Reflective Entry #3

Reflective Entry #3

"More and more Pākehā and non-Māori are attempting to work with a variety of Māori groups throughout the education landscape” (A Barnes, 2013). A very true reality for many schools across New Zealand and one clearly evident in our own school where we have no members of our staff that are of Maori descent. 

Therefore, building the Cultural Competencies of our teachers has continually remained a top priority for our school and as an annual goal derived from the school’s Strategic Plan. We could make the assumption that this is a continual focus for many schools across the country as it has also been identified as a strategic goal for our own South Auckland Catholic Schools Kahui Ako as well as the local Franklin School’s Kahui Ako Cluster of 19 schools. On a wider scale, from conversations with personal colleagues and those working across New Zealand within the Mindlab June intake, it remains a focus for many of their schools as well. On an even broader scope, having many colleagues working across Canada where Lori emigrated from, we can attest to the fact that cultural responsiveness remains a focus there as well. This would suggest that it is a competency that is continually shifting and evolving and that we know directly affects student achievement, hopefully the priority and goal of every educational system, so it is a focus that must continue to inform and influence our teaching and learning pedagogies and practices. 

 

In our own school, we have made it a priority to unpack the Tapasā document. Firstly, through professional development provided by the Ministry in 2019. Then, through a number of staff PLD held throughout the year, where we called on external expertise from guest speakers in the local community as well as within our CoL, we have been able to grow our staff’s capabilities in Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Responsiveness. It has been a powerful experience, to say the least, to work alongside our colleagues as we were challenged by the preconceived biases and many misconceptions that existed amongst the staff around how our Pacific learners, families and communities engaged with their education. Through this journey we discovered the same could be said for our ignorance around our Maori learners, families and communities as well. By being honest in identifying where they sat within the framework of each of the Turu, our staff felt more open in moving forward in our journey towards growing our capabilities in indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness. A common area that we identified as a staff for further development was Turu 3: Effective Pacific pedagogies (2018) and how we could implement approaches that would be most effective in connecting with our Pacific learners. 

Well-named, this document has established itself as a “compass” for our staff in navigating the intricacies of building our understanding of the dynamic and constantly evolving nuances that make up the diverse cultures represented at our school.  Another resource helping to inform our teaching practice has been the 2020-2030 Action Plan for Pacific Education. Our key focus from this document in relation to our research has been in enabling every educator to work collaboratively to become culturally competent with our diverse Pacific learners and to support them to thrive in the educational setting. Simply put, we need a pedagogy within our school that will value and understand the unique identities of our students.

An observation to be made is how effortlessly all these documents mentioned above, align with the competencies of Ako, Whanaungatanga, Wananga, Manaakitanga, and Tangata Whenuatanga explored in the Tataiako document (2011). Again, it is no surprise that these documents give such a similar message; the strategies we put in place for our Maori and Pacific learners will ultimately benefit all students within our schools, no matter their cultural make-up. Within our school community we currently have 12% Maori, 23% Pasifika (consisting predominantly of Kiribati and Tongan descent), and a rapidly growing Filipino community making up 11% of our student population, with the rest of the students coming from a range of other ethnicities. Through our research, which will ultimately inform our practice, we are aware we need to identify strategies to cater to the cultural mosaic that exists within our school community. 

With the impending massive shift from single-celled classrooms to a new purpose- built collaborative flexible learning environment looming for the start of next year, we know the implementation of the core principles of Universal Design for Learning such as Engagement, Representation and Action and Expression, will be key when developing our new pedagogy and how we will decide to use our new space. Connecting these principles to our growing understanding of cultural responsiveness and indigenous knowledge, we need to keep some key considerations at the forefront throughout this design process. Considerations such as our Maori and Pacific students ethnic-specific learning styles and preferences, to ensure we are creating culturally safe spaces and settings within the new building and grounds. We also need to ensure we are up to date on professional learning and development in our understanding of Pacific and Māori pedagogy. This is where utilising resources such as Tapasā, Tātaiako, the Action Plan for Pacific Education 2020-2030, Ka Hikitia, and Tau Mai te Reo are so vital in the design process. And lastly, we need to consider how we will demonstrate in our school’s pedagogy our ability to value the identity, language and culture of all our students to create productive partnerships for all our tamariki as outlined in the Ka Hikitia strategy. No small feat, but we feel up to the challenge.

References

Barnes, A. (2013). What Can Pakeha Learn from Engaging in Kaupapa Maori Educational Research? Working Paper 1. New Zealand Council for Educational Research. PO Box 3237, Wellington 6140 New Zealand.

Education in New Zealand. (2020, October 21). Action plan for Pacific education 2020-2030. https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/overall-strategies-and-policies/action-plan-for-pacific-education-2020-2030/

Education in New Zealand. (2020, August 17). Tau Mai te reo. https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/overall-strategies-and-policies/tau-mai-te-reo/

Ministry of Education. (2011). Tātaiako: Cultural competencies for teachers of Māori learners.

Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Ministry of Education. (2013). Ka Hikitia: Accelerating success (2013–2017). Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Ministry of Education. (2018). Tapasā. Retrieved from http://www.elearning.tki.org.nz/News/TapasaCultural-Competencies-Framework-for-Teachers-of-Pacific-Learners