All our students need a hope and a future to look forward to. They need to know that they can go forward while still holding on to all that they are and have become. Our students are drenched in so much of what we say and do from the day they walk into our doors at the age of 5. We want to shape them and give them all these possibilities. But if they walk out the doors at the end of their learning journey having lost who they deeply were culturally, then have we succeeded?
Russel Bishop talked about the accumulated gaps between Maori and non-Maori educational achievement. The gap is compounding.
The power that a teacher has to make a difference in a Maori student can be life changing one way or the other.
Throwing a couple of day courses and the odd youtube clip about how to improve Maori achievement is not going to solve the problem. It requires a complete shift to genuine cultural responsiveness from the teachers.
Cultural responsiveness is reflected in five elements
Cultural responsiveness is reflected in five elements
- knowledge about cultural diversity
- the culturally integrated content in the curriculum
- the development of the learning community
- the ability to communicate with culturally diverse students
- culturally responsive delivery of instruction (Gay, 2002).
Why is this continuing when in our Treaty of Waitangi in Article 3 it stated “ Maori will benefit from being a citizen of the new society” The disengagement, truancy and low levels of achievement for our Maori students are not reflective of them ‘benefitting’.
Our school is on the road to a true agentic teacher. We are moving forward and actively collaborating and cooperating with others to make a change. Our model of teaching is trying to be relationship centred. Based on caring and learning relationships with a genuine interest in the journey of the student.
Russell Bishop identified five key elements for cultural responsiveness.
1) Care for Maori as Maori.
2) Have high expectations for their performance.
3) Allow the learning to be in context for the Maori learner. Give them opportunities to offer valuable opinion and ideas.
4) Have meaningful interaction of feedback and feedforward. Allowing goal settings and next steps opportunities.
5) Teach with a range of strategies. Use evidence to guide the teaching. Let the student know their outcomes and the next steps.
Our school is aiming to make these five elements an entrenched part of our daily teaching life. Our Professional learning as a whole staff has spent many hours looking, discussing and unpacking this so that we all can move on the action continuum from the white space and closer to the red. We have all had Te Kotahitanga training, which was invaluable. Our school journey is an exciting one and I feel privileged to be working in an environment which is actively pursuing the improvement of cultural responsiveness.
Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Cavanagh, T. & Teddy, L. (2009).Te Kotahitanga: Addressing educational disparities facing Māori students in New Zealand. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(5),734–742.
Gay,G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2),106-116.
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