The Costelloe whānau (from left): Kima, Anna, Tim, Barb, baby Ava, Tash and Pat. (Photo supplied)

Te reo Māori is a language for all New Zealanders. Here, South Africa-born Barb Costelloe, the principal of Sacred Heart Girls’ College in New Plymouth, tells Atakohu Middleton why she fell in love with the language.

Barb, you weren’t born in New Zealand. Tell me how you made it to Aotearoa.

That’s really the story of my parents, John and Win Blyth. They were at university in South Africa in the late 1950s before apartheid came into being. They were among the original student protesters who could see that apartheid was so wrong.

My dad was running papers for the African National Congress — smuggling anti-apartheid letters and literature, which was illegal — when he went to Sweden temporarily for a student job when he was 19. When Mum and Dad were in their early 20s, they decided that people like them couldn’t live in South Africa and they went and tried their luck living in Sweden, and that’s where I was born.

But Swedish culture was really, really different from everything they knew and loved in South Africa, and they were homesick, so they went back. Over the next few years, they felt that people like them needed to keep working for change.

So, through wonderful organisations like the human rights group Black Sash and the Anglican Church, my parents did everything they could to work for political change through social action, such as volunteering in Soweto Township. There, my mum taught literacy to domestic workers, and my dad helped entrepreneurs set up small businesses.

But eventually it was time to leave again. I have four younger brothers and when the eldest of these brothers hit 16, he got his military call-up papers. He was facing two years of conscription or four years in prison for conscientious objection.

My mum’s sister and her family were already living in Aotearoa — they came over in 1980 — so Mum came for a visit in 1982 to check it out. At this point, I was finishing school in Johannesburg and was all sorted for university in South Africa.

My parents gave me a choice: Did I want to stay behind in South Africa or give New Zealand a go? I was young and full of adventure, so I seized the adventure and turned up at Waikato University in 1983. Yep, about 18 months after the Springbok tour. Not a great time to be a young South African at Waikato!

Barb’s family in South Africa in 1980. Barb with parents Win and John Blyth in the back, and in front, brothers Chris, baby Dave, Phil and Anthony. (Photo supplied)

When did you first encounter te reo?

When I got here, I wanted to know what the Indigenous language was and quickly learnt this was Māori. In South Africa, I had learned Afrikaans, Latin and Zulu at school, so it was just a natural thought that as a new Kiwi, I needed to learn te reo Māori out of respect for Indigenous people.

I was doing a science degree in maths and concurrent teaching qualifications, so in my fourth year of my five-year degree, I used up the allowed non-science papers to have my first go at learning te reo. John Moorfield was my kaiako. Little did I know then how much of a trailblazer he was, and how the workbooks he wrote would be re-published for so many years afterwards. I still have my original John Moorfield reo books, and I still treasure them!

I qualified as a maths and science teacher and my teaching job was at Auckland Girls’ Grammar. I was all ready to go with my fledgling te reo and pretty excited about using it in school. But this was the late 1980s, around the time that the Māori Language Commission was set up, and I was awakened to the trauma of colonisation and the deliberate destruction of te reo Māori.

I started to understand the trauma for those whose whānau had lost their reo. Who was I, a young blonde South African, to be whakahīhī (smug) with the reo? What right did I have to speak the reo that I had learned through my privilege at university? So I didn’t. And as we all know, if you don’t use it, you lose it. During almost 30 years in secondary schools from 1986 to 2016, I didn’t speak much reo at all.

Then in 2016, my lovely husband Tim was volunteering on a programme helping adolescent boys who needed a father figure, and they were using some tikanga Māori. Tim decided that it was time that he learned enough te reo Māori to do a mihi, a karakia, and a waiata. He decided to sign up at our local Wānanga o Aotearoa. I said: “Well, if you’re off to the wānanga, I’m coming too!”

We began again with an absolute beginner class. This was great for me, as all that earlier reo had sunk deep down into my subconscious and was waiting to be reawakened. Tim and I did three wonderful years at the wānanga. Every Wednesday we had a three-hour class.

Beforehand, I’d think: “Oh, I’ve got three children and a full-time teaching job, and how can I fit in study?” But we’d head off to the wānanga and come out three hours later smiling from ear to ear, just filled up with joy, laughter and learning. My Tim’s a big muso, and all the waiata warmed his heart.

We learned so much — way more than I’d ever imagined. Te reo holds tikanga, holds a worldview, holds a way of thinking that sits comfortably and solidly inside me, and we loved the classes.

Once we finished at the wānanga, I could feel my reo starting to slip away, but by then I’d made some pretty solid decisions about how I was going to continue my commitment to te reo me te ao Māori.

At that time, I was a maths teacher at Sacred Heart Girls’ College, a Catholic school here in New Plymouth. I remember that for one Mahuru Māori — that’s a challenge to speak only in te reo — I committed to kōrero Māori anake i te rā katoa! (Only Māori, all day long!). I picked my birthday so that people would have to be kind to me, and for the whole day, I spoke only te reo.

