Following MAC Te Tiriti workshop

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The focus of our last staff meeting was Te Tiriti. This is foundational knowledge for all living in NZ and our code of professional responsibility expects that we demonstrate a commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi based Aotearoa.  

It's overwhelming - the systemic inequity and racism in our health, justice and education systems, intergenerational trauma, concepts of land ownership, economics - so much learning.  

Brenda asked what we can do to mitigate racism in our education system and sustain the culture of Māori learners. 

What can we do differently?

  • Demonstrate equitable and inclusive teaching practices - i.e. dialogic pedagogy, circle time, working in metaphor/story,  strength based, UDL. We need to inquire into how we can remove barriers, build connections and relationships and elevate student voice.
  • Audit the texts/resources  we are using at school and how we are using them - who's stories are reflected in these texts? Who's perspective are we hearing? Who is not in the text? what is the authors purpose/message?  Maybe a tiny, achievable tick-able target is have an audit of the texts we have in the Reading Recovery room.
  • Commit to learning te reo. Something I can do is learn more of the waiata we sing with Tash and Renee. Not just waiata, we have the opportunity to learn tikanga and te reo every week and it's been great to see our staff more involved in learning with the students during kapa haka.



Comments

  1. Michelle24 November 2020 at 12:23

    Kia ora Gretchen. I agree,it can all be quite overwhelming as you learn more and often it's difficult to know what our place is in all of this being Pakeha ourselves. It's great that you identified all the systems and pedagogies in our schools that are culturally appropriate and can see ways that we can elevate or improve them. I think it's really elevated the status of kapa haka amongst our students having the teachers join them and learn with them.

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  2. Alida27 November 2020 at 07:57

    Hi Gretchen, when I read your blog I realised how much more we could do to sustain the culture of Maori learners. I struggled to think of more ways to do this. So through your blog post, you gave me some more ideas. I think perhaps I should go to Kapa Haka armed with a guitar and learn to play the songs. Then transfer that into class. And whenever we want to kill 5 minutes we can sing our Kapa Haka songs.

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