Step 1 (What): What is your understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness and what are the two of the areas mentioned above that you want to focus on for discussion?
I really enjoyed the video by Russell Bishop as we had just been discussing cultural responsiveness and deficit theorising today when applying for Professional Development funding for our school maths programme.
I particularly liked his 6 traits
- caring for Maori as Maori
- caring for the performance of Maori and setting high expectations
- managing a class pedagogy that promotes interactions with Maori and provide academic feedback and feedforward
- using a range of strategies effectively
- using evidence of student performance where both the teacher and students are fully aware of what they can do and what their next steps will be.
We found, as we analysed last years maths data to help identify target children for 2018, that there was evidence of some Maori children being identifed as below or well below despite having the same or similar scores to Pakeha children. We have also recently review the school wide literacy data and it was concerning that when teachers were asked to identify what could be done to support these children and to decide on some next steps, many of the teachers talked about the children's home life, lack of support from parents and needing to get whanau/family on board. Some were not able to identify what they as teachers needed to do in the classroom.
I also like how this video made me reflect on how it linked to my previous blog post on contemporary trends in New Zealand where I discussed the introduction of innovative learning environments. These are very much based around contextual learning and students being able to being their passions to the classroom as a basis for their learning. As this is the concept in many ILE, does this mean Maori should thrive and who is collecting the data on this?
Step 2 (So what): Evaluate your practice or your school practice in light of one of the following frameworks or use another one that you are familiar with.
I recently had the opportunity to talk to a Maori colleague and we discussed the concept of ILE and his concerns about Maori learning in this type of environment - it was interesting as he was impressed by the contextual learning he saw but was struggling as a teacher who has always had to teach using a traditional model. I enjoyed taking part in the survey as it made me think about where I stood.
I also enjoyed reading about the Mauri Model and seeing how this linked my thoughts and feelings to the conversation I had with my colleague. Mauri Moe has two levels: the first level is an inactive state which can be thought of as “being dead” and the second level is proactive potential which can be described as a “sleep” state.Mauri Oho is the state of being proactive, being awaken from the Mauri Moe.Mauri Ora is the state of being actively engaged.
I feel that I was in a bit of a sleep state. As a teacher and now as a Deputy Principal/SENCo at a school with a high percentage of Maori students, I liked to think that I was responsive to Maori children in my class and who I worked with. I was very aware of not making excuses by using deficit theories. However I feel after the above discussion, I began to move into Mauri Oho - and started to see how I could be more proactive in my dealings with whanau and children.
Step 3 (What next) What might you or your school need to consider or take action on to move up to the next level of cultural responsiveness? What are the next steps?
Our school is currently in the process of applying for professional development in maths and one of the things we need to look at is cultural responsiveness. I have already forwarded Russell's video talk to our principal as I thought it was really relevant, especially as we identified the deficit theorising going on with some of our teachers. I think that as a school with a high percentage of Maori students, but also with a high percentage of staff from non-indigenous cultures, we need to be very aware of being more culturally responsive.
References
Edtalks.(2012, September 23). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994
Pohatu, T. W. (2011). Mauri - Rethinking human wellbeing. MAI Review, 3, 1-12. Retrieved from http://www.review.mai.ac.nz/index.php/MR/article/v...
No comments:
Post a Comment