Who am I?

I’m working class. Dad’s WWII experiences made him a pacifist yet I joined the army where I spent the Vietnam War. Dad getting smashed in the waterfront strikes made me an activist.
Mum was an orphan raised by nuns.
I’m transgender, married to my same-sex partner, thirty years age difference, parents to Finn, a double international (karate/archery, dyslexic, HF autistic, clever, Year 12 product of King’s Prep and King’s College).
He’s proud both Mums are his biological parents.
We have each ‘worn the fern’ internationally.
I’m a Buddhist black belt.
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
‘Mauri is alive early in our whakapapa through the first woman, Hine-Ahu-One. Mauri knits everything together.’
I knew age eight I was different, a freak, a girl in a boy’s body. That almost destroyed me.
Who am I?
Just your average radical catastrophist, a 56 year career educator, Vice Chancellor’s Excellence in Teaching Award recipient, and AuSM ‘Awesome Lecturer’.
In 2018 I featured in the ‘Are We There Yet? 125 years of Women’s Suffrage’ exhibition, received ‘The Inaugural AUT Vice Chancellor’s Diversity Award’, appeared in Margie Thomson’s ‘Womankind: 50 New Zealand Women Making a Difference’, received a ‘New Zealander of the Year’ Local Hero award, was a finalist for ‘2019 Senior New Zealander of the Year’.
My first teaching epiphany told me schools are alien places.
Dalai Lama tells us a synthesis of contradictions achieves balance. I’m light years from balance. He says that if I meet the Buddha on the road, I must kill him. I understand this today, tomorrow I may not.
My teaching philosophy is a grab-bag of moments, quotes, snatches of conversation and song lyrics:
Did you fall from a shooting star?
One without a permanent scar.
I am proud of my permanent scars.
I’m all about primum non nocere – do no harm.
My first principal’s job was a sole charge. Nothing I’d learned previously helped. I was rescued by a Rural Advisor who introduced me to individualised, child-centred, multi-class learning where ‘assessment’ was adapted to the needs of the kids. ‘The river became our lab, the bush our reader’, we learned maths and critical thinking by re-staging Jeanne d’Arc’s battles on the tennis court.
I moved to Taranaki, special education, and Parihaka. Everything changed. My non-traditional learners forced me to fashion fear-free learning environments, a fluid, student-driven timetable, furniture chosen, designed, and made by the kids.
I’m easily bored by prescriptive curricula. John Holt, AS Neill, Elwyn Richardson became my best mates. Baxter described Richardson as an ‘educational saboteur’.
That’s me too.
Ken Robinson tells us ‘progress is inhibited by the culture of our institutions and the habitats they occupy.’
Alien places, indeed.
My beacons: Piki Diamond, Moana Maniapoto MNZM, Valance Smith – Valance saw me weeping in his Te Kākano class – I’m deaf, the learning was aural – the rest of the class he taught from my elbow.
Nothing said, just done.
As it should be.
Tihei mauri ora!