my depth. Kura Reo are designed to challenge you, push your limits and demolish any concept of the comfort zone. But it’s done in a manageable way for you, and with so much aroha.

At that time I sat in the beginners’ group, an āhuru mōwai (safe haven) that settled my nerves about not being able to string a sentence together. In this classroom, we were able to be bilingual while everywhere else in the Kura Reo is reserved for te reo Māori only. My father, a 65-year-old kaumātua, sat within a similar beginners’ rōpū for kaumātua learners. We each had a fabulous time. In my group I was introduced to whanaunga I had never met before, taken to historical sites of significance to Rangitāne and met many people of Dannevirke who had committed to learning te reo. It lit a fire in my puku to get better at te reo Māori.

That very next week I enrolled at Te Wananga Takiura in Auckland, a one-year full immersion te reo Māori course where you spend every day speaking and learning te reo.

Shannon Mihaere and fellow student Whiro Robinson at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Tamaki nui-ā-Rua.

This year, I returned to the Kura Reo where I moved into the intermediate group, an achievement that is not lost on me by any means. I was armed with many more sentence structures and kupu that I didn’t have the first time. Conversations flowed a bit more readily in te reo Māori than previously.

In this group, we crossed into the Kura Kaupapa where the first rule is you can only speak te reo Māori, which was very confronting but the push I needed. The kaiako, some of whom were my whanaunga, asked many questions to the class. I felt less like I wanted to be absorbed by the floor and could find a semblance of an answer among the many kupu I had learned in the past seven months. Returning to the place that helped push my te reo Māori journey felt full circle. Once again being surrounded by whenua Rangitāne, mita (dialect) Rangitāne, kaimahi/kaiako Rangitāne and whānau made the Kura Reo experience all the more meaningful.

As a Rangitāne descendant based away from the area returning to the whenua through the form of a Kura Reo is part of a wider reclamation and strengthening for me. In my own family, my uncle is the only one of my dad’s siblings who can kōrero te reo Māori fluently and within my generation of cousins just as few are fluent. My hope in dedicating the time I have available to learn te reo Māori, utilising it with my niece and cousins’ children can help to normalise them speaking it. By returning each year to Tamaki nui-ā-Rua for the Kura Reo I gain a little bit more knowledge about te reo Māori. But more importantly, I learn something about my people of Rangitāne and the immense history we hold.

Ultimately, even though Kura Reo are hard they are important. A space to be proud of wherever you sit within your journey and one I am excited to return to once again next year.