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<div data-breakout="normal"><span class="QxcVi"><em>Dedicated to Chrissy and every school with a Chrissy in it, every leader like Chrissy, every academic and union rep making public the wrongs, and every political backbencher with the courage to disrupt the system.</em></span>“</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">Bro, I want you to know that there are two wahine in our school who you have made a real difference for, and because of you, every child who steps through that door (probably hundreds of them —if I don’t retire just yet) will feel the benefit you have given us. YOU make a difference.”</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">That was Chrissy.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">She said that to me.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">Even down the phone with a poor Northland reception she could hear my mauri was off. My wairua was worn thin — frayed from the quiet violence of a system that expects educators to mop up the state’s inequity with their own wellbeing.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">Her words didn’t just soothe.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">They ignited.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">They gave me back the fire in my belly.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">And today, I want to pass that ignition on to you.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">Because I had spent the break doing what many of us do — recovering from illness and lamenting the mess we’re in.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">The kids in crisis.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">The systemic injustices.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">The layer upon layer of bureaucracy that continues to colonise the hearts and minds of our tamariki.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">The cough with claws I couldn&#8217;t get rid of.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">But Chrissy reminded me: we do make a difference.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">Even when we can&#8217;t see it.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">Especially when we think we&#8217;re failing.</div>
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<div id="viewer-dfxpw913" class="bIc1y -Gy9d" dir="auto"><span class="QxcVi">So, to every educator, every leader, every policy writer who genuinely gives a damn about equity, Te Tiriti, and tamariki — say it out loud today: &#8220;You make a difference.&#8221;</span></div>
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<div data-hook="rcv-block30">Those words might be the embers that reignite someone&#8217;s fire.</div>
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<div data-hook="rcv-block30">I’d been doing my fair share of polite ranting (and, let’s be honest, occasionally not-so-polite) about mandates, about being shut out of curriculum conversations, and about the heartbreak of watching trauma walk into my room each morning—sometimes clomping in wearing worn-out Crocs (or here in Northland like me, barefoot and brave).</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">In the passion and the fight I’d forgotten to pause and see what I was doing.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal">At first, when Chrissy said it, my mind flooded with the things I used to do — deep philosophical debates, student spoken words, unpacking Banksy Art through adolescent lenses, award-winning film projects. Students creating bold political images like this.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal"><span class="QxcVi">Now I was supervising play-dough and puddles.</span>It felt…less.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal">But Chrissy stopped me right there:</div>
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<div id="viewer-e0fqa50851" class="bIc1y -Gy9d" dir="auto"><span class="QxcVi">“It might look different, but don’t you dare think it’s less. You are still making a difference.” </span></div>
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<div data-hook="rcv-block46">And when the call ended, I sat in the quiet and let that truth land.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal"><span style="font-size: 22px; font-weight: bold;">What am I doing?</span></div>
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<p class="_2V6c8 UkKbT bIc1y -Gy9d" dir="auto"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400;">I’m helping children sit next to each other without hurting each other.</span></p>
<p class="_2V6c8 UkKbT bIc1y -Gy9d" dir="auto"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400;">I’m nurturing emotional regulation in kids whose lives are chaos.</span></p>
<p class="_2V6c8 UkKbT bIc1y -Gy9d" dir="auto"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400;">I’m building whanaungatanga with rainbow chalk drawings and puddle experiments and turn-taking with play-dough and shells.</span></p>
<p class="_2V6c8 UkKbT bIc1y -Gy9d" dir="auto">I’m scaffolding safety — not for my old silent-debate crowd, but for little ones who just need to trust the world for once.</p>
<p class="_2V6c8 UkKbT bIc1y -Gy9d" dir="auto">This is still responsive, still intentional, still learning.</p>
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<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">It’s just learning wrapped in care, in regulation, in wairua restoration.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">It’s exactly what this moment — what these kids — need.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">And let me tell you — this magic matters.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">We have made puddles on the playground and watched them dry up, chatting excitedly about evaporation — science in action! But somewhere between “observe and describe” and “stand back from the puddle,” a few curious minds had drifted&#8230;to their earlier chalk drawing of a rainbow. You know — the one from maths, when they were <em>supposed</em> to be drawing rectangles and calculating perimeters. Instead, we got rainbow artistry and impromptu experiments on water damage. Was it perimeter? No. Was it learning? Absolutely.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">I smiled.<br />
<figure style="width: 503px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img src="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d86340_deca3b89e5d0441d8e0d967fd900ee1f~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_503,h_503,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/d86340_deca3b89e5d0441d8e0d967fd900ee1f~mv2.png" alt="Year 2 Science/Maths 'experiment'" width="503" height="503" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Year 2 science/maths experiment. Image: Supplied</figcaption></figure>
We had been talking about dragons — how to trap them, how not to wake them, and what might happen if we did.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">We had learned to play a sport every playtime that required cooperation. Learning to win and lose without a punch-up or a meltdown was the real victory.</div>
