Language is in many ways a construct of the adult world. Children, being unfettered by the nuances of polite society, often don't need words to communicate how they feel, or what matters to them. They vote with their feet by walking away, express fear and frustration with tears and trade smiles and laughter as common currency when they are happy. Which, unlike life in the big bad world of grown-ups, is most of the time.
But when they talk, they do it full-throttle. And to sit in a classroom and hear that expressed in a language that is the mother tongue of my country but one I am largely unfamiliar with was humbling. It was as if they had the keys to a secret kingdom into which I could not enter.
I live in a somewhat less magical world outside the kingdom gates. An English-speaking world where exposure to things Maori is limited to a small number of friends and a large number of news stories that don't reflect Maori in a good light at all. In this environment, it is easy to see how perceptions and prejudices are created and fostered.
Two days of watching bright-eyed, switched-on Maori children surrounded by teachers who would be role models in any culture was like having a tall glass of ice-cold water at the end of a dusty, hot summer's day.
What it also made me appreciate is something easily overlooked given the plethora of negativity and bad press surrounding issues of culture and race in this country: although it takes only a few bad eggs to dominate headlines, the vast majority of Maori people are quietly living their lives successfully and raising the next generation of valuable citizens.
Some of them - as I witnessed at the kura - are going to extraordinary lengths to instil in their children a rich understanding of their culture and the ability to express themselves fully in its language.
Trouble is that story won't sell. I can hear the yawns already.
In the two days I spent in this parallel universe, I imagined myself walking in the shoes of those who were an unreported-on majority of a negatively represented minority.
What would it feel like to be the proverbial book being judged by its cover, or to watch the news and feel helpless to change the statistics or sway the coverage that unfairly represented my own people in a way that might be the truth, but not the whole truth, far from it.
Although I couldn't understand the lessons being taught at the kuru on those two days, I learned a valuable lesson of my own that will stay with me for life - the value of going behind the looking glass - and the headlines - to read the story in full.
