Maiki Marks

Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Paoa

1944 - 2002

Maiki Marks was educated at Mangamuka Native School and Queen Victoria School. She trained as a School Dental Nurse and as a secondary school teacher graduating with a Dental Nurse Diploma and a Diploma of Teaching and specialising in Te Reo Māori, English and Home Economics. She has taught at Hillary College and at Henderson High School. She has been a member of the Multicultural Committee of the PPTA Executive. Maiki is a member of a cooperative that is running a Papatoetoe based bi-cultural publishing company called Te Roopu Kahurangi. She returned to Te Taitokerau in May 1993 from Wellington and has been writing full-time since that time. Marks has written and presented two papers on behalf of the Kororareka marae society at Lincoln University and at the Seaviews Conference in February 1998. She writes submissions and speeches. Maiki is Planning and Policy person for the Kororareka Marae society. She is member of the Te Taiao Kororareka Marae Society, and is Vice-Chair Māori of the National Standards Body. Maiki has held memberships on the New Zealand Board of Health (1985-87), the Australasian Evaluation Society (1996-98) and Quality Management in NZQA. She has worked as a workplace assessor for Māori in Tourism in 1995, was a Moderator Trining for Te Reo Māori from She was Vice-Chair Māori on the National Standards Body from She was Co-chair of the Business Management and Finance Whakaruruhau from She was Planning and Policy Co-ordinator for the Paihia Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association from She was Hauora Ploanning and Policy Co-ordinator and Training facilitator o Hauora Taumarere from In 1997 she was a member of the Bay of Island Co-ordinatin Health Group in 1997, was co-opted onto the Bay of Islands Health Trust in 1997 and was a member of the National Māori Working Group for Palliative Care. She was Chair of the Bay of Islands Association for Environmental Education from 1996-7.

Biographical sources

  • Phone conversation and correspondence with Maiki Marks, 20 Aug. 1998. PPTA Journal Term 3: 1985, 12.
  • Te Iwi o Aotearoa 13 (1988): 21.
  • Email from Abbie Twiss 21 Nov. 2022.

    Non-fiction

  • "Maiki Marks." Peggy Ashton and Doreen Suddens. Broadsheet 113 (1983): 12-14.
  • An autobiographical account of her schooling, dental nurse training, and attendance at a Māori Language Teachers’ Course. She speaks of the dilemma of being the only Māori teacher in schools and discusses education in South Auckland and particularly in Otara.
  • "The Māori Language, Teachers And Work Stress." PPTA Journal Term 3 (1984): 7-10.
  • In this interview with PPTA field officer Keith Thorsen at the 1984 PPTA Conference, Marks discusses the challenges and pressures facing Māori language teachers. She stresses the need for recognition of taha Māori in schools and for an evaluation of why the present system fails Māori children. Marks supports moves for separate Māori schools run for Māori and by Māori, and argues for a Māori forum within PPTA with positions set aside for Māori members on the PPTA executive. She also contends that there should be a Māori presence at all regional and branch levels, and a reexamination of the qualifications needed for those teaching taha Māori.
  • "The Frustrations of Being a Māori Teacher." Māori Educational Development Conference, Tuurangawaewae Marae, 23-25 March, 1984 Sponsored by NZ Māori Council. Nga Tumanako. Ed. Ranginui Walker. Auckland, N.Z.: Centre for Continuing Education, U of Auckland, N.Z., 1984. 43. Rpt. as "The Frustrations of a Māori Language Teacher." Broadsheet 121 (1984): 12-13. Rpt in Nga Kete Waananga...Readers in Māori Education: "Akonga Māori: Māori Pedagogy and Learning. Comp. Graham H. Smith. Auckland, N.Z.: Māori Studies Department, Auckland, N.Z. College of Education, 1986. No further details.
  • In this paper presented to the Māori Education Hui held at Turangawaewae Marae, Ngaruawahia, in March 1984, Marks articulates the difficulties facing Māori teachers working within education systems that focus on middle class Pakeha children and which covertly require Māori children to conform to Pakeha models. Marks outlines the specific problems facing Māori language teachers and the enormous challenges encountered by Māori girls at school.
  • "Team-work." Broadsheet 122 (1984): 26-28. Rpt. in Broadsheet: Twenty Years of Broadsheet Magazine. Comp. and introd. Pat Rosier. Auckland, N.Z.: New Women’s Press, 1992. 145-150.
  • Co-authors Tupou Manapouri and Maiki Marks.
  • "Māori qualifications: A Vision of Whare Wananga." PPTA Journal Term 3 (1985): 31-32.
  • Co-authors Maiki Marks and Pat Heremaia.
  • "Te Reo Māori as of Right." PPTA Journal Term 2 (1986): 20-23.
  • Marks interviews Claire Aroha Morgan, Secretary to the Board of Māori Affairs, and Te Hemara Maipi, President of the National Youth Council, on the subject of challenges facing Māori youth at school. Morgan and Maipi discuss ways in which Māori could be better served in the education system, particularly by encouraging Māori women to stay at school beyond the age of fifteen.
  • "A Māori Perspective on PPTA." PPTA Journal Term 3 (1987): 11-12.
  • In the second section of this two-part article co-authored with Fred Jackson, Marks affirms PPTA’s role in supporting Māori language teaching but argues that its ‘spearhead has been blunted by the lethargy of the Department of Education’. The two areas that need further Union attention are, according to Maiki, racism and its implications for PPTA members, and the working conditions of first year Māori language teacher graduates.

    • Other

  • "Submission to the Draft Annual Plan." Te Runanga o Taumarere, 14 April 1998.
  • On behalf of the Te Ruanga o Taumarere this submssion was sent to the General Manager of the Far North District Council, Kaikohe.
  • "Submission to the Annual Plan – 1998/99." Paihia & Districts, Residents and Ratepatyers Association, 29 April 1998.
  • "Submission to the Resource Management Act 1991." Kororareka Marae Society Inc., 26 June 1998.

  • Papers/Presentations

  • "Kia Ora Tonu Te ‘Ha’ Me Te ‘Mauri’ O Te Taiao Mo Nga Uri Whakatupu." Lincoln U., Christchurch, N.Z. u.d.
  • Presented at Lincoln University on behalf of the Kororareka Marae Society.
  • "A Māori Perspective of the ar North District and Council." 10 Aug. 1997.
  • This speech was given to the Hon Christine Fletcher on 10 August 1997.
  • "Kia Ora Tonu Te Mauri O Nga Moana O Te Taitokerau Mo Nga Uri Whakatupu." Seaviews Conf. Wellington, N.Z. Mar. 1998.

  • Reviews

  • "A Mihi to Donna Awatere by way of a review of Māori Sovereignty, by Donna Awatere." Maiki Marks and Bernie Gadd. PPTA Journal Term 2 (1985): 50.
  • A review of Awatere’s Māori Sovereignty written in Māori and English in the form of a poem. The text reflects Awatere’s anger and rage and emerging power and victory.

    Other

  • Erai, Michelle, Fuli, Everdina, Irwin, Kathie and Wilcox, Lenaire. Māori Women: An Annotated Bibliography. [Wellington, N.Z.]: Michelle Erai, Everdina Fuli, Kathie Irwin and Lenaire Wilcox, 1991. 1+.