Activity 9 - Cultural Responsiveness in Practice

Create a blog posts where you first share your views on indigenous knowledge and culturally responsive pedagogy. The evaluate how you or you or your school addresses cultural responsiveness in practice.


The first 25 years of my teaching career took place in Counties-Manukau/Tamaki-makaurau area of New Zealand. All of the schools had a high proportion of Māori learners. While I had always been aware of what was known as the disparity or the 'tail' of  achievement of students, it wasn't until I became actively involved in Te Kotahitanga professional learning journey , that I began to really understand what teachers could do to address this inequity - and what the term culturally responsive pedagogy of relations meant. 

It was fantastic to see Prof Russell Bishop and Prof Mere Berrymann receive New Years' honours for services to education, as they were  key in beginning the movement to change teacher practice. Their work in creating the 'effective teaching profile ' was instrumental in bringing about improved academic outcomes for Māori students in the schools and with the cohorts of teachers that they worked with. 
The six core elements of the ETP, as it came to be known, formed the foundation for a cycle of observation, shadow coaching and goal setting that was described by many teachers as the best professional development that they had ever done. 



Central to the kaupapa, is the understanding that creating contexts for learning, where the learners can see and hear their own worlds and knowledge: 

"A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations is one where teachers:  create learning contexts that will address the learning engagement and improve the achievement of Māori students by developing learning - teaching relationships where the following notions are paramount." (Bishop, Berryman, Cavanagh and Teddy, 2007) 

Relationships, that is, learning relationships  are at the heart of culturally responsive practice. The quote below from Apryll Parata, clearly identifies the different paradigm that exists in indigenous education:

'In a western paradigm – learning follows this pattern – What are we going to learn, why we are learning it, how we are learning it and then only at this stage do we think about who the learners are. For Māori kids – the who comes first (who we and they are).Then why we are learning something. Then how we might best learn it (co-construction of learning, working it out together). Only then exactly what we will learn' 

             Source: https://sue-smith.wikispaces.com/file/view/Powerpoint+1+-     +ASSESSMENT.ppt.

Knowing the learner, having some understanding of their world view, valuing the knowledge that exists within their community, all act to empower learners. Power sharing is at the heart of culturally responsive pedagogy. 

Since 2014, Te Kotahitanga has morphed into Kia Eke Panuku (Building on Success), which while
maintaining the kaupapa of the original project, has a different approach to the original observation and feedback cycle.

I have been involved in leading both professional learning teams - Te Kotahitanga from 2006-2011 and Kia eke panuku from 2014 to present. The work is essential and ongoing. I regularly discuss with teachers the fact that yes, we might be multicultural, but we are bi-cultural first. Being multicultural sits within a bi-cultural framework, Period.

Our Story  

Like many schools, my school has an noticeable achievement gap between Māori and non-Māori students. The gap has fluctuated, but on average remains at about 15% below for Level 1 NCEA. 

As part of out annual school review  the analysis of school wide data highlighted some recent trends 

•       Maori achievement in Year 11 national qualifications (NCEA Level 1) between 15 and 20% lower than NZ European
•       Year 12 Maori boys achievement is low and has decreased by over 13% from 2014
•       Year 12 Maori student population has almost halved from the Year 11 population  

These have informed our strategic goals for 2016 and beyond

      "The identified strategic priority for 2016 is to improve and enhance engagement in learning for every student with a strong focus on students who are ‘at risk’ of not achieving to their potential. The strategic priority is specifically targeting the transitions of students from Year 12 to Year 13, the retention of students throughout Year 13, and the retention of Māori students beyond compulsory age. "

                   Rangiora High School Charter, 2016 

Individual teachers will have complete a teaching inquiry that will link to the strategic priority.
My own is below:




Hopefully our action plan will lead to more positive student voices such as these:

Source

Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Cavanagh, T. and Teddy, L. (2007). Te Kōtahitanga Phase Establishing
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy of Relations in Mainstream Secondary School Classrooms. 
Learning Media, Wellington.

Effective Teaching Profile. (n.d.). Retrieved March 1, 2016, from http://tekotahitang.tki.org./ /About/
The-Development-of-Te-Kotahitanga/Effective-Teaching-Profile

Rangiora High School Charter, 2016.

Smith,S. (2010). Assessment [Powerpoint slides]. Retrieved from https://sue-smith.wikispaces.com/file/view/Powerpoint+1+-+ASSESSMENT.ppt.

http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/content/download/234/1111/version/11/file/Student_voices_TKI+MP4.mp4

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