What is indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness and how should it be incorporated into our professional practice?
My understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness is that every student is unique, and they bring with them their own special indigenous knowledge - i.e. the unique ideas, beliefs, values, and customs they are acquiring as they grow up within the culture of their own whānau (family). We cannot assume that just because a child is of a particular ethnicity, that they will all have a particular set of ideas, customs, values, and beliefs. Every whānau is unique, with their own unique cultural knowledge.
To be culturally responsive as a school, we need to learn from, and be respectful of, the indigenous knowledge of all our tamariki and their whānau. The National Centre for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems defines cultural responsiveness as “the ability to learn from and relate respectfully with people of your own culture as well as those from other cultures.” (P. 13)1
Our kura has students from a range of ethnicities - 49% of our students identify as Māori, 30% as NZ European, 18.9% as Pasifika (13% Sāmoan), and 10% as other, including African, Indian, Filipino, etc.
This does not add to 100%! Why? Because many of our students identify as more than one primary ethnicity. Our ākonga bring their own unique blend of ideas, values, beliefs and customs, their own unique culture, to our kura.
We must value each of our learners for who they are and be culturally responsive to all our students. Our staff need to learn from, and be respectful of, the indigenous knowledge of all our tamariki and their whānau, ensuring that our students have equal opportunities to reach their full potential and also learn to be culturally responsive towards others, to help prepare them for their futures in our increasingly multi-cultural society.
Our school's vision "to empower our students to prepare for positive futures through exploration, innovation, and collaboration" inspires our staff to be culturally responsive by empowering our students. But does this go far enough? Have we ensured that all our staff know how to empower our students and do they truly understand what it means to be culturally responsive? Is there evidence of staff acknowledging the indigenous knowledge of our tamariki and their families? Is this indigenous knowledge built into our school curriculum and learning programmes? We must, therefore, examine how our staff use their own cultural knowledge when interacting with our students and their families who are from a diverse range of ethnic cultural backgrounds to their own. Our staff also, are from a blend of unique and diverse ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. We must examine further how our school ensures our vision, mission, and core values reflect our cultural responsiveness.
There is certainly evidence of cultural responsiveness in our day to day learning programmes and in our school structure, which includes both Māori and English medium classes, and a Sāmoan enrichment programme. We have Board of Trustee members representing a range of cultures, including Māori and Ngāi Tahu.
I believe the foundations for our kura to be culturally responsive are well laid, but we must now look at ways to regularly reflect upon and self-review our cultural responsiveness as individuals and as a school.
References:
1. National Centre for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems NCCRES, (n.d.) Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practice. Dimensions of Culturally Responsive Education.
Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Cavanagh, T., & Teddy, L. (2009). Te Kotahitanga: Addressing educational disparities facing Māori students in New Zealand. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 734–742.
Bishop, R., & Glynn, T. (1999). Culture counts. Changing power relations in education. Palmerston North, NZ: Dunmore Press.
Castagno, A.E., & Brayboy, B.M.J. (2008). Culturally responsive schooling for Indigenous youth: A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 78, 941–993.
Macfarlane, A.H. (2007). Discipline, democracy and diversity: Working with students with behaviour difficulties. Wellington: NZCER Press.
Savage,C, Hindleb, R., Meyerc,L., Hyndsa,A., Penetitob, W. & Sleeterd, C.(2011) Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: indigenous student experiences across the curriculum .Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 183–198.
I like that you include the culture of the whanau, considering not just the wider culture, as a lot of our students come from homes where different things are valued and respected. It is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. Marzano and his idea that teaching is both an art and a science - that teachers need to have a range of different teaching methods and tools available to them and have an idea of what might work in different situations, knowing what you know of that particular child (individual, whanau, wider culture), is a recurring theme in research in being a successful teacher.
ReplyDeleteDo you feel that this understanding of culture is a two way street? I think it needs to be stressed that teachers have a responsibility to not only learn themselves but also encourage cultural awareness and responsibility to our students as well and that with this awareness students can continue to grow and evolve their own cultures and spread the idea of cultural acceptability and understanding themselves.
I agree with you Desley that teachers definitely have a responsibility to be life-long learners and to encourage cultural awareness and responsibility with their students. As educators, we definitely need to have an awareness of our own culture and support our students to have a similar cultural self-awareness.
DeleteI agree with the various issue you have raised. I also agree with what Desley has mentioned above "teachers have a responsibility to not only learn themselves but also encourage cultural awareness and responsibility to our students". Your comments and those mentioned by Desley reflect my points of view that I raised in my blog -
ReplyDelete"Opening up my students learning, understanding and relationship to the world (from either a Māori, Pākeha or World view).
My dream is to be able to teach my students how to interact and realise that their culture, language and learning can have relevance and impact on others around the world. I want my students to be able to do things that they see on Youtube, Facebook or on the News. I want them to realise that they have or will have the skills and abilities to create and develop new and different directions for the future."
I believe that students, their whānau and their world bring experiences and perspectives that we as educators can use and develop in our students learning. This is one of my passions.