Week 28: Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Perspective: Teaching in New Zealand

To be noticed, to be acknowledged, to be remarkable enough  

Susan Nelson 2014

I was recently at a conference in Portland, Maine, USA.  I was the lowly Canadian/Kiwi in a room full of American teachers.  The day was infused with references to, as you might expect, all things American...presidents, types of food, tv references, landmarks and of course election anecdotes.  I remember little of that now.  But what I do recall was the mention of the War of 1812... Now whether Canadians did burn down the White House isn’t important-because that tidbit was for me - the presenter did read my registration card!  (Fun fact: Americans don’t remember anything about that particular military encounter.)  

Later, Richard (I feel like I know him now) did a “bit” about the pronunciation of the letter ‘Z’, which this time did get a few polite chuckles from the room.  That small acknowledgement connected me to this group of strangers.  Furthermore, I am not the only person who feels this way.  Did you know there are lists and lists of webpages devoted to examples of Nova Scotia (that’s where I come from) being mentioned in pop culture? My two personal favourites are Carly Simon’s song, “ You’re so Vain” and when Brad Pitt ends up in Nova Scotia in the movie “World War Z”...the only place on the planet safe from zombies.  Perhaps it's not a resounding endorsement for tourism Nova Scotia...but it is noteworthy that when people feel connected, they remember.  

Imagine if kids were the same.  What if they, every time a teacher made a reference to something important to their personal life, felt like that?  What if making that simple change to the way we taught made them feel included, like someone cared...and that what they bring to the table is worth knowing about?

The 2013 Census (Statistics NZ, 2013)  found that New Zealand has become home to 213 different ethnicities. This vast diversity is reflected in the students in our classrooms and requires teachers to establish an inclusive learning environment for all.  My class alone boasts a total of 14 distinct cultures.  

We all learn differently, and as teachers we strive to teach each student based on their strengths, their interests and their next steps in learning.  But there is inequality within the New Zealand education system in which some groups perform poorly compared to other others.  ERO (2012) reports that our priority learners, including many Māori and Pasifika students, have been underachieving compared to other ethnic groups in NZ.  

Bishop, Berryman, Tiakiwai, & Richardson (2003) found that many teachers believed that the main reasons attributing to the achievement gap was the students, their families and their community.  This deficit attitude that teachers held about Maori students, suggests Macfarlane (2007), means that teachers then don’t reflect on and change the ways their own teaching practice may be perpetuating this under-achievement.

Mary Room 2 2015

Te reo Māori and tikanga Māori are

valued and promoted in teaching and learning in our school

Our Year 6’s hold 65 leadership positions where they mentor and guide the younger students.   They are Playground Angels who introduce games and activities during playtime. They are Young Vinnies who organise fundraisers for less fortunate students in all over the world.  They are Environmental Rangers who grow vegetables for our whānau.  And they are First Aiders who look after the well-being of all our students in the playground. Our students gain confidence, take responsibility and have an important part to play in the running of our school.  

Our kapa haka group is an integral part of our community.  Our students perform at all of our school events such as Gala Day, Grandparent’s Day and beginning of year and end of year Mass. Most recently they performed the haka for Kane Radford, a former student,  when he came to visit our school after participating in the Rio Olympics.  Our students are always proud to represent their school.  

We have an amazing Whānau Roopu.  Our parents have helped teachers and staff implement many initiatives which we would not have had the confidence to do on our own.  The activities organised during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori involved all children and and provided some fun things for their families and whānau as well.  They support teacher and staff professional development including marae visits to share local knowledge and expertise of cultural significance in our city. Our kaumatua and the leader of our kapa haka invest a great deal in our community and our children value and respect their dedication and commitment.

I know that there are many elements of my practice and within the school where we can and should improve.  Te Reo Māori within the class comes quickly to mind.  It is often said that our students are our most valuable resource and we need to utilise their expertise .  As teachers and a school we need to nurture their confidence in their own abilities to take the lead and be the teacher.  

Māori language and knowledge is found nowhere else in the world except New Zealand.  Let’s just make a big deal about what makes people unique in our classes everyday.  

Imagine if your students remembered everything you said that made them feel like you genuinely cared about who they are?

Kayla Room 2 2015

References:

Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Tiakiwai, S., & Richardson, C. (2003). Te Kotahitanga: The experiences of Year 9 and 10 Maori students in mainstream classrooms. Report to the Ministry of Education. Wellington, N.Z.: Ministry of Education.

