Activity 4 Week 28 - Indigenous knowledge & Cultural responsiveness

Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Responsive Pedagogy

According to Professor Russell Bishop in the Edtalks video, (September 23, 2012), culturally responsive teaching practices are strongly based on relationship centred education. Bishop states that a culturally responsive teacher:

• builds caring relationships with their young Māori students.
• cares for Māori students as Māori - the teacher cares about the academic performance of young Māori students, and hold/show high expectations for them.
• creates a learning context where young Māori students can draw on their own funds of knowledge and apply it in a classroom setting.
• provides opportunities for the students to co-construct the learning outcomes. Relevant feedback and feed-forward takes place to assist the student with their learning journey.
• takes into account the students performance to guide their future teaching.
• implements effective co-operative teaching and learning so there is a culture of learners among learners (Bishop, R. 2012).

How does my school address cultural responsiveness in practice?

We are extremely fortunate to have a bilingual unit at our kura, Ngā Rakau e Rua and Te Pihinga, from years 3-8.

The Positives - Cultural Responsiveness at Our Kura

• Culturally safe learning environments established with basic whanaungatanga and tikanga Māori within some teaching activities.
• Te Reo Māori, at a basic level is evident in some programme design and content.
• Manaakitanga and rangatiratanga.

There is some commitment among staff to do tertiary study, either Te Reo Māori or Tikanga, through the Wānanga o Aōtearoa. The kinds of te reo or tikanga Māori that is used in akomanga often consist of: basic commands, short conversations, greetings, colour names, numbers, group names using te reo, Māori action songs, waiata, terminology for topics, standard tikanga practice such as no sitting on tables, pillows, and no touching of the head. Māori topics OR topics from a Māori worldview that have been taught in the last few years: Treaty of Waitangi, matariki, rakau, hauora, mihi mihi, and te kupu o te wiki. In some classes, the te reo programme happens on a set day of the week for 40 minutes, but te reo is is used and encouraged/integrated into the weekly programme as much as possible, with the focus being pronunciation and students feeling supported in the learning of te reo. To support a bicultural environment our school encourages Kapahaka participation and places value upon this. Our kura usually incorporates Māori language and customs in whole school events and assemblies. Almost everyone speaks a little bit te reo Māori. We also allow students to wear taonga around their necks - not confiscating them.

What needs improvement -  Cultural Responsiveness at Our Kura

• Te Reo Māori being fully integrated through curriculum content, learning and teaching, in more classes, not just the bilingual classes.

There are some teachers who do not confident in speaking te reo Māori in our akomanga, sometimes because they do not feel they will pronounce te reo incorrectly. Around the same number of teachers do not feel confident teaching te reo and tikanga Māori to our ākonga. Some teacher spend little allocated time, per week, for the teaching of te reo and tikanga Māori. Our on-going challenges are to ensure all planning incorporates tikanga and te reo, and we also need to incorporate tikanga into school wide practices more often. Raising Māori achievement should also remain a major focus.

How can we raise confidence of Te Reo being spoken and taught in classes that are led by teachers and students alike?

References

Edtalks.(2012, September 23). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994

Unitec (n.d) Poutama - Mātauranga Māori in the Living Curriculum. Unitec Institute of Technology.