FOR THIS FIRST REFLECTION I HAVE TAKEN A SECTION OUT OF MY DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION ASSIGNMENT 1 AS IT DIRECTLY RELATES TO MY OBSERVATION AND OPINIONS OF THE MAORI PRACITCES AT MY FIRST PARTNER SCHOOL. 

 

For this section I have focused on what I consider to be the three main strategies my partner school uses for increasing the educational achievement of Māori students.

 

Strategy One: Inclusion of Māori language and lessons within the classroom.

 

One strategy that appears throughout most of the classrooms in my partner school is the use of Māori language in the classroom. Every teacher is different but many have posters with Māori words put up around the classroom and from my observations I have seen some teachers using basic Māori language in everyday speak.

                From initial observations in my mentor teachers classroom the use of everyday Māori language was not overly apparent, however he has done some Māori language topics such as getting the students to write and speak their own mihi. My mentor teacher also talked about swapping with a teacher fluent in Te Reo. The teacher who speaks Te Reo would come in and teach Māori while my mentor teacher would teach music to that teacher’s class.

 

Strategy Two: School Based Inclusion Methods.

 

In the charter of my partner school it states that the school will “promote Māori concepts” (Partner School, 2014 p.2). It attempts to do this in a number of ways, one of which is to incorporate some Māori language into the school culture. For example the school motto is often referred to and is as follows;

 

Ako: we learn together

Manaakitanga: we care for each other

Rangatiratanga: our best always

Kaitiakitanga: guardianship of the environment

Whanaungatanga: we respect each other

(Partner School, 2014 p.3)

 

The school also provides opportunities for students to participate in Māori cultural activities such as Kapa Haka and Mau Rākau activities. It is interesting to note that a high portion of students involved in these activities are non-Māori.  

 

 

Strategy Three: Relationship Building

 

One aspect of my mentor school that implicitly enhances Māori inclusion (as opposed to explicitly) is the way it fosters positive relationships between students and staff members.

                My personal opinion is that a positive culture exists within the school that helps these relationships to form. This benefits not only the Māori students but all students. The school even has two non-teaching staff members who act as a support for teachers and students who need extra attention. One of these teachers is not funded by the ministry but is paid for mainly out of the school budget. It seems clear to me that these staff members have had a positive effect on maintaining relationships and motivation in some students.

                There is also a whānau group which exists to help increase home-school relationships for Māori students. The amount of parents involved in this shrunk this year however, due to a large number of the students involved moving to different areas. 

 

 

Evaluation of Strategy One

 

Having Māori language used in the classroom is an easy effective strategy for making Māori students feel supported and included. A ministry of education program called Ka Hikitia - Accelerating Success, is being implemented in some New Zealand schools to try and improve the educational achievement of Māori students. One of its focus areas is on increasing the use of Māori language in the classroom as it states that “learning in and through Māori language is an important way for Māori students to participate in te ao Māori, and it supports students to connect with their identity as Māori” (MOE, 2013, p. 27).

               It is great to see my partner school has attempted to include Māori language in the classroom, but how effective it is seems to be largely based on the teacher. Some teachers at the school can speak and do use Māori, but not all teachers do. I attempted basic Māori conversation in my classroom (asking how are you? - Kei te pēhea koe?) with year 7&8s and the majority of students, including the Māori students, didn’t understand what I was asking.

             While it’s great to see some te reo Māori being implemented into the classrooms, it appears the retention rate is minimal. This makes me wonder how effective the strategy has been for supporting Māori students at my partner school. 

             

Evaluation of Strategy Two

 

The inclusion of Kapa Haka and Mau Rākau extra-curricular activities at my partner school goes someway to address the curriculum principles and NEG 9, which states ““increased participation and success by Māori through the advancement of Māori education initiatives” (MOE, 2014b. para. 12).

             It also helps the priority group of Māori students to form a positive racial identity, which can lead to an increased appreciation of education. As found by Melinda Webber (2012)“racial-ethnic identity is important for Māori adolescents because it frames who they are, how they belong and their achievement aspirations” (p.21).

            The inclusion of these extra-curricular activities by my mentor school is, in my opinion, effectively helping the young Māori students who are participating in them to build a positive racial identity. There are however many Māori students at the school who choose not to take part in Kapa Haka and Mau Rākau. Outside of these two areas there appears to be minimal other opportunities for young Māori students to form a positive racial-ethnic identity. 

 

Evaluation of Strategy Three

 

Even though positive relationship building at my partner school isn’t a policy developed to specifically target the needs of the Māori priority group, I feel it is the factor which is having the most positive influence on increasing the Māori educational achievement.

