Applied Practice in Context Activity 4 - Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Responsiveness

Applied Practice in Context Week 28

Activity 4 - Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Responsiveness

Culturally responsive pedagogy is defined by Gay (2001, p.106) as “using the cultural characteristics, experiences and perspectives as conduits for effective teaching”. It is reflected in five elements including 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 and culturally responsive delivery of instruction (Gay, 2001).

I have always taught in schools that are predominantly Maori and Pasifika tauira. I am Maori. Just because I am Maori doesn’t mean I know it all. I have worked in a school with a significant percentage of Maori tauira and yet I was the only Maori kaiako at the school for the eight years I worked there in the late 1990’s. The Principal’s ever repeating statement was “I do not distinguish any ethnicity above the others - there is no need to make Maori any more special.” Sheesh! I don’t know how I lasted there for so long!

Bucher (2008) identified nine megaskills that contribute to cultural intelligence.

• Understanding My Cultural Identity - Who I am, who you are?
• Checking Cultural Lenses - What’s it like in your culture?
• Global Consciousness - What’s it like in another culture?
• Shifting Perspectives - How do I understand it from your perspective?
• Intercultural Communication - How do you communicate that idea?
• Managing Cross-Cultural Conflict - What do you do to deal with this conflict?
• Multicultural Teaming - How shall we work together on this project?
• Dealing with Bias - Yeah… we are different, so what?
• Understanding the Dynamics of Power - With our cultural power what changes for good can we make?

Being aware of these megaskills and applying them to my professional teaching practice, to our classroom environment, to my discussions with colleagues, to the way I am innately.

After watching Russell Bishop’s EDTalk, I feel reassured that I am on the right path for focusing on the achievement of priority Maori learners in my class. This is one of our strategic goals for student learning - to ensure that Maori and Pasifika tauira are engaging in successful learning that results in progress and achievement levels similar to non-Maori and non-Pacific, both at this school and nationally. In order to achieve this goal our BOT has invested in building capacity amongst staff to cater for the strengths, needs and aspirations of our Maori and Pasifika tauira, with particular focus on ensuring the goals of Ka Hikitia and Pasifika Education Plan are achieved in our school.

Russell talks about six Te Kotahitanga tasks teachers need to do to show Maori tauira that they are valued and important.

The priorities that Russell talks about are:

• to care for Maori tauira as Maori, that I have high expectations for them and so does the leadership of the school,
• to create a learning context for Maori, so that they are able to bring their own knowledge to their learning journey,
• to manage the class and have a shared pedagogy,
• to ensure that our interactions are focused upon the academic feedback/feed forward which in turn aids the co-construction of learning,
• to have a range of strategies and be able to use them effectively,
• to use the evidence from tauira performance to guide the pathway for their learning. Tauira need to know what they need to learn.  

Communication is one area of my practice that I feel I do well.

Every day I make time for any tauira to talk 1:1 with me. I usually target specific tauira as they are my class target students, defined in our charter, strategic and annual plan. We call it - Ka Pai Korero, or Check In Chats. During this time I start by telling them that I care about them and ALWAYS start with a POSITIVE that I have seen them do during the week. We talk about how they are going in class and at school, specific learning next steps, what they have to share with us, if I am meeting their needs as a teacher, if anything is bothering them, how could I help them and and general chat about anything they want. Creating culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. Whanaungatanga.

Using the Poutama model I identified where I sit on the stepped patterns of the tukutuku panels. I believe in the Whare Tapa Wha model for Hauora and know that in order to have healthy wairua, hinengaro, tinana and whanau there needs to be a shift in my learning.

An area of my practice that I would like to improve for myself and my learning journey moving forward is to become more confident and fluent in Te Reo. I feel that there would be a shift in the hononga (connectedness) between the tauira and I. I currently sit at a mohio level.

I am demonstrating relationships (Wairua), reflecting assessment (Hinengaro), have knowledge of pedagogy, I have a lot to learn about course content, on the matauranga level of Te Reo Maori (Tinana), and our school community is on the Consultation level. There is so much more to learn and we have the capacity to do so.

Onwards and upwards for the future.

Gay,G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2),106-116.

Unitec. (n.d). Learning and Teaching at Unitec Institute of Technology. Retrieved fromBooklet.http://www.unitec.ac.nz/ahimura/publications/U008817%20Learning%20and%20Teaching%20Booklet.pdf