Education Review Office. (2012). Retrieved from: http://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Releases2/The-three-most-pressing-issues-for-N

Macfarlane, A., Cavanagh, T., Glynn, T. & Bateman, S. (2007) Creating culturally safe schools for Maori students. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 36: 65-76. Retrieved from: http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Leading-change/Manaakitanga-Leading-with-moral-purpose/Creating-culturally-safe-schools-for-Maori-students

Week 27: Broader Professional Context:

Students as Creators Rather than Consumers: Makerspaces

“ We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist… using technologies that haven’t been invented… in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet"                                       Fisch and McLeod (YouTube 2010)

It all started rather innocuously at the end of year, two day PD, December 2015. Mark Osborne, from Core Education, explained that as teachers we could, by simply creating more flexible learning spaces within our classrooms, begin to prepare our learners for the future.  This PD was meant to unsettle and shake up our previously held ideas about education.  I am still having nightmares.

So before the start of the new year I, like so many other teachers at my school, made a few changes to my classroom: most notably I created a green room from a rather large smelly closet, added a few new items of uber-cool movable furniture pieces (a surprise from the BOT) and started planning (with my team of course) how to engage my learners using one-to-one Chromebooks.  Baby steps, right?

Mind Lab was the next step.  Here I found like-minded teachers and research to back up and reconfigure my ideas  - to ground them in theory  - adding oxygen to the fire that Mark had ignited.

The Education Review Office, ERO (2012) writes that in order to raise achievement levels of our priority learners we need to make some changes to our teaching and to nurture their engagement of learning.  Priority learners are learners identified from low SES households - many of whom are Māori and Pacific Islanders.  The ERO report goes on to suggest that schools need to “develop systems, processes and connections that put students at the heart of learning and teaching” (ERO 2012, p. 6).

Technology is one way to target intervention and reduce the achievement gap of priority students by engaging them in their learning.  And it is one of the reasons our school adopted one-to-one devices.  The NMC Horizon Report 2016 illustrates emerging technologies and how they may impact future teaching and learning in schools.  

So I figure when Mark Osborne, ERO and the NMC have an idea that collides then I  have to seriously investigate that technology trend in light of my current teaching practice.  

Maker-centred learning environments start with the main assumption that everyone is a maker. How’s that for inclusion!  Maker spaces are developed so students can be creative, collaborative, hands on, innovative using real world activities. How’s that for student centred!

This maker philosophy has been embraced globally by governments and large business.  For students, making, within a purposeful and dynamic curriculum, is a way of learning how to solve issues they will face in the future. “For CEOs, creativity is now the most important leadership quality for success in business, outweighing even integrity and global thinking” (Briggs 2014, n.p.).

“China’s Ministry of Science and Technology has pledged to invest $313 million into research and development of 3D printing technologies to help primary school educators incorporate 3D printing in the classroom” (NMC Horizon Report 2016, p. 36 ).  

In the US, President Obama has endorsed a National Week of Making saying  “We recommit to sparking the creative confidence of all Americans and to giving them the skills, mentors, and resources they need to harness their passion and tackle some of our planet’s greatest challenges” (The White House, 2016, n.p.).

At the end of the day, as a teacher, my job is to develop learners.  Technology has changed the way we do almost everything in our everyday lives.  Of course it is going to impact how and what we teach so that we can foster connected life-long learners. “The success [of priority and all learners] in education is essential to the government’s goal of building a productive and competitive economy...[and helping learners develop] the skills needed to reach their full potential and contribute to the economy and society” (ERO, 2012, p. 4).

References:

Briggs, S. (2014). Students as Creators.  informED Blog. Retrieved from: http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/students-as-creators/

Education Review Office. (2012). Evaluation at a Glance: Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools. Retrieved 18 May 2016, from http://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Release…

Fisch, K. and McLeod, S. (2010).  Did You Know?/Shift Happens. Retreived from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

New Media Consortium. (2016). NMC Horizon Report: 2016 K-12 Edition. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2016-nmc-cosn-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf

The White House. (2016).  Office of the Press Secretary.  Retrieved from: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/Blog/2016%20National%20Week%20of%20Making%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

Week 26:My Professional Context: The Key to Engaging My Community

Retrieved from  http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/06/67/2066799_3cb5cef7.jpg.

