Activity 9: Cultural Responsiveness in Practice

Russell Bishop (Bishop & Berryman, 2009) said that what is good for all students is not necessarily good for maori, but what is good for maori is good for all students. As a maori learner, school was difficult. Unable to make connections to what I was learning made me feel inadequate. At Intermediate I had a teacher who we called Whaia Erina. Not only did she introduce waiata to us, she also displayed a belief in my abilities that no one ever had, even my own parents. This was the first time I felt the drive and need to achieve academically. Throughout the rest of my schooling life was difficult but the unending faith towards what I was capable of from teachers never stopped.

I believe that being cultural responsive is important. Children have a right to feel safe in the classroom and should be able to bring with them their identities. One of the key competencies in the curriculum is 'Making Connections'. As I've experienced as a teacher and a learner, if the learner can't connect with the content, they find it difficult to learn. To support Bishops notion of student's learning, we ask our Maori and Pacific students to learn content that have no meaning to them and in a way that doesn't suit their learning styles e.g Maori and Pacific students benefit from visual and kinaesthetic learning.

In the school I'm currently at, there isn't a lot of diversity. With that bring challenges around what the community demand of their children and what they learn.

School-wide activities
Mike Hogan discusses his schools journey around becoming more culturally responsive. He mentions that he felt that his school was being 'tokenistic' as opposed to being culturally responsive (Edtalks, 2012). Currently I am leading the school Kapa Haka group. I feel that we're practising 'tokenism' in the sense that we are doing it to tick a box. We practise for 20 minutes on a Friday afternoon, 2:30-2:50. Maori as a language is only being taught as a custom to greet someone. With this evidence I see, there is a lot to improve on in terms of being culturally responsive. To improve the cultural responsiveness across school wide activities I would seek P.D for staff to implement the Curriculum Maori lesson plans. I would also allow for release time for a teacher to go into classrooms to support and drive this P.D. This teacher with release time would also be released for the Kapa Haka group, finding resources, learning new songs etc.

Learning activities
To cater to the diversity in my class I consider the knowledge that the different children bring. When planning and assessing I also think about the different needs of the children. Here are some examples of how I practice cultural responsiveness in my class:

• Maths context questions: connecting children's culture and interests into the problem solving questions.
• When teaching maths concepts I try to teach the children a process to help organise their thinking. I adapt the process to the children's needs e.g drawing diagrams instead of drawing equations in a linear fashion.
• When looking at concepts during a guided reading and writing session sometimes I will connect the concept to their lives using my knowledge of their culture. 
• Building strong relationships with those who feel inadequate with classwork. Showing faith and let them know that I believe in them.

I apply these for all children, not just Maori and Pacific. 

References

Bishop, R., & Berryman, M. (2009). The Te Kotahitanga effective teaching profile. Set: Research Information for Teachers. Wellington, New Zealand: NZCER Press

Edtalks.(2012, May 30). Mike Hogan: Culturally responsive practice in a mainstream school. [video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/43097812