I walked around with a little whiteboard and whenever the students looked really confused, wrote in English on the whiteboard. It was challenging to teach a whole day of maths — including senior maths and calculus — all in te reo, and there was a lot of pointing and gesturing and mime when my reo was inadequate.

But what I remember from that day is that some of the Māori students who went and got other Māori students from neighbouring classes to come and have a nosey at my class. I thought: “You know what? It’s all worth it.”

Fast-forward another few years, and I was made tumuaki (principal). When I was interviewed by the local paper after being appointed, I was asked what I would like to achieve as principal. I said I wanted more te reo Māori, and we have been on that pathway as a whole staff ever since.

“We are privileged to be invited into te ao Māori. But we come second. We are the support crew, not the main event. We will always need to tread gently, to be respectful, to wait our turn, to encourage and not take over.” (Supplied)

I remember that article. What was the reaction to that promise inside the school?

At the time, I did get some negative reaction from one or two staff members. Interestingly, it came in the way of an anonymous typed note — very cowardly.  I shared this with the staff and then had a giggle at the people who let me know it wasn’t them. Now everyone knows being tangata Tiriti is non-negotiable on our staff — for new appointments it’s a critical interview question — and hearing te reo every day is a little more normalised.

After I became tumuaki, I signed up to a Ministry of Education programme that helps teachers at all levels build skills and confidence using te reo Māori every day.

We were learning through Te Ataarangi under the guidance of Dr Ruakere Hond. In this, my third round of learning and third method of learning, we were learning in a full immersion environment from day one, using rākau, coloured Cuisenaire rods.

This means that you learn only through listening, like a child. When you learn by listening rather than reading, everybody’s pronunciation is tika, absolutely correct immediately. I was so impressed, and I highly recommend the pedagogy of Te Ataarangi. I was so proud of our staff too. In one particular semester, we had 19 of our 52 teaching staff on the course.

How have you gone about incorporating more te reo Māori into the school day?

Every time I speak as tumuaki, in any setting at all, I begin in te reo. I’m working strategically with our wonderful kaiako Māori to keep our staff learning. We have mini te reo sessions each Wednesday before school for all staff, and a voluntary class for staff after school on Thursdays. Te reo Māori is compulsory for all Year 7 to Year 9 students and strongly encouraged in the senior years.

We encourage all kaupapa Māori, such as kapa haka and the speech competition Ngā Manu Kōrero, and we incorporate te reo into our Catholic traditions and masses. We’ve strengthened whānau hui and work as closely as possible with our kaumātua and our local iwi and hapū.

As tumuaki, I have a passion to ensure our rangatahi experience a mainstream school where te reo is given the mana it deserves and is heard and evident every day.

What was the reaction from your wider family to your reo journey?

When Tim and I went to the wānanga, our three kids were still at uni and school. At first, they felt embarrassed for us that we were off to class and most likely making fools of ourselves — a classic teenage reaction.

It was so interesting to see how over the next few years, they became so proud of us. As young people entering the workforce, they were often asked to lead karakia or introduce themselves with a mihi. Quick phone call to Mum to get help!

The best consequence of the wānanga years, though, is that it inspired our Māori whānau to go, too, and especially our two young Māori lawyers in the whānau. That has totally made it all worth it!

Barb Costelloe and her teacher, Dr Ruakere Hond, at a reo wānanga at Parihaka. (Pic supplied)

What is it about te reo that fills your heart?

He tangata, he tangata, he tangata! It is about tamariki, mokopuna, and a better Aotearoa for the future. He waka eke noa! We need everyone, and there is room for everyone.

Of course, learning te reo and learning about the Māori world go hand-in-hand. What has everything that comes with te reo meant to you over the years?

Less thinking about me and more about the collective good. That is my motivation for keeping up my reo. What is good for Māori is good for all of us — and our planet, too!

Is there anything you’d like to add?

Thank you for the opportunity to share my story. Thank you to all my kaiako over all the years. I feel privileged to have the reo and am mindful that my learning has been easier because I don’t carry trauma. To all of you who have worked through your whānau trauma to get back your reo, I am in awe of you! Karawhiua!

To my fellow tāngata Tiriti: Kia kaha, e hoa mā! We don’t have the trauma, but we can never lose our māhaki (humility). We are privileged to be invited into te ao Māori. But we come second. We are the support crew, not the main event.

We will always need to tread gently, to be respectful, to wait our turn, to encourage and not take over.

This is a longer version of an interview with Barb Costelloe that formed part of the New Zealand Listener cover story by Atakohu Middleton for Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, September 14-20, 2026. You can read that story, titled Te reo Māori is Aotearoa’s language: The rise and rise of non-Māori learning te reo in English here and in te reo Māori here.

The post There’s room for everyone on the reo waka appeared first on E-Tangata.

From E-Tangata via This RSS Feed.