For the last eight years I have been teaching in a state-integrated Decile 6 Catholic primary school. It has a maximum roll of 450 students.  Currently 445 students from across the city seek a Catholic values-based education with us.  Our students and their families represent a diverse range of cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds.  The community is currently identified as 45% NZ European, 21% Māori, 9% Pasifika, 21 % Asian (including Indian and Filipino) and 3% Other.  Our families are represented across all levels of the socioeconomic status (SES) scale.  

“Children from low SES families tend to have significantly lower levels of school success in terms of academic achievement than children from middle and high SES families” (Ball 2000, as cited in Thrupp, 2006, p.2).  Salvatore Gargiulo (2014) illuminates the issue of child poverty in NZ in his report.  The sobering statistic is, that one in four children living in New Zealand lives in poverty and most will remain there permanently.  

It is difficult to know if this statistic tells the story of the students at our school.  Regardless, it is important to understand and consider some of the issues facing our students and their families and the effect these may or may not have in terms of their education.  For example, many of our Filipino and Indian families are new migrants to NZ.  They have few family members in NZ to use as support and many families have one parent in full or part-time study.

For example, this may impact why some parents do not come to traditional parent interviews. Barriers to engaging our community may include work and schooling commitments, childcare arrangements, language barriers, and transportation (as our families tend not to live near the school). Solutions are possible if we value the input of our families in the process of academic achievement.

Our school strives to reach out to our community.  Our Board of Trustees reflects the diversity of cultures and ethnicities of our school.  We also have a Whānau Rōpū, Pasifika Fono Group and Filipino Group who each bring together all that is relevant and important to their respective communities. Student led conferences, class blogs, individual student blogs (e-portfolios), the Reading Together programme and Homework Club are a few of the many ideas our staff and parents have implemented to come together.  “It is important to establish strong home-school partnerships where parents, whānau and communities are involved and supported in students learning” (Ministry of Education, n.d., para.2).

So what makes Catholic schools different? It is our special character.  It is the glue that holds it (us) all together.  “The culture of a Catholic school expresses the core beliefs, values, traditions and symbols which provide meaning to the school community and which help shape the the lives of students, teachers and parents” (Bell 1996, as cited in O’Donnell  2000).  Christian values are modelled and celebrated in classrooms, the playground, assembly and Mass. Caring for and supporting our students and their families is a very important part of our history and culture of our school.  It aptly describes who we are.
 

Lately it seems that transition is the only constant in education.  So now more than ever having a well thought out school culture that supports and embraces 21st century education is imperative.  This is not just a figurative insight.  Literally, we have had a number of physical changes happening at the school to create more flexible and open learning spaces.  “Where inquiries are shared, interventions devised collaboratively and reflections based on both self and peer observations, can lead to the development of a robust, continuously improving community of practice” (Osborne, 2013, p.2).

Like many schools, we have been working for seven years to improve our teaching pedagogy and become more effective teachers .  I won’t lie...there were tears and a few teachers moved on. (I wasn’t the only one making possible career list changes during staff meetings - see blog post one).  It has been a 180 degree shift: from a school that Stoll (1998)  would describe as primarily engaging in individualism, where we worked on our own in isolation - to a staff trying our best to engage in an authentic collaborative culture with the goal of ultimately improving students’ learning.  

Lesson learned? Changing a school's culture takes time, trust and communication.  Every school needs to take stock and look at the difference between where they are, and where they want to be.

References:

Gargiulo, S. (2014). Principal sabbatical report. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Leadership-development/Professional-information/Principals-sabbatical-reports/Report-archives-for-2007-2014/Secondary-award-recipients-2014/Gargiulo-Salvatore

Ministry of Education.(n.d.).New Zealand Curriculum Online.  Community Engagement  Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Principles/Community-engagement

O’Donnell, S. (2000). The Phenomenon of Special Character in New Zealand State Integrated Schools: A naturalistic study of two Catholic secondary schools. Massey University, Albany, New Zealand. Retrieved from: http://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/2274/02_whole.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Osborne, M. (2013). Modern Learning Environments. The CORE education blog.  Retrieved from http://core-ed.org/blog/2013/03/modern-learningenvironment

