Cultural Responsiveness and Indigenous Knolwedge

What is Culturally Responsive Practice?

According to Bishop, teachers display culturally responsive practice through evidence of genuine care for their students; and by shunning the use of deficit theorising as an explanation for gaps in educational achievement levels.

Some people construe efforts to incorporate the use of other languages into the classroom program as superficial lip service to biculturalism. I prefer to see it as a good starting point. In my experience, teaching Te Reo has opened up opportunities for students to become the experts and for me to become the learner. This is one of the six qualities of an agentic teacher, as described by Bishop.  

Communication and Cultural Responsiveness

I work at a small rural school with approximately 85 students. All of our students travel to and from school by bus each day. It is very rare to have parents visit the classroom and have informal opportunities to chat about their child’s progress or behavioural issues.

Last year the results of a parent satisfaction survey revealed that a lack of communication on minor issues was a major cause of frustration for parents. As teachers, we would classify incidents as insignificant, yet at the end of the term, we would review all of these incidents when making decisions on end of term awards. It was common for students to miss an award because of the cumulative effect of a number of minor incidents over the course of the term.

Understandably, parents were frustrated. They felt that the lack of communication early on had prevented them from being able to support their child to make changes to their learning or behaviour, and that we had failed in our duty to support students to do their best. This was a fair call, and one that we have desperately sought to address by making effective and timely communication a 2017 school strategic goal.  

Using the Mauri Model, I believe that my practice has transitioned from a Mauri Moe level 2 state to a Mauri Ora state. Over the course of the year, I have developed strong working relationships with many of my students’ families. It has required perseverance and a great deal of effort to discover which methods of communication work best for different families, but it has been worth it.

Decision Making and Cultural Responsiveness

In 2016, ERO visited our school and identified a need to build cultural capital. We are a very mono-cultural school. Out of 12 staff (including bus drivers, admin staff, the cleaner, and teacher aides), only 2 are non-European. Our board of trustees is of European descent. Most of our students are Pakeha – I have only 3 Maori students in my class.

Invariably, our default setting for decision-making is through a European lens. Whilst we are acutely aware of this weakness in our school culture and practice, our efforts to make improvements have so far been unsuccessful. For the past three years, we have attempted to set up a visit to the local marae. We have come incredibly close on more than one occasion, however the kaumatua have repeatedly cancelled our plans at the last minute.

Our most recent disappointment came when our regional cluster cancelled a professional development session on cultural responsiveness due to lack of funding and inadequate planning. I agree with Bishop’s claim that agentic teachers are not enough to change the tide of progress for Maori students. Adequate investment and resources are necessary to help teachers truly understand Te Ao Maori. Self-directed professional development in the form of readings is a sorely inadequate substitute for learning from people with deep cultural knowledge and understanding.   

Using the Mauri Model, I believe that our practice is sitting at the second level of Mauri Moe. We are committed to make progress with our goal to become more culturally responsive. However, we have made little progress, and our decision making process shows a bias towards a European worldview.  

References

A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. (2017, July 01). Retrieved July 01, 2017, from https://vimeo.com/49992994