Shane wasn’t looking to become a teacher, but with some encouragement from his wife, he took the plunge and applied. As someone who loves a challenge, he’s glad he made the jump, although he didn’t quite know what he was in for.
Shane was born and raised in South Australia and in his early 20’s he joined the Australian Army to complete his apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic. He flew through that and spent five years in service, travelling all over Australia fixing heavy machinery.
“Servicing heavy machines is a bit of a slog, so I left after five years and went into something a little different – I became a gym service technician, which was really good as it still used my mechanical knowledge but wasn’t quite as intense.”
“I had that for a few years and then got into working with motorbike parts and bike customisation. I’m really into racing so that fit in really well with my personal interests. From there I moved into the sales aspect of things which I stayed in for a number of years. First working for Harley Davidson and then for a large franchise with over 45 dealerships,” Shane explains.
He wasn’t kidding about being into racing – Shane has always had a side hustle business to fund this awesome hobby of his – from owning and mechanically servicing 20 vending machines when in Australia, to now owning HEL performance which manufactures and supplies stainless braided brake and clutch lines for all forms of cars, motorcycles, and various machinery - even go-karts.
It’s all worth it though, Shane has travelled New Zealand racing and can proudly say he’s raced at all but one of the tracks across both Islands and in 2023, he was the MX5 Heritage Cup champion. Shane is now looking forward to later in the year when his daughter will age into racing at the local Manawatū Kart Club.
In 2020, he and his family moved to New Zealand – his wife is a Kiwi – to be closer to her family. Fast forward 5 years, and he’s making a name for himself at UCOL as a kaiako (teacher).
“When I first got into the classroom this year, the first thing that really hit me was the difference in literacy and numeracy competency, and the differences between each student around what they knew of the actual tools we use. So that was my first challenge – making sure I didn’t accidentally embarrass any of them, through assuming they would know, in order to keep them all actively engaged,” he says truthfully.
“UCOL’s Te Atakura programme has been really helpful too!”
Te Atakura is a culturally responsive, relationships-based teaching approach, grounded in research and guided by kaupapa Māori values in achieving equality within the classroom.
“Te Atakura has been great in helping shape things for me as a tutor to try, and then having a way of recongising it, and changing or improving with the iterative knowledge building inquiry cycle.”
His Te Atakura Coach, Janell Kiriona, notes that Shane’s commitment to improvement and his dedicated engagement in the Te Atakura iterative knowledge building inquiry cycle is key to the development of his teaching practice. It is through this process that Shane is now the first tutor to complete Pae Tuatahi - the first step in the Te Atakura framework, which includes four observation cycles in the space of five weeks.
“Shane’s dedication to his teaching role was prevalent from when he first started at UCOL. In his first week he attended a mihi whakatau in Te Hiringa o Te Mahara (Manawatū campus whānau room) and went straight into completing the Te Atakura foundation series of workshops (which will be running again this April). His commitment to improving every aspect of his teaching approach is awesome. You can tell he really cares about doing the best for his ākonga as he listens carefully to ākonga voice to gain understanding about the things that would really make a difference to them and then makes changes to his practice based on this,” says Janell.
Throughout a tutor’s Te Atakura journey, student voice is collected both in the observation process, and ākonga Māori focus groups. Ākonga voice is one piece of evidence that Te Atakura collects which can help tutors recognise the difference the things they are trying in their teaching practice. For Shane, that voice has been outstanding - and reflects the impact that the culturally responsive, relationships-based teaching approach of Te Atakura can have.
Student voice on Shane’s teaching has included, “I can answer the questions now instead of just sitting in the background”; “Everybody gets to learn from everybody else now”; “Our kaiako has a plan for us, and we came up with a plan together for how to work”; “at the start I knew nothing, and now I have learnt a ton”; and “I always felt quite lost before, then I would zone out, start fidgeting and not pay attention. I didn’t feel engaged enough to want to participate in the theory classes we did (before) but, our kaiako now asks us what we want to learn about, and they are not ranting – ranting doesn’t always work”.
When complimented on how well he’s making progress as a new tutor, Shane is humble. He likes to give back, he explains. It’s why he took the leap in the first place.
“You get stagnant if you don’t have any challenges!”
To his current and future students, he says, “Use this opportunity to your advantage! Don’t give up and ask questions. What’s in front of you is a huge opportunity.”