Stoll. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

Thrupp, M. (2006). Improving the schooling chances of New Zealand’s poorest children: Policy and Community Challenges. University of Waikato, New Zealand.  Retrieved from http://www.cpag.org.nz/assets/Presentations/Improving%20schooling.pdf

Week 25: Practice

Communities of practice are formed when “ a group of people, who share a passion for something they know how to do, interact regularly to learn how to do it better”  (Knox, 2009).  What I found interesting is that Wenger suggests that some of these communities are “so familiar that [they] often escape our attention”  (Wenger, 2011, p.3).  I guess, in the past, I’ve been guilty of not fully understanding the part I was playing in these practices.  But luckily I didn't lose any sleep over it, because Wenger then goes on to say that “when [the CoP] is given a name and brought into focus, it becomes a perspective that can help us understand our world [or our learning or our student’s learning] better” (Wenger, 2011, p.3).  So then I began to understand that this is about being aware of and recognising these conversations where we “share experiences and knowledge in free-flowing, creative ways that foster new approaches to problems” (Wenger and Snyder, 2000, p.140).

Schools are in the business of learning.  Wenger (2011) uses the metaphor of constellations to describe how community of practices (CoPs) may exist within larger or interconnected communities of practice and how each takes care of different yet specific features within an organisation. My school will have a number of CoPs operating “ to create, expand and exchange knowledge and to develop individual capabilities” (Knox, 2009).  In fact, upon reflection, I am beginning to wonder when during my teaching day am I not in engaging in a CoP?

Initially I felt I should reflect upon my Mind Lab group as my community of practice because it seemed to embrace more of Wenger’s (and consequently my) ideas...and perhaps it still does as he argues that managers (insert principal here) cannot mandate CoPs.  He also goes on say that CoPs differ from teams.  Furthermore, he says that it is “the organic, spontaneous and informal nature of CoPs makes them resistant to supervision and interference” (Wenger and Snyder, 2000, p.140).  It is not hard to see why I didn’t exactly envision my syndicate as fitting any of those constructs.

After enduring team meetings lasting until 5:30 pm each week... seemingly only concerned with the sometimes mindless babble of administrators, I was not feeling the CoP vibe of my syndicate. I mean how could the endless team agendas crammed full of camp and gala days and health and safety and discos and who isn’t going out on duty on time... (You get my point?)  How can all of that be considered a community of practice?  What I eventually decided was, it doesn’t.  But, thankfully, once in awhile, in spite of admin mumbo jumbo, we have time to talk about how we plan to enhance our teaching practice and student learning.  

And finally, my community of practice reveals itself within our weekly team meetings...and also in the morning chats on the way to get a hot chocolate...between mouthfuls of lunch...and after school emails when we should be putting our feet up and relaxing.  So fully integrated into our repertoire of daily teaching that we don’t even recognise it for how special it truly is. We are four dedicated teachers who try our best be effective 21st century educators.  We care about the students we teach and every day endeavour to figure out how to use best practice to help them fully engage with the curriculum.

Our  Year 5 and 6 syndicate has worked together for a number of years and have developed and established a bond of trust.  We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and utilise these whenever possible.  We are used to sharing our thinking and ideas and we support and challenge these ideas.  We analyse data we have collected, identify students achieving below expected levels and talk about how we need to make shifts in our practice to accelerate the learning of these students. We try to clearly establish goals with an understanding of urgency and expectancy to meet these targets.  We create tables and graphs to show and monitor student progress.   We have developed ideas about barriers we feel students are confronted by and have brainstormed potential strategies.  We use research and revisit resources we already familiar with. We talk about our successes and we talk about our failures.  Now we have a range of strategies at our disposal for these students.

It is within these conversations that I feel most productive and like I am doing my job; what I am employed to do and why I really teach. It is in these moments that I stop making a mental checklist of other jobs that I might enjoy doing more and remember why I took on this mammoth task.  Now...where did I put my duty roster again?

Knox, B. (2009). Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making them Grow. [video file] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMPRZnRFkk

Wenger, E. (2011). Communities of Practice: A Brief Introduction. Retrieved from https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/11736?show=full

Wenger, E. and Snyder, W. (2000). Communities of Practice: The Organisational Frontier
Harvard Business Review. January-February 2000, pp. 139-145. Retrieved from http://www.rareplanet.org/sites/rareplanet.org/files/Communities_of_Practice__The_Organizational_Frontier%5B1%5D.pdf