I also remember times when tamariki at our school spoke more reo than we learnt in class and feeling left behind; feeling like I could never learn this and as a five-year-old told my parents I wanted to move into an English-speaking class.
Looking back at my five-year-old self, I wish I had told her that it was her birthright to freely speak her mother tongue and that a few mistakes is part of learning, a part of life.
Briana Te Haara-Barr
Te Tai o Poutini | West Coast | Grey | 2000-09 | Story is by tangata whenua
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