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<div id="viewer-gig9i48676" class="bIc1y -Gy9d" dir="auto"><span class="QxcVi">I met them where they are — because kids do well if they can.</span></div>
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<div data-breakout="normal"><span class="QxcVi">We had been learning how to recreate seed germination through stop-motion animation.</span>We had been learning to take turns and build sea creatures made from shells by sharing and saying please and thank you with a compliment to the mahi.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">We had been rolling play-dough and trying our best not to get it on the black carpet while writing our names and feeling the heat transfer as we warmed it up — learning manaakitanga for the cleaner who has to vacuum it all up later.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">We had learned how to hold iPads and create with technology and sit and draw while the teacher read stories after morning tea.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">We had used cardboard cloud shapes from Rona and the Moon pūrakau to try and make the biggest and the smallest shadow in the classroom, under the glow of torches and our best efforts to make bright spaces dark, we measured the shadow&#8217;s diameter.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">We had measured trees and netball courts with trundle wheels and clickers (because the trundle wheel was broken).</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">We’d built marae out of 2D shapes and learned resilience the hands-on way — cutting ten ovals for the hāngi pit with blunt, glue-crusted scissors and a glue stick so battered it had more pencil holes than a colander and more fluff stuck to it than a boiled sweet washed in a pocket full of tissues.</div>
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<figure style="width: 293px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img class="" src="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d86340_f5813e961a9e4337a2dda756dcb3dc12~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_447,h_653,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/d86340_f5813e961a9e4337a2dda756dcb3dc12~mv2.png" alt="A Shellyfish" width="293" height="428" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">A &#8220;shellyfish&#8221;. Image: supplied.</figcaption></figure>
This is the magic of the classroom.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">This is where my kids are at.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">This is why I teach.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">This is a response to my context.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">My old context was one of critical thinking and silent debates and film making and stories comparing wars — that was responsive to my old context.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">But I’m still the same teacher.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">The IQ hasn’t changed.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">The intent hasn’t changed.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">The expectations are still sky high.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">I’m just responding differently, because the kids in front of me <em>need</em> something different.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">So don’t blame the teacher. Don’t blame the context.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">Just respect that the response is necessary.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal"><span style="font-size: 22px; font-weight: bold;">The distance between these schools? Just 34.4 km.</span></div>
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<p class="_2V6c8 UkKbT bIc1y -Gy9d" dir="auto"><span style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400;">The distance between my children&#8217;s regulation skills and developmental ability? Might as well be the moon.</span></p>
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<div data-breakout="normal">So while some are still scratching their heads, hunting for evidence to back the minister’s claim that “every brain learns the same” — I say, you don’t need a research grant. Just step into a classroom. Come and meet the kids. The evidence is everywhere — in the laughter, in the questions, in the silences thick with trauma, in the way learning shows up wearing worn-out Crocs and carrying more than just a schoolbag.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">These extremes — and why they exist — we can probably all hypothesise.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal">But the reason they exist means nothing to me.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">How I respond to the kids in front of me means everything to me.</div>
<div data-breakout="normal"> </div>
<div data-breakout="normal">So if you’re reading this and thinking, “I’m not doing enough” — let me say it like Chrissy would:</div>
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<div id="viewer-brc9w50282" class="bIc1y -Gy9d" dir="auto"><span class="QxcVi">You are making a difference.</span></div>
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<div data-breakout="normal"><span class="QxcVi">Maybe not with curated projects and beautiful bullet journals.</span>Maybe with chalk, dragons, puddles and play. Maybe by just showing up when it’s hard. </div>
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<div data-breakout="normal"><span class="QxcVi">That counts. </span></div>
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<div data-breakout="normal"><span class="QxcVi">That is the mahi. </span>And to those who stood before the Education and Workforce Committee this week — who spoke truth, who named racism, who defended a rich, broad, humanising education for all tamariki — We thank you. You carry this kaupapa with courage.You are refusing to underserve.You are refusing to be silenced. You are saying what needs to be said: our kids are not economic units. They are not future data points. They are whole people, now. Toitū te Tiriti.Maybe we’re not behind at all — maybe we’re exactly where the future needs to begin. Because this is what it looks like to honour tamariki, to centre justice, to show up with sleeves rolled up and hearts wide open.We’ll make a difference somewhere, to someone, all of the time. So go on — tell someone today: <em>“You make a difference.&#8221; </em>Then go show them why.</div>
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<div data-breakout="normal"><strong>This blog was first published on the author’s blog, Engaging Learning Voices, and it is republished here with permission. To see the original,<a href="https://www.engaginglearningvoices.com/post/meet-them-where-they-are-because-kids-do-well-if-they-can-and-you-make-a-difference" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> click here</a>.</strong></div>

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