Restating my inquiry

At the start of my inquiry, I wanted to engage and empower my year 9 Social Studies class to ‘care’ about their local community and local curriculum because I believed it was important for them to know.   Many of the kids, although born and raised in Glen Innes, don't really know about the history of the place especially Mana Whenua history, even though they may go past these places every day.  

As I gathered evidence through student voice, looking at student work, talking to other teachers and looking at their test results,  I could see that kids were still not really understanding the importance of our local history.  Much of what we did was still based in the classroom.  My beliefs about what was important to them, wasn't really matching to what I was expecting them to do.  Here, look at a map.  Can you see how far Mauninaina is?  Look at Maungarei, it's so high.  Yep, not enough.  I did some professional reading and developed some hunches and realised my inquiry needed to shift and change.What I found was that 'engaging' needed to be explored more than just taking part in or knowing.  It need to active and dynamic and authentic.  The concept of empowerment was also something that I needed to explore further.  What power were they gaining and who was it important to. 

I sat down and discussed my inquiry with 2 experts who helped me fine tune my inquiry to allow for a more specific and clear outcome.  I started with 'How will supporting students to authentically connect with their local area and community create a sense of pride and respect in their learning?' but realised that 'creating a sense of pride' was different for everyone and can't be measured.   So I've decided to rebrand my inquiry to look at: 

How will supporting students to authentically connect with their local community create a sense of belonging and provoke action for a sustainable future?

I am going to find more authentic stories/narratives to understand and share so that kids can hear a real person talk about a real place.  I am thinking about developing a short series of lessons on the local street names of streets in our areas as a start and utilise perspective taking to build critical thinking and learning for my kids.  Hopefully this would provoke action and help guide them in the future.