Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice


Culturally responsive pedagogy is a student-centered approach to teaching in which the students’ unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student’s cultural place in the world. Culturally responsive pedagogy is divided into three functional dimensions: the institutional dimension, the personal dimension, and the instructional dimension.The institutional dimension of culturally responsive pedagogy emphasizes the need for reform of the cultural factors affecting the organization of schools, school policies and procedures (including allocation of funds and resources), and community involvement. The personal dimension refers to the process by which teachers learn to become culturally responsive. The instructional dimension refers to practices and challenges associated with implementing cultural responsiveness in the classroom. The biggest obstacle to successful culturally responsive instruction for most educators is disposing of their own cultural biases and learning about the backgrounds of the students that they will be teaching. The processes necessary for preparing to teach in a culturally responsive classroom can be broken down into three general categories: exploring one’s own culture, learning about other cultures, and learning about students’ cultures.Russell Bishop described it as Relationship-centered Education or caring and learning Education.

Step 1(What): What is your understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness and what are the two of the areas mentioned above that you want to focus on for discussion?

It wasn't until I started Mindlab that I heard the term Cultural responsiveness. I believe that it fits in well with personalised learning and that the values and core beliefs are similar.  I have always thought that relationships are held at the centre of learning. Having my own children have further reinforced this belief. Tū Rangatira, Ka Hikitia and I have a strong understanding of New Zealand knowledge through many courses and papers that I have completed. My knowledge of local history is a bit patchy and this is one area that I would like to strengthen.  The last lot of study that I undertook was the Mauri Ora course which is free and runs over 12 months. Through the MindLab course, I have decided that this is an area that I would like to continue to develop especially with a focus on the local community. Our school has a very small percentage of māori students. A lot of our students prefer not to identify as māori even though they could. 70% of our māori students are achieving at or above national standards of literacy and 69% for maths.
  • mission, and core values.
  • human resources, learning resources ( these two marry up for the direction I would like to go.)

Step 2 (So what): Evaluate your practice or your school practice in light of the following frameworks or use another one that you are familiar with.

Action Continuum, Milne, A (2017) http://www.annmilne.co.nz/
When I evaluate our school against the action continuum model I feel that we are just in the blue. We are going through the motions but we need to make cultural integration into our programmes transparent and not stand alone or stand out. Underpinning where we are is also the relationship that we have or have not yet formed with the wider community.


Step 3 (What next)

We have to go back to our school mission, and core values and aline these with our stakeholders and also our wider community. I would like to use the resources within our wider community thus building relationships with not only the Marae but other elders from the community. The school is located between two Marae's and we draw children from both, so it is vital that we balance these relationships too. Because we are a personalised learning school, we would also include the student's voice in continuing to develop our school mission, and core values which will develop a strong school culture.

References:


Lynch, M. What Is Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, A Blog.

 Milne, A. speaks at CORE Education's uLearn17 conference in Hamilton.(2017)

 Ministry of Education, Tū Rangatira,(2010)

New Zealand Education Council, (2011)Tātaiako, 

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