UPCOMING PILOT WORKSHOP • LIMITED SPACES
Start by meeting your paddler.
When things get real in a room, everyone has a natural baseline strength they reach for. Take the quick quiz and discover your paddler type.
Every paddler needs a name. Select your preference to begin:
Question 1: The shared staffroom fridge is an absolute crime scene. Someone left milk from last term, and there's a mysterious Tupperware container growing its own ecosystem. You...
Question 2: You have a brilliant presentation ready, but the projector refuses to connect, the Wi-Fi is down, and your laptop is doing an unskippable automatic update. Your learners are staring at you. You...
Question 3: It is the final ten minutes of a long session on a rainy Friday afternoon. The collective energy in the room has dropped to absolute zero. You...
There you go, your inner paddler! Share your result with the crew over morning tea and let's keep scrolling to find out how all paddlers, working together, move the waka.
Ngā Hoe e Waru is like all good gardening stories. For decades, across many different lives, I have been gathering seeds of experience, learning, mistakes, and inspiration. Some are mine, some are shares and swaps from others, collected through conversations and research along the way.
But gathering seeds is only part of it. You need to gather a lot of seeds, to end up with a handful of the right seeds for what you want to grow. Don't plant onions if you want watermelon. For a long time, I was gathering seeds and tending my own garden. Then there was a defining moment that helped me understand why I had been collecting them in the first place.
There is a scene in Down to Earth with Zac Efron: Down Under where Zac seeks permission to cross Aboriginal land. The elders tell him that when you come into their camp, you are under their protection.
I felt that in my bones.
That "you are under our protection" line hit me in my core. That is exactly how I feel about learners who enter my learning spaces.
That was the moment everything clicked into place for me as an educator. I have been gathering and growing to know enough to protect, so learners can participate in the learning partnership.
Ngā Hoe e Waru became how I guided learners through the journey when they arrived with their own experiences, strengths, and stories. It also became the way I could share that learning with other New Zealand educators. It is a framework built to turn those three pillars, protection, participation, and partnership, into the architecture of every learning experience.
The upcoming pilot workshop is where we paddle that waka together.
The Shore
You never just throw a waka into the river. First, you check the weather and the atmospheric pressure of the room. Then, you pack your kit with exactly what you'll need to face those specific conditions today.
The Stepping In
As educators, our job is to hold the waka completely steady, creating a safe, unshakeable space so our learners can get in and stay in. Then we push off, respecting the waters, the unique flow of the room, and the deep ancestry of the region beneath us.
The Paddling
We aren't going anywhere unless we find our rhythm and paddle together. Otherwise, we just exhaust ourselves rowing in circles. My role is to read the river and hold our direction, but the forward momentum belongs to all of us. You hold your own paddle.
The Safe Harbour
We stop the waka for a moment just to look around, listen to the birdsong, and see how far we've actually travelled today. And finally, we drop the anchor. We secure the learning right here so it doesn't drift away, leaving it safe, solid, and ready for your very next launch.
The workshop
A half-day framework immersion for educators who teach well and want to understand how.
You already completed the quiz before arriving. We open the day by naming who is in the waka. Each paddler type gets their own profile, and we see the full range of the room.
We zoom out. All eight paddles, together. What they are, how they work as a system, and why every paddle matters regardless of your natural style.
Using the Ngā Hoe e Waru reflection app, you look at your own teaching through the lens of all eight paddles. Where are you strong? Where do you go automatically? Where do you avoid?
Five minutes. Pick something you genuinely love doing outside the classroom. Sourdough baking, native bird watching, sea kayaking, it does not matter. The framework does not care what you teach. It is watching how you paddle.
Back to the app. This time you are reflecting on what just happened in real time. What landed? What would you do differently? You will see yourself differently than you did an hour ago.
You leave with
Your paddler profile, access to the Ngā Hoe e Waru reflection app, and a framework you can use every time you walk into a room.
Educator, navigator and developer of The 8 Paddles of Teaching | Ngā Hoe e Waru. Head of Training at City First Aid, postgraduate qualifications in Occupational Therapy and Adult and Tertiary Teaching. Still gathering, paddling and sharing after more than two decades in the classroom.
UPCOMING PILOT WORKSHOP · FREE · LIMITED SPACES
The water's warm and I know the way. No cost to you, just morning tea and your honest feedback afterward.
Email Gail to save your spotLimited spaces · First in, first placed
This workshop is part of a small pilot series. If you found your way here and would like to be considered for a future pilot, we would love to hear from you.
Get in touch about a future pilot