Te Whiti Biography

Te Whiti

Te Whiti O Rongomai was born in 1830 in Ngamotu, Taranaki during the Musket wars. Te Whiti was the son of Tohukakahi who was a minor chief of the Te Ati Awa tribe. He lived at the coast near Parihaka until 1865 when his village got burned down. He refused to take up arms but the following year he moved his settlement further inland which later on was named Parihaka. Te Whiti attended Reimenschneider’s Mission School and was extremely good at Bible studies. Already early in his life; Te Whiti was identified as a teacher and a prophet and a lot was done to ensure his safety.

By 1870 Parihaka had become the biggest village in the country and in 1879 the Europeans started invading their land. Te Whiti was a spiritual man and preached Christian teachings. He led the Parihaka movement with Tohu Kakahi and they protested peacefully against the Europeans who unfairly took away their land. Te Whiti forbade his people to use arms and he discouraged greed and violence but he instructed his people to keep on ploughing the land that had been taken away from them. Arrests followed; the ploughmen didn’t put up a fight and they got treated very badly; they also got imprisoned and taken to the South Island. The protest however did not stop there; the Maori pulled out all the survey pegs and continued to plough the land.

On the 5th of November 1881 members of the parliament came to Parihaka, and the Maori greeted them warmly. An hour later Te Whiti and Tohu were taken to prison on the South Island. As soon as they were arrested, the army started burning down the village. It only took them two weeks to destroy all of the houses and two months to destroy all of the crops. The cattle and pigs got slaughtered and then taken away. In prison, Te Whiti learned how to use European technology and it is believed that Te Whiti was the first Maori to use a telephone at a Christchurch railway. He also learned how to use a saw to cut plate steel. While Te Whiti was in prison he played a lot of mind games with the guards to try to make them doubt their own sanity. One of the ways that he tried to do this was by putting sugar in his soup and salt in his porridge.

Te Whiti returned to Parihaka with his son in law, Tare Waitara. When Te Whiti returned; Parihaka started to modernize itself. Te Whiti used what he learned in prison to make changes to Parihaka. At the end of the war all people who were imprisoned were let out and Parihaka was later thought to be ahead of its time. It had running water, lighting and drainage. Tohu died a few months apart of Te Whiti who died on the 18th of November 1907. Te Whiti’s followers started to wear the white albatross feather as a symbol of protecting the spirit and believes of Parihaka.

I think that Te Whiti is an inspirational leader because he believed in peace and he refused to use weapons to win the war. This makes me find him even more inspirational! He fought for the rights of his people and he believed in himself; and most important of all: he NEVER gave up! I think that everyone should learn from him and use him as an example: fight for peace; with peace.

Goals

Goals


Goal 1:
I would like to have instant recall of my basic facts. I can do this by: going on Tutpup and Mathletics and getting my parents to test me.

Goal 2:
I want to be better at proof reading my work to make sure that it makes sense, has correct spelling and make sure that it includes complex punctuation. I can do this by: practising my spelling words regularly and by reading my work aloud to myself as well as taking more time and care for proof reading.

Goal 3:
I definitely want to improve my time management and try to complete all of my work on time without getting stressed at the end! I can achieve this by: not getting distracted and getting on with my work/using my time well; as well as not trying to make everything perfect!

Goal 4:
I want to make a really good science fair

Cecilia Russel art

This artwork is based on Cecilia Russel's work. Cecilia Russel uses words in her paintings to make the shape of objects and animals. I think that I did really well in making my words look like different terrain and like a sailing boat. Next time I would try to fill the spaces even more and I would also colour  in a bit darker.

Biography on Nelson Mandela

Rolihlahla ( Nelson Mandela )

Nelson Mandela was born in South Africa on July 18, 1918. Nelson’s familiar name: Nelson was not given to him until the first day of school by Miss Mdingane. This is because that was the custom among Africans in those days. The name given to him on his birth is Rolihlahla. In Xhosa Rolihlahla literally means “pulling the branch of the tree”, but its literal meaning is “troublemaker”.

Nelson Mandela’s father, Henry had four wives and thirteen children and Nelson was the youngest son. The family lived in three huts which were made out of mud bricks. One of them was for cooking, one for storage and the other hut was for sleeping. Everything they ate they had grown or made them self. When Nelson was nine years old his father died. Shortly afterwards Nelson’s mother said that he was going to leave Qunu which is where he lived. 

Nelson fought for the freedom of the black people because he wanted the black and the white to have equal rights. He protested with the black people, did speeches and many other things to get freedom for the black. Nelson went to jail many times because while he was fighting for freedom Nelson did things that the black weren’t allowed to do even though the white were allowed to do it. Because of this Nelson Mandala got sent to jail.

In 1952 the ANC ( African National Congress) designated a new president: Chief Albert Luthuli. Nelson became one of the four deputy presidents and Nelson was the first deputy president. 

Nelson has spent most of his life fighting for the freedom of the black and for equal rights for everyone. I think that he was a great man because he knew that the skin color does not matter but it is what’s inside that counts. Because of Nelson Mandela there are now equal rights for everyone in most parts of the world and it has made it a much nicer place to live in.

Letter to the board of trustees

Room 22

Muritai School

Eastbourne

Dear Board of trustees and Mr Bird,

I am a student of room 22, and I am writing to you to request new desks for room 22.

Firstly, our desks are currently demanded,graffitied, carved into, unstable and are not comfortable to work at. This is because they are too short causing us to crouch down into an uncomfortable position, making it harder to fully concentrate on our work. We also have different kinds of desks. All of this put together makes our classroom look uninviting and rather shabby. All of the other year 7 and 8 classrooms have desks with tote trays to pull out underneath and the rest of the school have flip top desks.

Secondly, because we do not have desks that we can put our stationary into. We have tote trays at the back of the room. At the start of a lesson we all rush to the back to get our stationary coursing it to get extremely crowded. Because we all go to the same place at the same time it does not work. It also takes a very long time to get ready, wasting our learning time.

Having our own desks that we can put our stationary into would mean that we can get ready quicker meaning that we have more learning time. Other students of the class won’t get distracted because students will no longer have to get up to get their stationery. If we do get new desks we will make sure that we look after them so that they will continue to look beautiful for the students next year. I therefore ask you to consider giving us new desks so that adults and visitors coming into this classroom are invited by a comfortable environment and that we can be more concentrated on our work.

yours sincerely,

Carlotta Fegert