Associate Professor Mere Berryman
Position: Project Director
Email: mere@waikato.ac.nz
Biography
After more than twenty years as a classroom practitioner, then nearly fifteen years as researcher and manager of the Ministry of Education, Special Education Poutama Pounamu Education Research and Development Centre based in Tauranga, Mere now holds the position of Senior Research Fellow. This position allows her to continue to build on twenty years of research, working as part of a research whānau to develop and trial programmes aimed at supporting educators to work more effectively with Māori students and their families in a range of education settings.
In this work they have found that kaupapa Māori approaches, that acknowledge the importance of developing relationships with Māori students and their families in ways that maintain respect for each other, are most successful. This involves culturally responsive and collaborative approaches to understanding and resolving problems, with practitioners, beginning from a position of agency that acknowledges and supports the expertise of the child and their family, rather than from a position of perceived deficit.