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 parents both worked two jobs to make ends meet and while I was aware of this struggle growing up, they made every effort not to let our financial status impact on my education. I can only imagine the late night budgeting and hair pulling my mother went through to make this happen for me and my brother. Although my parents sheltered me, I'm very aware that family income does come into play when we talk about student success and engagement, and that there are students in front of me every day whose family find school expenses difficult to meet or whose income affects their learning outcomes. Our school's culture is influenced by " its history, context and the people in it" (Stoll, 1998). I teach in a Decile 6 school. According to the Regional Economic Activity Report,  in 2015 the average household income was $81,867, which is $10,000 less than the average of all of New Zealand. The Environmental Health Indicators New Zealand  break this down further, and show t...

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...

Last night was the second Mindlab session, exploring the links between 21st century skills and the key competencies of the New Zealand curriculum. One interesting idea that was raised was that organisations ‘biological’, I guess in that there are levels of organisation and that they are living, evolving systems. This also means that organisations have the ability to ‘learn’. A t raditional school structure is hierarchical - within my own school we have the principal and two deputies, as well as three teachers who act as Senior Leader Support, followed by layers of deans, HODs, 2ICs... If we take the biological metaphor further, organisations, including schools, must be self-evolving or else they will stagnate. As the culture of an organisation changes, the nature of leadership within the organisation will also change. In schools, this includes how we might define knowledge and the role of teachers in bringing about changes. For my school and others to continue to evolve there ...