             A wide scale NZ study called Te Kotahitanga has had a significant positive effect on increasing achievement rates of Māori students. One of its main focus areas is on creating positive relations for Māori students. During the initial stage of the study it was found that nearly 80% of all Māori students asked said that Māori achievement could enhanced by increasing their relationship with their education providers (Ford, Egan, 2014). 

              In my opinion the strategy of providing a positive nurturing environment for the students at my partner school benefits not only the priority group of Māori, all students. Instead of focusing on discipline they focus on attempting to repair relationships. There are no detentions and there is a policy of not holding students in at lunch time for behavioural issues. Instead restorative practices are used and if needed the support staff have a one on one interview with the student, or group restorative conferences.

              Every teacher is different within the school and the ability to build these positive relationships and the effect of them has different outcomes for every teacher. Overall however, I think that the effort the school as a whole puts into building these relationships has a net positive effect for Māori students. 

 

 

Overall Evaluation: Overall I think that my partner schools strategy for dealing with Māori students is fairly effective, even though it may seem a little bit limited. The schools last education review office (ERO) report stated “Māori students’ sense of identity and belonging is fostered through a continued recognition of a Māori dimension in school and class programmes, and learning experiences” (ERO, 2012, p.6). Māori students, as a group, at my partner school are achieving at above the national average, however they are still below the rates of non-Māori at the school. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MY ROLE IN PARTNER SCHOOL ONE

 

For the first half of my practicum at my partner school I was largely observing which limited my ability to enhance or practice my pedagogy around being inclusive of Māori culture. Even though I wasn’t directly teaching Māori concepts I was trying to build effective positive relationships, which has been shown to be of benefit to not only Māori learning but learning for all students.  Towards the second half of the practicum I started to be a bit more confident in my basic Māori language ability, thanks to work in the Māori lectures. This allowed me to go over with the students some basic Māori language such as numbers with the students and play corresponding games such as Whare-Whare (Māori bingo with numbers). In the morning I also did the roll call a couple of times where the students had to respond to the question - Kei te pēhea koe? Apart from the few token attempts at lessons my use of Māori language in the day to day class environment was fairly limited. One other aspect which did allow some of the Māori students to express their culture was an art unit I took. This involved the students travelling down to the river, writing poems about what the river means to them, and drawing chalk pictures on the concrete next to river – with some of the pictures being of Taniwhas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

GOALS FOR PARTNER SCHOOL TWO

 

My goals for my second partner school will be to fill in some of the gaps in my Māori pedagogy from my first practicum. This would involve first establishing a positive relationship with the students and then starting to use some everyday Māori words in my practice. This could involve greeting the students with KiaOra, or Mōrena in the morning and using simple phrases such as Kei te pēhea koe, E noho, and Whakarongo mai in everyday language. I still don’t have much confidence to teach much more then basic te reo Māori at the moment, so another goal of mine would be to increase my competence as a speaker of Māori, which would then hopefully transfer over into my practice. This will allow me to teach not only more complicated Māori lessons, if student’s ability allows, but it will also help with my pronunciation of Māori words. Once I get to know the students and the context I will also try and figure out other ways of including Māori cultural and practices into the classroom. Note to self; try not to sit on any desks during next practicum, or step over the legs of a student on the ground.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jones, A. 2012. Dangerous liaisons: Pākehā, kaupapa Māori, and educational research. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 47(2), 101-112.

 

For this reflection I have focused on a reading from Alison Jones which focuses on the role of Pākehā in Māori research and education. It explores if Pākehā have a right or authority to contribute to Māori thought and practice, otherwise known as kaupapa Māori. One train of thought explored is that kaupapa Māori work is by Māori for Māori and that there is no place for Pākehā in this area. On further exploration though others argued that kaupapa Māori research does not set out to exclude Pākehā but instead as a way for Māori researchers to “privilege the indigenous presence”.

 

She argues that many are now starting to view kaupapa Māori as a positive way for Māori researches to focus on the strengths and insights within Māori. Although this is good she also examines some of the practical effects this can have on non-Maori researches, such as the refusal of two kaupapa Māori scholars to contribute to the same collection as her (a Pākehā). Similar biases on the Pākehā side have contributed to what she calls the Pākehā-Māori hyphen. This metaphorical hyphen highlights the differences between the cultures and creates an “us and them” atmosphere. She then goes onto to argue that although the hyphen highlights differences it is not possible to turn Māori-Pākehā into an “us” – as it will not work. There is a difference which does exist and we need to recognise this difference in education and research in a culturally sensitive way.

