title: Recipe for success

authors: Molan, Peter C.

subjects: honey

abstract: Honey has been used for thousands of years to treat wounds, gastroenteritis and eye infections. It was displaced from common usage by the advent of antibiotics in the 1940s. But now that the widespread and rapidly increasing resistance of microbes to antibiotics has become a major global threat to health, there has been a renaissance in the use of honey to treat infections.

text: Recipe for success Honey has been used for thousands of years to treat wounds, gastroenteritis and eye infections. It was displaced from common usage by the advent of antibiotics in the 1940s. But now that the widespread and rapidly increasing resistance of microbes to antibiotics has become a major global threat to health, there has been a renaissance in the use of honey to treat infections.

year: 2005

title: Toward a sustainable wellbeing metacurriculum for secondary schools in Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Morey, Chris

subjects: education for sustainability

abstract: We live in a time of burgeoning global population, social extremes and cultural complexity for which, as a species, we are poorly prepared. The mining of fossil fuels and the extractive industries which have powered this reproductive and material success have accompanied our ever-increasing separation from nature, one another, and ourselves. This study is based on the premise that educational transformation, centred on Sustainable Wellbeing, particularly in senior secondary schooling, is crucial to the regeneration humanity needs in the Anthropocene to surmount the complex environmental, social, and cultural crisis that our collective ignorance has brought. It explores what a Sustainable Wellbeing Metacurriculum (SWM) framework for this age group—inspired by a Complex Systems Theory, Critical Realist, and New Materialist synthesis—might look like and what practices, strategies, and changes within schools, communities, and Aotearoa New Zealand as a nation would encourage the metacurriculum’s widespread adoption.
The study examined theoretical positions regarding sustainability, wellbeing and curriculum, and drew on the principles of fractal self-similarity and scale-free social networks from Complexity Theory to construct an initial minimal framework. This framework was then elaborated, modified and tested, in an iterative co-construction process. The research design was a modified Delphi Survey. Twenty-three experienced secondary school teachers with a wide range of subject specialities contributed to the study, participating in one to three survey rounds, and/or semi-structured interviews. These data were supplemented with document analysis and school demographic and academic attainment data.
Participants were asked for suggestions of Knowledge, Issues, and Big Ideas most important to include within each of the three framework domains; Ecosphere, Social Justice, and Cultural Vision, at the Human-Societal level of an SWM. Within the corresponding domains of Action, Feeling, and Thinking at the Individual-Interpersonal level, the teachers were asked for suggestions of skills, competencies, and dispositions important for students' wellbeing. At the Human-Societal level, nine subdomains, each with sets of Sustainable Wellbeing goals following a complex fractal pattern, self-similar to the domains, emerged from the analysis of suggestions. At the Individual-Interpersonal level, similar fractal patterns for Action, Feeling, and Thinking were observed. However, teachers also emphasised deep qualities, such as Self-Awareness, and Adaptability, which are unique idiosyncratic integrations of Action, Feeling, and Thinking in individuals. The participants were asked to consider the ideal balance between Cross-curricular Holistic (CCH) and Subject-Based Specialist (SBS) modes of pedagogy for an SWM timetable. The mean suggested timetable share for the CCH mode was 39% but the distribution of preferred proportions was distinctly bimodal.
Participants were also asked to provide teaching Unit outlines based on the emerging SWM framework that linked the Unit’s anchoring and connected Human-Societal level subdomains to specific learning areas of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) and New Zealand’s National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). Epistemic links were apparent between the framework’s Ecosphere subdomains and the NZC learning areas of Technology, Social Science, Science and Health & Physical Education. Further research with a larger sample of Units would be required to explore the possible links between the framework domains of Social Justice and Cultural Vision and the NZC learning areas of the Arts, Languages, English and Mathematics.
The thesis adopts an analogy, based on the complexity theory concept of strange attractors, to describe educational transformation as a system phase shift from the attractor’s current ‘Business as Unsustainable’ state to an emergent Sustainable Wellbeing Metacurriculum state. Based on the findings, the schools of the participating teachers in this study were categorised as following one of four types of trajectory within the attractor, relative to the SWM state i.e. Explorative, Innovative, Prospective, or Realpolitikal. Key strategies used by Explorative and Innovative schools which are making the most progress towards Sustainable Wellbeing include: working with the willing; disaggregation into streams for large schools; aggregation for small schools sharing resources, like gardens; school and teacher leadership for student agency, including making Sustainable Wellbeing a core subject; Trades Academy partnerships; enabling ‘student voice’ particularly in curriculum development; structural support for CCH team teaching; involving a wide range of subjects and year levels in CCH programmes; using mentoring, portfolios and self-reflection to foster student self-integration; and commitment to on-campus sustainability practices.
The most mentioned changes needed to enable a transition for schools to enact an SWM were a convincing argument and plan, followed by, sufficient time to plan and make the changes required, and the provision of relevant teacher training. At the local community level, teachers in ‘Prospective’ schools described community anxieties around the implications of a broader CCH curriculum for students' Qualification and Employment prospects. Teachers in ‘Explorative’ schools emphasised the importance of community education and school outreach. There was a strong consensus that engaging all citizens in a conversation about the purpose of education in our time would be the most effective change strategy to support at the national political level.

