“Nau te rourou, naku te rourou, ka ora te manuhiri.”

With your food basket and my food basket, the people will thrive.

 

Module Objectives:

• Explore aspects of culturally responsive leadership that are most relevant to delegates’ personal growth.
• Reflect on the cultural responsiveness of delegates’ kura.

 

 

For students to succeed, schools need to develop culturally responsive pedagogy which includes:  providing learning contexts that celebrate who students are, helping them grow their cultural identity and encouraging an acceptance of this with their teachers and peers.

One of our mentors, Ally Gibbons, was Principal of Rotorua Girls’ High School when they were awarded the Prime Minister’s Excellence in Education award. When speaking of her time there, she says the following:

“Our WHY was that our students deserve to be at a school with expert teachers and leaders who had high expectations and hauora (well being) was at the centre of all that happens in the school. Our students need leaders and teachers who advocate for them and challenge deficit thinking; who work collaboratively with learners, other staff and the community; who use evidence to inform their practice and are constantly reviewing processes and structures in the school. All these actions allow the school to be responsive which enables the development of strategies to address the need for social justice and equity for our learners. Our vision was to transform school culture to lift Māori engagement, achievement and outcomes at the school, using a distributed leadership model where the principal shares authority and power; teachers take leading roles, assume responsibility, and act independently as individuals or groups within a bicultural environment.

We know that we have to be responsive to the changing needs and requirements of our modern learners. We often have to be prepared to disrupt the status quo to allow for a more equitable and innovative school. This means it is sometimes uncomfortable, but if we can support each other and collaborate through this change then the benefits to the outcomes for Māori (and all) will be accelerated – as is evident in our achievement data and student well-being voice. In fact, student voice is critical in this conversation. If we don’t disrupt the status quo nothing will ever change, as has been the experience of indigenous people the world over.”

 

Akoranga – Creating a culture of learning

Providing professional learning and development for staff is an important aspect of influencing cultural responsiveness. To support staff to successfully develop culturally responsive practises, leaders need to know:

• the complexity and stages of each staff member’s journey toward developing cultural responsiveness
• the different cultural experiences and beliefs they hold (Williams, 2016).

Leaders have an important role in supporting staff to:

• increase their understanding of their own culture and the influence it has on their teaching
• gain some understanding of how Pākehā culture influences education and develop an appreciation of the effect this has on children from ethnic minority groups
• increase their knowledge of the cultural background of the learners they teach and use this information to provide effective learning for these groups of children (Patara, 2012).

 

Unconscious Bias

In leadership and teaching positions we need to be aware of unconscious biases and how these might affect the way in which we operate in a school setting; towards children, colleagues and whanaū. An unconscious bias is more difficult to overcome and can be defined as such:

 

“Refers to a bias that we are unaware of and which happens outside of our control. It is a bias that happens automatically and is triggered by our brain making quick judgements and assessments of people and situations, influenced by our background, cultural environment and personal experiences.” – Equality Challenge Unit UK: Unconscious Bias in Higher Education Review 2013.

 

An example of unconscious bias may be to assume a child or staff member of a particular ethnicity may have a better/worse work ethic. Often, a dominant group in society will have a bias or prejudice against more subordinate groups and we tend to prefer people from the group to which we belong. Whether we are aware of it or not, these biases can strongly affect our decision making.

Please see the optional resources section of this module for more in depth readings on this topic.

 

Task: Due 16th May 9am

Have a wander around the school and consider the physical environment, the learners and the learning they are engaged in, what is on the classroom walls, the language of the teachers, and so on. What do you see and hear?

Have a think about who this reflects. For instance, does your classroom reflect the teacher or the learners in it?

So then, what could you do differently? What could you learn from other teams/classes? What are you doing well and could share with other teams or fellow delegates on this program?

Share your ‘noticings’ and reflections on the forum, in the format of a video. You can choose how to present this. Some ideas –

• take us for a tour of your school and talk us through what you noticed
• create a video montage of photos from your school and pair this with a voiceover detailing your reflections
• add in some student voice and your subsequent reflections.
• just film yourself talking

It’s up to you and your imagination! Please don’t feel nervous! Feedback in the delegates has been that, though people have been concerned with this task in the past, they have enjoyed the challenge and this way of connecting with fellow delegates. Most delegates upload this to Google Drive or Youtube then share the link.

 

Optional Resources: Explore the ones most relevant to you.

 

Working effectively with iwi and hapū, Melanie Taite-Pitama: https://vimeo.com/242861287

Puketeraki Kāhui Ako: Culturally responsive practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQusPg98GcQ

Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in Schooling: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration (BES): https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/2515/5959

“The real conspiracy is that education is for the rich” L. O’Connell Rapira – https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/24-08-2020/the-real-conspiracy-is-that-education-is-for-the-rich

“They didn’t care about normal kids like me”: Restructuring a school to fit the kids” A. Milne – https://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/6234

“Colouring in the White Spaces: Reclaiming Cultural Identity in Whitestream Schools” A. Milne – https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/7868

 

Assessment:

• Completion of the task on the forum
• Connection with others on the forum