Teaching Games for Whakawhānaukataka: Doubling Down on ‘Understanding’ that Kī-o-Rahi is more than just a game — Emphasising Whakawhānaukataka to Promote the Importance of Hauora (Wellbeing)

The purpose of this study was to use the Traditional Indigenous Game (TIG) or taonga tākaro, ‘Ki-o-Rahi’ (KoR) to explicitly promote a better understanding of wellbeing among students. Often in Physical Education (PE) settings, the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) model is employed to educate students in games’ play about playing the game(s). For example, the creators of the TGfU model stated that “the primary purpose of teaching any game [TGfU] should be to improve students’ game performance and to advance their enjoyment and participation in games, which might lead to a healthier lifestyle” (Thorpe & Bunker, 1996, p.30). However, this study reversed this position and instead emphasised promoting Hauora (wellbeing) improvements to students’ lifestyles firstly, with the secondary outcome that it might lead to better game performance (but this was not a primary objective). Essentially, our aim was to determine if the KoR Unit (‘KoRU’) could be used to re-frame a traditional ‘TGfU’ unit and double-down on the ‘Understanding’ to privilege the promotion of Hauora (wellbeing) and to assess if this re-positioning led to improvements in rangatahi lives?