text: Toward a sustainable wellbeing metacurriculum for secondary schools in Aotearoa New Zealand We live in a time of burgeoning global population, social extremes and cultural complexity for which, as a species, we are poorly prepared. The mining of fossil fuels and the extractive industries which have powered this reproductive and material success have accompanied our ever-increasing separation from nature, one another, and ourselves. This study is based on the premise that educational transformation, centred on Sustainable Wellbeing, particularly in senior secondary schooling, is crucial to the regeneration humanity needs in the Anthropocene to surmount the complex environmental, social, and cultural crisis that our collective ignorance has brought. It explores what a Sustainable Wellbeing Metacurriculum (SWM) framework for this age group—inspired by a Complex Systems Theory, Critical Realist, and New Materialist synthesis—might look like and what practices, strategies, and changes within schools, communities, and Aotearoa New Zealand as a nation would encourage the metacurriculum’s widespread adoption.
The study examined theoretical positions regarding sustainability, wellbeing and curriculum, and drew on the principles of fractal self-similarity and scale-free social networks from Complexity Theory to construct an initial minimal framework. This framework was then elaborated, modified and tested, in an iterative co-construction process. The research design was a modified Delphi Survey. Twenty-three experienced secondary school teachers with a wide range of subject specialities contributed to the study, participating in one to three survey rounds, and/or semi-structured interviews. These data were supplemented with document analysis and school demographic and academic attainment data.
Participants were asked for suggestions of Knowledge, Issues, and Big Ideas most important to include within each of the three framework domains; Ecosphere, Social Justice, and Cultural Vision, at the Human-Societal level of an SWM. Within the corresponding domains of Action, Feeling, and Thinking at the Individual-Interpersonal level, the teachers were asked for suggestions of skills, competencies, and dispositions important for students' wellbeing. At the Human-Societal level, nine subdomains, each with sets of Sustainable Wellbeing goals following a complex fractal pattern, self-similar to the domains, emerged from the analysis of suggestions. At the Individual-Interpersonal level, similar fractal patterns for Action, Feeling, and Thinking were observed. However, teachers also emphasised deep qualities, such as Self-Awareness, and Adaptability, which are unique idiosyncratic integrations of Action, Feeling, and Thinking in individuals. The participants were asked to consider the ideal balance between Cross-curricular Holistic (CCH) and Subject-Based Specialist (SBS) modes of pedagogy for an SWM timetable. The mean suggested timetable share for the CCH mode was 39% but the distribution of preferred proportions was distinctly bimodal.
Participants were also asked to provide teaching Unit outlines based on the emerging SWM framework that linked the Unit’s anchoring and connected Human-Societal level subdomains to specific learning areas of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) and New Zealand’s National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). Epistemic links were apparent between the framework’s Ecosphere subdomains and the NZC learning areas of Technology, Social Science, Science and Health & Physical Education. Further research with a larger sample of Units would be required to explore the possible links between the framework domains of Social Justice and Cultural Vision and the NZC learning areas of the Arts, Languages, English and Mathematics.
The thesis adopts an analogy, based on the complexity theory concept of strange attractors, to describe educational transformation as a system phase shift from the attractor’s current ‘Business as Unsustainable’ state to an emergent Sustainable Wellbeing Metacurriculum state. Based on the findings, the schools of the participating teachers in this study were categorised as following one of four types of trajectory within the attractor, relative to the SWM state i.e. Explorative, Innovative, Prospective, or Realpolitikal. Key strategies used by Explorative and Innovative schools which are making the most progress towards Sustainable Wellbeing include: working with the willing; disaggregation into streams for large schools; aggregation for small schools sharing resources, like gardens; school and teacher leadership for student agency, including making Sustainable Wellbeing a core subject; Trades Academy partnerships; enabling ‘student voice’ particularly in curriculum development; structural support for CCH team teaching; involving a wide range of subjects and year levels in CCH programmes; using mentoring, portfolios and self-reflection to foster student self-integration; and commitment to on-campus sustainability practices.
The most mentioned changes needed to enable a transition for schools to enact an SWM were a convincing argument and plan, followed by, sufficient time to plan and make the changes required, and the provision of relevant teacher training. At the local community level, teachers in ‘Prospective’ schools described community anxieties around the implications of a broader CCH curriculum for students' Qualification and Employment prospects. Teachers in ‘Explorative’ schools emphasised the importance of community education and school outreach. There was a strong consensus that engaging all citizens in a conversation about the purpose of education in our time would be the most effective change strategy to support at the national political level.

