You're my favourite class, too

A New Plymouth councillor has recently been widely criticised for his comments about Te Reo and questioning whether there is value in promoting it. This condemnation is not surprising. We expect the councillor, as someone in a public role, to have greater sensitivity and awareness of cultural matters and their importance to New Zealand. Within the classroom, teachers should show daily their understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness. There continues to be a disparity between Māori and non-Māori students. Savage et. al. (2011) attribute this to the domination of Pākehā culture and western practices in the education system. Culturally responsive pedagogy means contextualising learning to meet students' "cultural forms, behaviours and processes" (Savage, et.al., 2011, p. 2). Likewise, Bishop et. al. (2007) identify culturally responsive teachers as being those who "care for students as culturally located individuals" (p. 11). The adapted...

My cultural perspective is undeniably Pakeha-dominated. My parents (and their parents, and their parents' parents) were working class of European descent. Although I am empathetic towards issues of cultural bias, I know that will always benefit from 'white privilege'. Likewise. my children, whose whakapapa traces back to Hoturoa, commander of the Tainui waka, will also know that privilege due to their blue eyes and pale skin which scream Pakeha. At least two of the Practising Teacher Criteria  explicitly refer to showing commitment to and working within a bicultural context. My school does make concerted efforts to incorporate Maori culture into our teaching practices, including the use of te reo, references to Maori world views and cultural practises. There is room to develop our multiculturalism, though. How does our school culture reflect the growing numbers of Filipino students or our Chinese fee-paying students? There is great value in diversity. Within...