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| Image 1 - NZ Map |
Activity
#4:
“…issue of
Maori achievement with the education disparages in our country which are common
with other indigenous peoples around the world, which have been essentially an
artefact of colonialism…”. Bishop, R. (2012)
A Personal
Account on Education J
I once disliked the word ‘colonialism’ for the mere fact I felt it was
over-used to represent Maori non-achievement and I believed, when Maori weren’t
achieving, let’s blame it on ‘colonialism’. However, I see things a little differently
in recent years. I see colonialism for what it is, an event which
took place and the ‘shock waves’ are still evident today. Bear with
me, Maori who could adapt quickly to change did, and those who couldn’t,
struggled. Now imagine, an inability to transition to a new way of
life compounded and copied over generations…a chain ball effect if you will and
if you were lucky to be a generation who could break the cycle, ‘yay’. This
is not to take away from the fact that Maori do over-represent numbers in
prison and there are many aspects to the ‘why’ and ‘how’ they got there, but
colonialism was a catalyst. I am also not saying, there is a genetic
defect here either as Bishop states “…Maori are an incredibly educable
population” and “…if Maori people can achieve at tertiary level to the highest
degree a tertiary institution has got to offer, why can’t they get through
secondary level?”.
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| Image 2 - Russell Bishop |
This is certainly not a dig at secondary institutions as I
know there are many innovative and creative schools with passionate teachers. Becoming disillusioned may be a factor but students
who are under-achieving here were possibly under-achieving at the primary
sector and may have been ill-prepared at pre-school level – a pattern is
emerging: these students were never ready and not enabled to become ready. Furthermore to this, is the level and type of
engagement occurring between student and teacher. A teacher who cares, nurtures and supports
their students and is highly engaging, is bound to capture the aspirations of a
student who believes their teacher is interested in them and their well-being.
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| Image 3 - Te Kotahitanga study |
From research collated over 2000 to 2008, Bishop surmised “it
is [agendic] teachers who are the key to making a difference for Maori
students, that is teachers who have agency, who understand themselves to be
able to weave together all those things necessary in classrooms to create a
context, a learning context where young Maori people can bring themselves to
the learning conversation.” The student’s
own experiences, cultural understandings and where students can make sense of
the world is part of the process of a learning conversation and this is the
same for non-Maori students. All students
need to have an active part in their learning.
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| Image 4 -Our School's Values and Vision of 'I Care' |
Our school’s philosophy is based on ‘I Care’ for myself,
others, property and environment. ‘CARE’
is an acronym for Care, Achievement, Responsibility and Effort. Our school’s core values are based on this
simple statement and staff had worked hard to create classroom environments
encapsulating an inclusive and responsive curriculum not only for students and
staff but for the wider community as well.
Our mission statement is ‘Education with Care’ and our vision is ‘Caring,
responsible, life-long learners’. Despite
being a small word, its intent is huge.
When I first joined this staff, students appeared to ‘breathe’ the word,
action its intent nicely and I could feel the positive impact of staff
collegiality. This is also a brain-based
school where students learn about what switches them off or on to learning and
how they can help themselves to learn therefore, the key competencies and
principles such as learning to learn, as outlined in the NZC, are integrated
throughout classroom programmes.
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| Image 5 - The Educultural Wheel - adapted from MacFarlene (2004) |
The educultural wheel characterises our ‘I Care’ philosophy
nicely, by outlining the implementation of an inclusive and responsive curriculum
for all students, with a focus on priority learners. In my last post, I mentioned the role passionate
teachers who are making a difference have in our schools. They are attentive to their student’s needs
and are able to engage students as ‘partners in learning’, that is students who
are enabled and encouraged to participate in the ‘learning conversation’, to find
and use their ‘voice’.
However, as mentioned in an earlier posting, our school
culture is slowly changing. ‘I Care’
certainly still has a prominent part in classrooms, but it is not so readily
shared between management and staff as once was. Communication could improve…greatly, in terms
of how leadership and senior management inform staff of changes occurring for example, a Senior Teacher found out she
was no longer in this role while away sick for 1 day. The rest of us were present at a staff
meeting. I texted her of these changes,
she was quite upset at finding out this way.
The Principal had had ample time to prepare her with this news and his
vision of upcoming changes prior to the staff meeting. There
are more examples but these are petty and annoying to bring to light.
Thank goodness, most people I know are the ‘on the shoulders
of giants’ types of people, striving to make a difference for their students, no
matter how small and these are the people I want my children to surround
themselves with.
References:
Bishop, R. (2012). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations [video file]. Edtalks. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994
Savage, C., Hindleb, R., Meyerc, L., Hyndsa, A., Penetitob, W & Sleeterd, C. (2001). Culturally resposonsive pedagogies in the classroom: indigenous student experiences across the curriculum. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 183-190
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Image 4 - Our School
