The students Holy-Family Kura in Porirua come from many different ethic backgrounds.
They are pleading with their teachers and everyone else, to pronounce their names correctly. They say mispronouncing people’s names amounts to racism.
This challenge is one of three the students issued in a video they have made to support the #GiveNothingToRacism campaign.
A Facebook post which explains some of the thinking behind the video has had over 27,000 hits.
A lot of online debate has been generated and opinions are divided as to whether mis-pronouncing some one’s name is ‘racism’.
TVNZ’s Seven Sharp picked up on the the issue with a piece that let the children speak for themselves about how it feels to have their names mangled.
The two other challenges in the video the students made are:
- Not all of our Māori and Pasifika children are the same.
“Our Māori children have whakapapa from different Iwi and hapū.
“Our Pasifika children have heritages in different countries, islands, villages and families all from from the largest area on Earth – the Pacific Ocean.’
“We cannot lump all of our students together, we must get to know each and value what each brings to school and class.”
- Teacher expectations are vital for our learners from minority cultures in Aotearoa.
“Teachers have an amazing amount of power, they must push their students to the highest limits regardless of ethnicity.”
“They must believe that our students will achieve. This is a large part of our #BelieveAchieve focus this year.”
Source
- Supplied
- Image: Screenshot Seven Sharp