Working together, not working apart

Otago Daily Times

28-05-2025

"E koekoe te tūī, e ketekete te kākā, e kūkū te kererū." The tūī squawks, the kākā chatters, the kererū coos. It takes all kinds of people.", a whakatauki found in Aroha, Dr Hinemoa Elder.
This past week, I found myself at a table in The Link, as many students do at one point or another, working on a group assignment.
This assignment was for my treaty politics paper and our assignment was looking into the life of Hōri Kerei Taiaroa, a rangatira of Ngāi Tahu and parliamentarian who represented Southern Māori and played a vital role in the Ngāi Tahu fight for land justice following unfulfilled promises.
Tāiaroa's story is one of strategic resistance.
He tirelessly wrote petitions, letters, engaged in speeches and debates in Parliament and was heavily involved around the Princes St Reserve that was originally intended as a Māori reserve but was misappropriated by the Crown.
It was fascinating learning about the history of a place I had driven and walked past so many times.
Our group's research, which drew on parliamentary records, tribunal reports, historic accounts and letters, will now go towards the historical archives of Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou. This outcome made our work feel meaningful far beyond the classroom and I am appreciative of this.
This sense of purpose was just one of the reasons the assignment stood out, another was the group dynamic itself.
Working in a team isn't always a central feature of many courses — especially in law, where most assignments are individual. Collaboration definitely happens informally, studying together, doing practice exam questions and discussing course content.
But opportunities where the final product is a truly shared effort are few and far between.
That's part of what made this politics assignment so memorable.
Our group included two international students, Pablo, from the United Kingdom, and Eliza, from the United States.
It was reassuring and cool to see students from overseas choose to study Treaty politics. Their interest was genuine and real, and their research efforts were integral.
The discussions we had around the table each week were some of the most interesting I have had this year. They brought new perspectives to our analysis, questions about how settler colonialism looked in other places, or how land rights were framed in different jurisdictions.
Something I have often encountered is that group work gets a bad rap.
The cliche is that one or two people end up doing all the work, while the others coast along. That was not my experience, and hasn't been in the few group assignments I have partaken in.
I came away from the project feeling energised by how well we worked together. Everyone brought something different to the discussion.
On the day of our class presentations, the energy in the room was genuinely supportive. Each group was assigned a different actor in the Princes St Reserve discussions.
The result was a series of fascinating accounts of Māori political resistance against land grievances, events that shaped our city.
Doing this kind of collaborative, community-focused research, and knowing it would be shared with the rūnaka, was a powerful reminder that university assignments don't have to feel like exercises in box-ticking. They can matter and contribute, and bring people together.
The benefits of shared group work are also learned and practised by the many students involved in executive committees, planning events, advocating for peers and bringing in student engagement.
These are transferable skills, collaboration, communication and compromise and these lessons will serve us well long after graduation.
This wasn't the only example of group spirit that struck me recently.
I also went to the Capping Show, a different kind of collective effort, but one that shares a similar DNA: long hours, late nights, creative collaboration.
The show was clever, funny, inappropriate and well-polished. You could see the energy, time and effort that had gone into the numbers.
The vocal numbers were impressive; there were many talented singers.
A friend of mine, Jack, was one of the lead roles and seeing him up there having a great time was my favourite part.
Of course, not everyone saw it that way, and a non-negotiable of the Capping Show is its inappropriateness. Critic gave it a fairly harsh review in their "Tabloid Edition", prompting a series of letters to the editor and replies from the Capping Show team that had students whispering and wondering.
The back-and-forth reminded me how easy it is to slip into adversarial roles when we disagree, especially in student life, where everyone is trying their best, and getting tired as the end of semester draws near.
The lesson for me, in both the group project and the Capping Show v Critic debacle, seemed to be that students lifting each other up is far more powerful than tearing each other down.
Whether it is a research project, writing a script for a skit or trying to make it to the library for a morning lecture, we are part of the student community.
Working in a group, however informal or imperfect, is a nice reminder that we are not alone.
Kind regards,
Grace.
— Dunedin resident Grace Togneri is a fourth-year law student.