FE ATUR E GETTING TO K N OW T H E KAIAKO IN OUR COMMUNITY
TE ACHING R A NGATA HI
T
he Local Rag sat down with local teacher Joseph Rajaram Rao to hear
PTA and connecting our community with our students.
about what inspires his work as well as
At what stage of life did you do your training and where ? Had you always wanted to teach? What were you doing prior to this?
some of his past adventures. Where do you teach currently and what is your role? I currently teach in the Year 7-10 area, teaching Social Sciences and English. I have held many different roles and originally when I started I created the Year 11-13 Senior Social Sciences department. I love working up at the kura with all the cool kaiako. My new role now is a community connector which I love. This is about supporting the
6 | Raglan Chronicle Magazine Issue April 2021
I had a challenging time at school. I was a remedial reader, I was probably also pretty mischievous…. I had three distinctive and different learning experiences; being taught by the nuns… not the most fun I’ve had, Tauranga boys….. Hyper masculine and then boarding school… None of these environments created a spark for me or got me excited about learning. It was only
at university where I found the Social Sciences and revolutionary politics that I became passionate and engaged…This led to me becoming actively involved in the left-wing movement, in antiwar and social justice issues. I then became a teacher for the Trade Unions, teaching about discrimination and sexual harassment for youth and created a pilot programme for people who had been institutionalised for mental illness for ten years or longer. After that I taught English in South Korea in one of the first waves of teachers. By then I was hooked on teaching and went to teacher training. My first proper teaching job was in Ōtara which I
