Tēnā koutou, I am sharing our school's journey in learning, creating, understanding and embedding culturally enhancing practices within our school.
Kia Ora, ko Nic Mason ahau, and I am the Kaitiriwā Tumuaki (deputy principal) at Winchester School in Palmerston North. If you have read any of my other posts, you may be aware of my interest in developing wrapping te ao Māori around school learning contexts, weaving it together for the benefit of our Māori learners and their whānau. But I am no expert. I am a learner alongside our venture. I write this after the second staff meeting that Bede Gilmore (tumuaki) and myself planned and delivered to our classroom teaching staff. We are a part of Te Oro Karaka, Kāhui Ako which is focusing their strategic planning and implementation on Culturally Responsive and Relational Pedagogy. It may be just a little journal, capturing the journey for me as I endeveour in co-leading this. If you are new to Winchester, may this be a seed to plant so that we may nurture and grow this idea for the benefit of our tamariki and our community.
Dr Ann Milne’s Colouring in the White Spaces speech didn’t disappoint. Sending shivers up and down my spine with every bold, unapologetic statement about the white spaces that exist within our school systems. White spaces are the spaces that exist within a school setting that we blindly follow that only serve one singular epistemology.
We asked our teaching staff to critique our spaces at Winchester School. What are they? Where are they? Why might they exist? It was also a time where we could celebrate and confirm what we are doing well - and there is much to celebrate! But with this critique we identified what some of our gaps might be? It was pretty confronting to bare our opinions, beliefs, values held up for all to see! If nothing else, we were trying to communicate our why. Why are we even focusing on this? Why is it important? Why should we spend time and energy on this? We concluded with the video 10 Ways to teach me by Brigham Riwai-Couch. And if you have't seen this yet, make sure you do!
The next time we met we used a range of readings including The Effective Teacher Profile (EFT) by Russell Bishop and The Hikairo Schema by Angus McFarlane to pull apart each principle from the ETP: Whanaungatanga, Kotahitanga, Ako, Kaupapa, Wānanga and Whakapapa - what do these look like? Sound like? Feel like? Within a classroom setting? Then we constructed some deliberate acts so that we can make these things happen for our tamariki. These deliberate acts became the foundation of our teacher Poutama we are creating.
In between these Staff Meetings, Hine Waitere our PLD facilitator for our Kāhui Ako led us through 6 Wānanga style workshops unpacking each concept. We were able to bring 6 of our teachers along to a workshop. I asked them to consider a "something significant" (a quote, an image or a movie) from their day that was a significant learning moment for them and add it to the slide.
We had a great session where we modelled wānanga and dialogic conversations. Some powerful conversations were captured! Term 3 was a great term for absorbing new learning and now it's about making small strategic changes that align with this new kaupapa. We are in the process of consultation work with our whānau around what we value. We have secured Veronica Tawhai to open 2021 with Te Tiriti implications for a 2-day workshop. I can't wait to tackle 2021. #bringiton
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