What achievement challenge am I considering as an area of focus in 2023 and why? Include in my WHY both evidence and my own passion/expertise
Achievement Challenge 1:
1. Raise Māori student achievement through the development of cultural visibility and responsive practices across the pathway as measured against National Standards and agreed targets for reading Years 1-10 and NCEA years 11-13.
Since the start of term 3, I have been helping to lead Staff PLD at our school and one our key focuses has been on our supporting staff to unpack, understand and implement teaching and learning strategies related to our school goals..
And our first school goal is around raising Maori achievement and cultural visibility and I’ve become really CHALLENGED in a good way, in how to better support our teachers which will filter down to our students because of the opportunities that we have now with refresh and new curriculum allows us to learn build our local curriculum and knowing and hearing mana whenua voices.
The biggest student body in terms of ethnicity at T.C are our Maori students 32%, then our Tongans at 28%, then Samoan at 12% etc. As an advocate for Pasifika education and our initiative running at our school, we have building the foundations for strong teacher capabilities in supporting our Pasifika learners. I’m not too worried for now about them.
It’s our Maori learners and slowly we are seeing a shift in cultural visibility around our school and this is gaining momentum.
How does this understanding relate to me and my teaching?
As part of our inquiry this year, we had to identify any biases that we held and it was clear that my expectations of my Māori students was sadly different to my Pasifika students and want to challenge and change my mindset on expectations of my Māori students. I had to get educated.
To do this, I needed to learn about how to approach Mana whenua, how to humble myself and work alongside staff who are the experts to run PLD, I need to understand the importance of our local curriculum and Mana Whenua and what it means to be Māori at Tamaki. As a Pasifika teacher, I was hesitant cause I thought it’s not my place but I stepped out of my comfort and got know Matua and ask the tough questions. Then support him to come to the forefront. It’s a slow process.
Here are two examples of evidence where I see the need to support my kids in the classroom:
Cultural Responsiveness aspect:.
I want to take on the challenge of supporting our Maori kids specifically as they struggle to tell me where they belong. This year in my year 9 class, I have 7 students who identified as Maori and at the start of the year, I made them all do their pepeha. Some were confident but most did not want to say theres. When I asked them why, the ones who were confident did well and were well supported at home, the ones who weren’t confident were often our kids who shared more than one culture. I wrote a unit on belonging and starting where their feet are to try and draw them in and I could see interest and some motivation. Engaging them in reading and writing was still a struggle.
Problem of student learning that I am thinking about it reading:
A lot of reading current events about our local area and newspaper articles important but rushed. When I provide them with an article, they won’t read it or read it properly and when we deep dive into the article, I see that they are struggling with understanding things like inferencing and seeing the deeper meaning of the story. A barrier that I know is in the way is whether kids care about they are reading and can see themselves in it. And also how kids can be empathetic and think about perspectives.
And then I want to lead to kids being critical thinkers. Our refresh will help with that, it’s not the literacy aspect.
A key is also perspective taking is a key capability which I will talk more about later.
No comments:
Post a Comment