Te taura hāngai: Instead of changing you, we will change the assignment

One of my colleagues sent a link to Te Kahu Rolleston - a NZ writer/ poet/orator who 'mixes kapa haka with battle rap to get school kids hooked on language'.

I was taken with his story about having to memorise a passage from Macbeth when he was in Year 11 (Form 5): 

The fifth form arrived. We had an English teacher who was tasked with getting us to memorise a speech from Macbeth. It’s not much of an exaggeration when I tell you that this teacher’s job may as well have been to extract fish oil from mountain boulders. Since our third form year, our class had a reputation for burning through English teachers like a bonfire does kindling and twigs. One term, we had four English teachers. Some teachers stopped teaching our class. Others left the school completely after their time with us.

His school experience is not an unfamiliar one. I remember my classes during my fourth and fifth form years. Boys often nodded off under the influence, others were only interested in baiting teachers. Many were caned (the boys, not the teachers).

Te Kahu goes on to tell how one teacher made a breakthrough with him, by getting the students to translate the Shakespeare passage into their own language. Eureka.

The message is a great one - Te taura hāngai: Instead of changing you, we will change the assignment.