Reflective Enrty 3
Reflective Entry 3
PARENT PARTICIPATION IN GOAL SETTING TO 2019
The table above shows data that our school collected from 2011 to 2019 at goal setting meetings. After consultation with the community and the school gaining Indigenous knowledge, our Maori parents of children with Special needs are feeling better supported. Their presence and participation in their child’s learning had increased to 93.9%.
Special Education: Māori Strategy
The SE Māori strategy uses the imagery of a meeting house (wharenui) to explain how Service Provision for Māori can be facilitated within the context of Special Education and in a way that meets the needs of those Māori clients who wish to avail themselves of such an option.
Ka Hikitia and Tau Mai Te Reo are the culmination of in-depth discussions held with Māori learners, whānau, leaders and the education sector over the past three years, including Kōrero Mātauranga and the subsequent wānanga.
Happy, healthy tamariki and rangatahi learn better and are more likely to achieve in education, work and life when they feel safe and confident in themselves and connected to their learning environments.
The education system has underperformed for Māori learners and their whānau over an extended period. As a result, Māori learners collectively experience worse education outcomes than other New Zealand learners and are less engaged in our education system.This has been even more challenging for our students with Special needs. Whanua struggle to come to grips with having a child with special needs and finding a suitable school can be difficult.
Ka Hikitia and Tau Mai Te Reo have been developed alongside education sector agencies to raise Māori educational success.
This requires an education system that gives Māori agency over education for Māori, understands and engages with Māori learners in the context of their whānau and their culture, identity and language and ensures they are free from racism, stigma and discrimination.
To achieve this, the Ministry intends to provide education services to incorporate Māori identity, language and culture into the day-to-day practices.
The development of digital technologies means student interactions with kaiako and ākonga no longer need to be limited to verbal and written forms. Using student's voice can progress the concept of ako, supporting teaching and learning relationships where the kaiako and ākonga share in the learning experience. Using digital technologies to support interactions between kaiako and ākonga
Technologies featured strongly in students' perceptions of the future, "Computers, there will be all computers, no books," said one student.
The literature on e-Learning in indigenous contexts was not dissimilar to the kaupapa Māori section. Key themes emerging from the literature were:
1. Benefits of e-Learning -It removed physical barriers of distance for indigenous participation in education. E-learning also allowed flexible learning opportunities, where indigenous students were able to stay in more familiar social and cultural environments whilst pursuing continued and enhanced learning.
2. Teaching practice -The importance of teachers being aware of the impact – both negative and positive – that e-Learning can have on indigenous communities and indigenous knowledge forms.
3. Creating opportunities through e-Learning - For indigenous students and communities to engage with their cultural knowledge forms and practices. Examples were given as to how different e-Learning tools were able to support communities to reconnect (through internet websites) and to learn their language and customs (through the development and production of online learning resources).
4. Challenges to cultural practices -The potential impact on the preservation, use, and misuse of indigenous knowledge and practices. eLearning could also facilitate in alienating indigenous youth from traditional ways of accessing and acquiring indigenous knowledge and practices.
What is Local and Indigenous Knowledge?
Local and indigenous knowledge refers to the understandings, skills and philosophies developed by societies with long histories of interaction with their natural surroundings. For rural and indigenous peoples, local knowledge informs decision-making about fundamental aspects of day-to-day life. This knowledge is integral to a cultural complex that also encompasses language, systems of classification, resource use practices, social interactions, ritual and spirituality.
At our school, we ensure that our student with diverse needs are treated with respect, dignity and tolerance and that we instil the following
Caring for others;
Show cooperation and fairness;
Manaakitanga (respect for position and attributes);
Whanaungatanga (familial and interpersonal relationships);
Tohatoha (working together towards a shared vision and collaborative outcomes)
It is clear that the scientific endeavours and knowledge of Maori and other indigenous people, as well as their ways of transmitting knowledge especially around students with special needs, are seldom evidenced in the curriculum and pedagogical practices imposed on them in their own countries by western/European educational systems.
Effective curriculum and pedagogy for Maori are likely to be found in culturally safe learning environments where both the teacher and students engage in a reciprocal relationship of respect and understanding for and about one another. Teachers demonstrate the concept of care in the classroom through giving support and nurturing, through having high expectations of their students and through creating a culturally responsive learning environment (Bateman, 2005; Gay, 2000; Macfarlane, 2004).
At our school, we demonstrated culturally safe classrooms encouraging strong family input, reciprocal learning between students and teachers. We use scaffolded tutoring where more skilled students took responsibility for teaching less-skilled students (the concept of tuakana-teina), and a constructivist approach to curriculum delivery.
However, these approaches are certainly not exclusive to education in New Zealand. Similar benefits are to be expected from drawing on the strengths of the knowledge and pedagogies of other indigenous peoples to improve education theory and practice in other nations.
References
Angus H. Macfarlane, Ted Glynn, Waiariki Grace, Wally Penetito and Sonja Bateman, Indigenous epistemology in a national curriculum framework? Ethnicities 2008; 8; 102
Anderson, D., Chiarotto, L., & Comay, J. (2017). Natural Curiosity Second Edition: The Importance of Indigenous Perspectives in Children’s Environmental Inquiry (2nd ed.). Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.
Banks, J. A. (1993). The canon debate, knowledge construction, and multicultural education. Educational Researcher, 22(5), 4-14.
Battiste, M., & Henderson, J. (. Y. (2009). Naturalizing indigenous knowledge in eurocentric education. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 32(1), 5-18,129-130.
Calman, R. (2012). Māori education – mātauranga - Kaupapa Māori education. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
Gjerpe, K. K. (2018). From indigenous education to indigenising mainstream education. FLEKS-Scandinavian Journal of Intercultural Theory and Practice, 5(1).
Macfarlane, A. (2003) ‘Culturally Inclusive Pedagogy for Ma¯ori Students Experiencing Learning and Behaviour Difficulties’, PhD thesis, Hamilton: University of Waikato, New Zealand
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