 

Even though the difference is there it is still possible for Pākehā to work effectively with kaupapa Māori, it just requires us to “have a positive, reflective sense of ourselves in a relationship with Māori” (p.106). This requires us to become at “ease in Māori contexts, open with Māori knowledges, and familiar with te reo Māori” (p.107). This does take time however so as we become familiar with the contexts she recounts some advice given by a Māori friend, “What is important is your āhua. Just be honest and humble. Whatever is in your ngākau will shine through” (p.108). One last thing that she stress’ is that it is never black and white for Pākehā working with kaupapa Māori in research or education and the important thing to remember is that it is about building the relationships and understandings which matter.

 

Implications for me:

Some points I have learned from this reading is that I need to:

 – Focus on building relationships and finding the needs of students.

-Realise that as a Pākehā I might not always get it right but that I shouldn’t be afraid to give Māori lessons a go – both in language and other areas. If doing an area which I’m not sure if I’m following all the correct customs I should seek advice, but still not be afraid at giving some things a go.

-If I want to truly be culturally sensitive to the Māori students in my class I need to actively try and improve my knowledge of Māori culture, customs, practices and language. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PARTNER SCHOOL TWO

 

My second partner school has quite a different culture from my first partner school, and this can be seen in a lot of areas including how they assimilate Māori culture and practices into the classroom. There seems to be lack of larger Māori cultural activities, such as Kapa Haka or Mau Rākau, although maybe I have just missed hearing about them – I should check with my mentor teacher or students.  They do seem to be quite good at including smaller Māori practices into the everyday culture of the school however. For example the teachers are required to practice a little bit of Māori every week in the staff meetings, this often seems to be transcribed into the classrooms. Everyday prayers are said in my mentor teachers’ classroom, both in Māori and English, at the end of the day and before lunch. All of the classrooms also have Māori names of New Zealand native trees and this week in a staff meeting the staff were practicing the correct pronunciation of the different class names. The school also seems to try and connect with the families of the Māori students as coming up is an evening for families of Māori and Pacific Island students to get together and celebrate their culture with the staff members. 

 

Partner school 2 – half way through what I’ve done

 

Over the first few weeks at my partner school I’ve attempted to establish positive relationships with the students. I feel I am getting there with most students but have found this a bit harder than the first practicum, perhaps due to the age of the students being younger and because I have come into the class half way through the year.

                Every week, when the main class teacher has CRT, a relief teacher comes in and does some lessons in te reo Māori. While I have not taken any Māori lessons solely by myself yet, I have assisted in these weekly lessons. I have been trying to include some Māori words during my everyday language, such as ka pai and Whakarongo mai – but have still found this challenging to remember at times when trying to concentrate on the topic I am trying to teach. Hopefully this will become more natural over time.

                From observations of the Māori lessons I have also began to realise that ‘teaching’ Māori doesn’t just involve learning the language, but can involve areas such as learning customs or creating Māori art work – such as flax weavings, Māori designs etc (as I have helped with in the class).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOOKING BACK

 

Looking back over the last few weeks of my practicum I have been finding it a bit easier to include simple Māori phrases into my everyday practice.  I have also been making an effort to increase positive relationships with the students, such as attending every night of their school production and helping out backstage. The school production and other off school activities such as the cross-country, allowed me to meet the families of some of the students. I think this is an important practice for me to think about in the future, because increasing the connection between home and school has been shown to be beneficial to not only Māori students, but all students. 

I have found it difficult to work on increasing my own te reo Māori ability however due to time constraints, this is an area I still need to focus on in the future. The students haven’t advanced much on from basic phrases so it hasn’t challenged my ability too much, but it would require further work at improving my own te reo ability if I were to take them any further. Lessons taught have been from going through the website http://hereoora.tki.org.nz/.  This has proved to be a good resource at enhancing the students thinking around the language. It does however require consistent practice and if I were to use it in future classes I should make sure that I set aside at least a bit of every week to review the videos, and then work on blending the words learnt into every day class language where appropriate. 

                During the practicum there was a relief teacher who played a couple of traditional Māori songs on the guitar and had a sing-a-long with the kids. I have got a guitar now and am practicing these songs and over the Christmas break will hopefully learn enough so I can play them next year to students.

 

GOING FORWARD

 

Going forward, I need to consider the following aspects of Māori pedagogy; the language, cultural practices, building positive relationships, increasing positive home-school relationships and thinking about other non-language Māori learning opportunities – such as through art – music – story telling – performance. I should also consider other aspects of the students life such as considering the homework tasks I set – do all students have computers, do they have space at home to do their homework, what can I do to help meet the needs of all students, which students work better in groups etc. Trying to think about the needs of my future students should benefit not only my Māori students, but all students in my class. The important thing is for me to not be afraid to give positive Māori pedagogy a go.