year: 2025-06-11

title: A local Aotearoa New Zealand investigation of the contribution of Māori cultural knowledges to Pakeha identity and counselling practices

authors: Te Wiata, Joy

subjects: Pakeha identity

abstract: This project investigates the experiences of a small group of social service  practitioners as they consider the question of what it means to be Pakeha in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2004.  Specifically this study considers the contribution  of Māori cultural knowledges to Pakeha identity.  It also explores whether therapeutic practices that participants have available, are relevant to their current  claims of Pakeha identity.   This study highlights the complexity of experience and multiple stories that inform constructions of identity.   In approaching the topic I was aware that many  important stories of people's lived experience are not often told.  People are often silenced due to the difficulty of 'telling'.  In this exploration, space was created  for the telling of stories, which are often not easily told:  stories of struggle and pain; stories of compassionate witnessing; stories of rule-breaking; stories of  stepping into territory beyond binaries and stories of richness and delight.   Knowledges have been produced that indicate the need for carefully crafted space for often very difficult identity conversations to occur and for voices to be heard.   Further, the study has produced knowledges for scaffolding for respectful and honouring conversations .  The stories of this project indicate that the  conversations required, have their foundation through engagement with the value of fairness.  Findings also indicate that forums, where mutual contribution to  identity for both Māori and Pakeha can be acknowledged, are a critical to establishing ongoing honourable relationships between Pakeha and Māori New Zealanders.     Throughout this project participants acknowledge and honour the rich  contribution of Māori knowledges and language to their Pakeha identity.

text: A local Aotearoa New Zealand investigation of the contribution of Māori cultural knowledges to Pakeha identity and counselling practices This project investigates the experiences of a small group of social service  practitioners as they consider the question of what it means to be Pakeha in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2004.  Specifically this study considers the contribution  of Māori cultural knowledges to Pakeha identity.  It also explores whether therapeutic practices that participants have available, are relevant to their current  claims of Pakeha identity.   This study highlights the complexity of experience and multiple stories that inform constructions of identity.   In approaching the topic I was aware that many  important stories of people's lived experience are not often told.  People are often silenced due to the difficulty of 'telling'.  In this exploration, space was created  for the telling of stories, which are often not easily told:  stories of struggle and pain; stories of compassionate witnessing; stories of rule-breaking; stories of  stepping into territory beyond binaries and stories of richness and delight.   Knowledges have been produced that indicate the need for carefully crafted space for often very difficult identity conversations to occur and for voices to be heard.   Further, the study has produced knowledges for scaffolding for respectful and honouring conversations .  The stories of this project indicate that the  conversations required, have their foundation through engagement with the value of fairness.  Findings also indicate that forums, where mutual contribution to  identity for both Māori and Pakeha can be acknowledged, are a critical to establishing ongoing honourable relationships between Pakeha and Māori New Zealanders.     Throughout this project participants acknowledge and honour the rich  contribution of Māori knowledges and language to their Pakeha identity.

year: 2006