Are we Tongans OTT when expressing our love for our culture?

Are we Tongans OTT when expressing our love for our culture?

It is slowly growing inside of me and with my children beginning to converse in Tongan with single sentences, my awareness and acceptance of certain aspects of my culture has been brought to the fore-front of my thinking and critique.

Last week was Tongan language week and the theme this year was Enriching Aotearoa with our love of the country and it's duties. There has been no other event that has been close to expressing how Tongans love and embrace their culture other than the Rugby League World Cup in 2017. In the semifinal game between Tonga and England, Mt Smart was splashed with red flags, red tshirts and everything red. It is important to note, that the Tongan population in NZ is 20% and is the third largest Pacific ethnic group behind the Cook Island Maori and Samoan groups. So I prepared my presentation that was aimed at capturing the theme and this was my spoken word;

Enriching Aotearoa with the love of the country.

Crazy, Horse-eaters, OTT and too much!

Was our Tongan supporters that bad?

Rolling on the streets (literally) and carrying the Tongan flag, on our shoulders, cars and even our heads

Jamming the streets of the Otahuhu CBD then Mangere Town Centre

Were we that bad? C’mon! We later congested Queen St (LOL)

Taumalolo, Fifita and star NRL players turn their backs to the lure of Money

To show their LOVE of their country

‘Otua mo Tonga, ko hoku Tofi’a

God and Tonga are my inheritance

A country so small, it’s called the period. Full stop.

Never have been colonised, but Christianised by the Europeans

Who brought us the Hymns… hear that resonate the stadium floors

See it empower our players …… Go Tonga!

Yes we go OTT, and crazy because of our love, our love of Tonga

It is not be the perfect island paradise, far from it, but we’re here now

It’s all we have and share with Aotearoa, love, ‘Ofa.

Is All this technology making us antisocial?

I disagree/agree with this statement - social platforms encourage social behaviour as we collaborate and network with others. However, antisocial behaviour arises when moral and ethical boundaries are blurred and technology is misused to vent a point of view that can hurt others or be inconsiderate. 

You or YouTube?

I have recently completed a study into the use of YouTube as a tool of instrument tuition in the Music class room because of the limited funding towards our itinerant programme.

It has been a growing trend in these past years with certain factors combining to create this rich learning environment. This is Tamaki College becoming a fully digital learning environment combined with the students hunger to learn the latest pop song and with YouTube fast becoming a hub for musicians to access tutorial videos.

I would sit there quietly in frustration and observe the determined student slowly watch the tutorials and laboriously work through the first few seconds of a song. Is there a better way?

Findings from the research I conducted concluded that students do need a 'human' tutor as they were able to better analyse and process the needs of the student through constructive feedback (Hattie 2012; Hattie, Timperley 2007) . Also, the knowledge gained from YouTube viewings was categorised as 'spontaneous' knowledge (Vygotsky 1986) that is everyday and informal learnings that is not structured. However, it is recommended that spontaneous learning is important in learning in that is a launch pad towards the more formal and structured learning that is scientific knowledge (Vygotsky 1986). 

If you would like to read more into my dissertation - please go ahead right HERE

References

Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers : Maximizing impact on learning. Hoboken: Hoboken : Taylor and Francis 2012.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112. doi:10.2307/4624888

Vygotskiĭ, L. S. (Lev Semenovich). (1986). In Kozulin A., NetLibrary I. and MITCogNet (Eds.), Thought and language (Translation newly rev. and edited / by Alex Kozulin ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.