Ako: critical contexts for change

Mere Berryman - educational disparities for Maori

In this presentation, Mere talks about the exciting possibilities now in the NZC, that it can be opened up rather than narrowed.

Implications for practice?  
To create contexts for student learning where their mauri is alive and well. 

Excerpts from her presentation that resonated with me:

So you know, I’m pleased now, she will be still learning reading and stuff but hopefully she will be enjoying as a five year old, the opening of the curriculum in the Primary School that she attends and life will become not the little bag of blackline masters and words in isolation, but absolutely words in context, and contexts which open the door not only to her whole world but to the world of others. 

Mauri: he (Durie) talks about us as having mauri that can be languishing; mauri noho. Or we could have mauri that is ‘mauri ora’, our mauri is well, it’s vital, it’s energised.

And I guess our job is as educators, whatever it becomes, whatever it is, as professionals, our job is moving students from positions of mauri noho to mauri ora. And I think with the opening up of the curriculum we are well poised to do that.

but we don’t want to have compromised who we are in order to get those qualifications. So that, Linda Smith would tell us, is a decolonising stance.

So we have to think about belonging. How do we create contexts for learning where children really belong?

“Cultural relationships for responsive pedagogy.” Because what I found was that everybody’s an expert. Everybody’s an expert in culturally responsive pedagogy and everybody knows it’s all about relationships. But what does that actually look like as a practitioner? What does that look like when I walk into the classroom in the morning?

Well, Māori students told me it looks like this. This notion of whānau. Teachers who treat their children as though they were their own.

This notion of treating people like whānau means that you know who they are. Who their parents are, where they come from, what they believe in, and more importantly – and here’s the power-sharing – they know about you. Sometimes more things than anybody else knows about you. And that’s ok.

But then, what about this responsive pedagogy? Is it about putting kowhaiwhai patterns up or Māori All Blacks around the room so that children feel like they belong in the classrooms? Well it might be that but if that’s all you do then it’s not! It’s far more requiring us to treat our students in the way that they want us to treat them.

The research shows that when we are much more responsive and relational to Māori students, or anybody else for that matter, then we can actually increase that yet again. We can accelerate the shifts.

 We call it the Ako: critical contexts for change. Now if you can bring that into your school at multiple levels then you’ll reach your 20% and you’ll accelerate the learning for all. We call it ‘Ako’ because it is about everybody being a teacher and a learner, a learner and a leader. And it requires all of those voices alongside effective use of a wide, diverse and rich curricula.

‘Experiencing the power of whānautanga/whanaungatanga’ and this use of the term ‘whānautanga’ – it means birth, to give birth – whānautanga. You see that’s that notion of treating the children as we would want our own children to be treated, our own mokopuna to be treated; whānautanga. Whanaungatanga is more about establishing those networks and making those connections. Both are important. Both I would say are essential for the 20%.

https://poutamapounamu.org.nz/about