Week 31 Activity 7: Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice
This week I am looking into Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice
I am using Rolfe's model of reflection to help me with this reflection.
What?
Culturally responsive pedagogy is defined by Gay (2001, p.106) as “using the cultural characteristics, experiences and perspectives as conduits for effective teaching”.
I cringe sometimes when I read these words as a teacher its my duty to know the child in front of me and learn what they now and then do my upmost to help them get to the next step. Its not about me telling them this s the way, its about co constructing our learning
Within our school I believe that we do promote the language of our cultures within our school. We do model ourselves as learners as we strive to learn the pronunciation of names and words from different languages.
An area which I feel we can work on is personal - human resources. This is ethnic as well as gender based. In a woman dominated society, are we providing enough male models? Do the males in the classes have people to look up to..check in with?
So What?
Milne’s presentation (CORE Education, 2017) outlines the stages of culturally sustaining practice.
Culturally Responsive has been a focus for us for a few years now. However we still have quite some way to go as people change and we have staff turn over.
We started with Kahikitia as we rewrote our curriculum. While our curriculum does have the core must haves, the key point of difference is that for ur school the child is the most important part of the teaching and learning. Understanding who the child is.
This year in our colobrative space, we pushed aside any work where the children were going to be moving between spaces. We know that the children must have a relationship with a person to hekpthem be grounded. Then they know this adult is being a champion for them. They have an adult in their corner who isothere forth and knows their signs and triggers. Once this is in place then we look at moving kids.
On the continum above, I believe we have some things in place as we are heading towards embedding them. Teachers are challenged when we hear someone say a child can't do something (Deficit thinking). We need to start with what they can do and then step by step lead toward the desired outcome. This helps supports high expectations as each child is expected to improve each and every time. Step by step
Now What?
One of the biggest challenges for us is gaining community involvement. Recently we have added seesaw the online tool as a way to engage parents. This has been beneficial as some parents who have never set foot in the school have joined. up.
We have rebranded parent interviews as catch ups as its a chance to catch up about your child.
We talk about it being partnership, we can't teach the child fully without the support of the home environment. While we are making head way, it is something we need to continue to develop.
References
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.
CORE Education.(2017, 17 October). Dr Ann Milne, Colouring in the white spaces: Reclaiming cultural identity in whitestream schools.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cTvi5qxqp4&feature=em-subs_digest
I am using Rolfe's model of reflection to help me with this reflection.
What?
Culturally responsive pedagogy is defined by Gay (2001, p.106) as “using the cultural characteristics, experiences and perspectives as conduits for effective teaching”.
I cringe sometimes when I read these words as a teacher its my duty to know the child in front of me and learn what they now and then do my upmost to help them get to the next step. Its not about me telling them this s the way, its about co constructing our learning
Within our school I believe that we do promote the language of our cultures within our school. We do model ourselves as learners as we strive to learn the pronunciation of names and words from different languages.
An area which I feel we can work on is personal - human resources. This is ethnic as well as gender based. In a woman dominated society, are we providing enough male models? Do the males in the classes have people to look up to..check in with?
So What?
Milne’s presentation (CORE Education, 2017) outlines the stages of culturally sustaining practice.
Culturally Responsive has been a focus for us for a few years now. However we still have quite some way to go as people change and we have staff turn over.
We started with Kahikitia as we rewrote our curriculum. While our curriculum does have the core must haves, the key point of difference is that for ur school the child is the most important part of the teaching and learning. Understanding who the child is.
This year in our colobrative space, we pushed aside any work where the children were going to be moving between spaces. We know that the children must have a relationship with a person to hekpthem be grounded. Then they know this adult is being a champion for them. They have an adult in their corner who isothere forth and knows their signs and triggers. Once this is in place then we look at moving kids.
On the continum above, I believe we have some things in place as we are heading towards embedding them. Teachers are challenged when we hear someone say a child can't do something (Deficit thinking). We need to start with what they can do and then step by step lead toward the desired outcome. This helps supports high expectations as each child is expected to improve each and every time. Step by step
Now What?
One of the biggest challenges for us is gaining community involvement. Recently we have added seesaw the online tool as a way to engage parents. This has been beneficial as some parents who have never set foot in the school have joined. up.
We have rebranded parent interviews as catch ups as its a chance to catch up about your child.
We talk about it being partnership, we can't teach the child fully without the support of the home environment. While we are making head way, it is something we need to continue to develop.
References
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.
CORE Education.(2017, 17 October). Dr Ann Milne, Colouring in the white spaces: Reclaiming cultural identity in whitestream schools.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cTvi5qxqp4&feature=em-subs_digest
Edtalks.(2012, September 23). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994
I agree with your question above about whether we are providing our students with enough male role models. This really links to our current classroom reflection, where we have over 2/3 of our students being boys and considering how we are best meeting their needs. For many who come from a gang background, where males are seen as "tough" etc, I think it is our job to try and give these students positive male role models, where they also learn to see "strong" doesn't have to mean being tough.
ReplyDeleteHi Fraser! Thanks for sharing your reflection. I love the idea that your school looked at Kahikitia as you re-wrote your school's curriculum. What a great place to start! I also think what your school did about rebranding "interviews" is a fantastic way forward. I agree fully about school and the home environment being a partnership. I am curious to know what were your stats like after rebranding the interviews. Did you see an improvement with the amount of parents and whanau that came out? Will you be doing these 'catch ups' again? I think your idea might be something I bring up to my school as I know we are re-looking at our interview/reporting processes.
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