Culturally
Responsive Pedagogy
In appreciating Maori achieving as Maori (Ministry of
Education, 2013), we have moved away from looking at only the visible
indicators of culture and are now more aware of the invisible indicators. This means understanding that culture
consists of values and a lens through which to view the world but that students
are individuals with individual needs.
This avoids making culture a trait reliant on race and ethnicity and deters
from making sweeping assumptions (Teaching Tolerance, 2010). We have used the Education Review Office
indicators of culturally responsive practice as self review (Education Review
Office, 2016). These are manaakitanga,
whanaungatanga, ako and mahi tahi. We
find these indicators particularly applicable to Maori and Pasifika students
and we find that they also sit closely within our Catholic culture of
inclusivity and interdependence.
According to the Mauri model (Potahu, 2011), as the school
level we have strong engagement with our cultural groups. We have regular meetings where the groups
come together to share experience and kai.
These groups feed forward to the Board of Trustees and on this level we
are probably Mauri Ora (actively engaged). We employ an English Language
Learning coordinator who is very proactive in developing cultural connections
and understandings. Staff are strongly
encouraged to uncover and build prior understandings of all of our learners
into our classroom learning. We are
presently engaged in culturally responsive maths professional development for
Pasifika learners which is helping us to understand the importance of learning
community and shared understanding.
An area for development where we are more Mauri Moe to Mauri
Oho – where there is potential but it is not fully activated - is to build up
culturally responsive practice from the grassroots level. Russell Bishop describes agentic teachers as
teachers who believe students can learn, and refrain from deficit thinking
because they believe they have the skills to address learning and they believe
students can be successful (Edtalks, 2010).
I think our teachers are agentic teachers but perhaps need more support
and development in connecting with cultural capital. Culturally responsive teachers are cultural
translators and bridge builders, building on students’ prior knowledge
(Teaching Tolerance, 2010). We have been
focusing on visible learning, giving good feedback and feed-forward and making
the learning journey visible to the students. We are now moving into a re-focus on our
student-led curriculum and the need to bring in the cultural capital and
interests of all of our students in a meaningful way.
A further support of development of grassroots manaakitanga
would be to provide more development for our teacher aides on culturally responsive
practice and support them to facilitate tuakana/teina learning relationships
between children with similar cultural understandings and interests. This would further activate the ako potential
of all of our learners, where the teachers can also learn from the students.
Edtalks.(2012,
September 23). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations.
[video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994
Education Review Office
(2016). School evaluation indicators – effective
practice for improvement and learner success.
Ministry of Education
(2013). Ka Hikitia Accelerating Success 2013-2017, the Maori Education
Strategy. Wellington: New Zealand Government.
Potahu, T. W. (2011).
Mauri - Rethinking Human Wellbeing. MAI Review, 3, 1-12.
Retrieved fromhttp://www.review.mai.ac.nz/index.php/MR/article/v...
Teaching Tolerance. (
2010, Jun 17). Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.[video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTVjJuRaZ8
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