Culturally responsive practice is an important part of being a teacher in NZ. I believe we above most are the best at accepting a variety of cultures into our classroom accordingly. However, one thing that struck my mind in some recent PD was the question how people walking into your class know they are in Aotearoa.

I may sometimes use certain Maori phrases and add certain terms into my teaching but this to me isn’t being culturally responsive. Therefor a challenge for me is to now add it into my teaching and not just by token phrases but to create learning experiences for my students that utilise their strengths.  I have done this for all students in my year 11 class by allowing them to hand in their assignments a variety of ways but not yet in junior classes.

This is a great resource below that I will be using moving forward to help me be more culturally responsive in the classroom.

Article 1 Honourable Governance.

Article one honourable governance I believe is around equality and this year in my role it is ensuring that technology in the school is available to everyone. This is a challenge as not every household has wifi ect but it is important to at least provide students with the opportunity.

Article 2 – Agency

Maori achieving success as Maori is important and quite often could be missed. Not every students learns the same and can express their knowledge the same. Creating personalised learning programs where students can express their knowledge in different ways I believe is a great place to start. The ideas of Ako learning is also been something that I like to acknowledge, having a flexible teacher learner role is a great way to have students share their knowledge and strengths.

Article 3 Equity

I will ensure that content and the delivery is reflects Aotearoa where ever possible. Its so easy to look elsewhere for resources but I will try and create more learning experiences that reflect our dual heritage.

All in all this year I want to be culturally responsive and I want people to know straight away when they walk into my classroom that they are in Aotearoa.

Tangata Whenua is a lot about knowing your learner, forming positive relationships and understanding the true identity of students in your classroom. Sometimes something as simple as pronouncing a students name correctly can be a huge plus in forging these relationships. An example of this was finding out that a biy in my class spoke fluent Maori, a lot of other biys in the class didn’t know this, and having this student start every moring class with a karakia built upon this.

I feel very lucky that I have been involved in such a great PE and Health department this year. We have strong ties to Te Teriti O Waitangi and incorporate tikanga into most of our lessons. A great example of this is the strong work we do with Hauora in our program. Explaining to students the importance of living a well balanced lifestyle. Carrying on from that we ran a Maori games unkit this year along side a hauora program that taught the boys some tikanga as the story behind the game was just as important as the game itself.

I try and teach to all the cultural competencies but one that I strongly believe in. Whanaungatanga, is I believe the most important. Those relationships are crucial to engaging our young Maori learners. I think if you keep whanaungatanga in mind always its means you must never judge before really getting to know all students.

Whāia te iti kahurangi ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei

Seek the treasure you value most dearly: if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain

This whakatauki is about aiming high or for what is truly valuable, but it’s real message is to be persistent and don’t let obstacles stop you from reaching your goal.

This year I wanted to have a big focus on using different approaches to facilitating in order to enhance the engagement of students in my classroom. I knew a large part of this would be about getting feedback from my students to ensure what I was doing was working. I used Forms to gather feedback to inform my teaching. A good tool to collect anonymous feedback where students can be open and honest.

This small example of feedback is a tool that drives my teaching and learning especially when it comes to priority learners and understanding their needs.

Ako learning is something that I strongly believe in Tataiako it states Ako as being “Practice in the classroom and beyond Ako – reciprocal teaching/learning; parent, whänau, hapü, learner, teacher (Ka Hikitia) Effective learning by Mäori learners Effective pedagogy Effective curriculum for Mäori learner”.

I love the concept of Ako learning as it is strength based. Also it expands to outside of the classroom onto the rugby fields and involvement with parents and the whole community. Examples of this is being involved in Rugby Coaching and also mentoring a student in my class to be a leader in the school.

Professional relationships I believe are the number one priority for any teacher. Teaching is a profession so how we carry ourselves in that community is very important.

Engaging in a collaborative way with the wider community has a positive effect on the way the school is seen and influences the likelihood of the wider community getting involved in the school. I strongly believe we need to engage the wider community in positive way as it is highly likely where our students will end up. Personally I have spoken at parent evenings and also shared what we are doing on a local, national and international stage.

Collegially and collaboratively. At St Thomas we have a strong focus on cross-curricular collaboration and this is shown especially in our junior subjects. I personally believe in this as real world problems very rarely just involve one curriculum area. I teach STEM therefor have to work across many different curriculum areas and have to work with many different department heads to ensure everyone is happy with the outcomes of their students. Another example is my willingness to push these boundaries by putting my hand up to teach a senior level sports science class crossing PE and Science. Which in term will engage our boys in science where in the past this may not

Leadership is an important part of learning. I have learnt a lot this year in of STEM leadership role. Many times i have wanted to pass this on to others. I have learnt that it is important to be positive and listen to others. Its not always going to be perfect and everyone has different needs staff and of course students. The best leaders truly do eat last and instead of telling people what to do I’ve learnt to sit back and let them find out for themselves what to do then reflect on it.

I’d be the first person to say i don’t like b-weeklies. However there is a reason we do these. Mine aren’t always the best but i have set a goal recently to take more time over them. As it does matter to a wide majority of the parent community. I also try to write effective feedback on my senior students notebooks as this is crucial for their learning and improvement.

Too much time is wasted my emails and conversing over them. I like to make a point of getting a round the school and speaking to the people i need to One on One. It is important to collaborate on planning using OneNote and word documents however it is not the be all and end all.

https://youtu.be/l7gon01-RlA

https://youtu.be/xjpHEgTDt6g

What is one thing that parents want? They want to see what their students are doing and achieving. For years now they asked their son or daughter what did you do at school today? the same answer is always “nothing” or “not much”.

How good would it be if you could see in real time just what your son or daughter is working on in class, or working on for homework without having to act like a ninja by stealthy seizing their books from their bag.  Even then you risk seeing a generic stamp from the teacher with a good work comment alongside it.

What about hearing some audio feedback from the teacher about why your son or daughter got that achieved when clearly from your eyes it was an excellence. Even more, that audio feedback links to the document in question and those highlights represent audio comments.

I would say this is too good to be true, but wait for it…. OneNote can do this all for you.

With the new updates just released today allowing parents to have access to the students work as well. Some serious questions are now being answered by Microsoft Education.

Teachers can now create links for parents to have view only access to their students work.