Growing a multi-cultural family

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growing up in a multi-cultural family

It wasn’t easy growing up a ‘half caste’. I never quite knew where I fitted in. On one side, I always felt too black, and on the other, too white. My families loved me for me; they didn’t see a colour, but I still wasn’t like anybody else. I was born European-Māori, and was raised European-Samoan. That often gets a few sideways glances, but I think I’m so lucky.

Now, having two beautiful children who have a mixture of European (Irish, Scottish and English), Māori, Tokelauan and Samoan, they’re even luckier. Our daily mission, for us as a family, is to teach, nourish, and support our children to feel at home in their mix of cultures. And this is their “normal.”

An important part of our journey as a family is to acknowledge each of our cultures as being equal. In our house there is no hierarchy of cultures, as they are equal, and each is as important as the other.

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The year was 1987

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A friend and I were discussing that we might have peaked at the tender age of 13. He was in a TVNZ show, and genuinely impressing his classmates by being picked up from school camp by a TVNZ car still rates as a definitive highlight; I was in the hockey rep team, and also managed to pick up the Third Form prize for Economics.

The year was 1987. The year that fluro was popular and Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet was played everywhere and, more importantly, it was the year that Te Reo Māori became one of the official languages of New Zealand; on the first of August.

A lot has changed since 1987, and generally for the better. However, te reo Māori is not as well spoken in New Zealand as it could be. How could we fix this?  I think the elephant in the room is that we need to invest time and money in teaching Te Reo Māori at kindergarten, primary, and high school. How will this help?

Me Horoi Kue, e Te Taui

horoi(a): wash

Me horoi koe, e te tau!
You should wash, my darling! – this is an example of using Me – Should
The graphic is mine, but the kupu (words) come into my inbox from Kupu o te Rā

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Making learning visible

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making learning visable

Creating visibility around student learning can redefine a learner’s understanding of the world.

When facilitating in classes, I often open with the question, ‘Do you know how many people in the world have access to the Internet?’ There are a myriad of guesses from the students. Very few get anywhere near the (at time of writing) 3.9 billion internet users suggested by websites such as Internet Livestats. By the time this blog post is published, I’ve no doubt that number will be closer to 3.2 billion and still climbing. Of course, these are estimates, but the realisation that the potential audience for a student’s learning could number in the billions is a very exciting place to start with a classroom full of learners. Be under no illusion, I’m very careful when I use the term ‘potential audience’, because, without driving traffic to any online space where learning is shared, it is as redundant as the marked work in an exercise book from years ago that currently resides in the bottom of a box in the attic.

But, it begs the question, why isn’t everyone sharing his or her work online? For some, it’s simply a lack of knowledge. If you cannot identify a vehicle within which to share, then you cannot begin sharing. For others, it’s fear. Students and teachers alike are often afraid of criticism or being judged by others. This is something we develop as we get older; my two-year-old son certainly isn’t fussed by what others think of his finger painting! It would be easy to say to those, ‘Get over it’, but it’s not that simple.

It’s a mindset shift. It’s an understanding that sharing learning online needn’t be in the form of a portfolio or record of achievement. It could echo the journey that millions of students take every day, the visual growth of knowledge and progress in an online forum. And lastly, for many, it’s time! Teachers in New Zealand are no different from many others around the world: overworked, exhausted, and constantly being bashed by the media.

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Ten Trends 2015: Learner agency

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Most people are familiar with the ‘old’ way of doing things in schools: the teacher controlled what was learnt, how it was learnt, even where and when it was learnt. But, a key trend that has characterised education in recent times is a move towards learners owning more of the process: to give them ‘the power to act’ in their learning, or what is known as ‘agency’.

Agency can take many forms; from being empowered to make decisions about which activity to move onto next, through to learners being empowered to take positive social action in their communities. Providing choices in learning (whether to work individually or in a group; whether to provide evidence of learning using a piece of writing or a diagram) is an important factor in engagement, which is, in turn, a contributor to student learning and success.

learner agency

Many schools now build student agency by doing things like fostering a greater sense of ownership and self-efficacy in learning, inviting students to have a voice in that learning, and even to take more control over the way things are learnt. Student-led inquiries are one way to build agency, as learners often control not only the challenge or question that is explored, but also the method of investigation, the tools that are used, the action taken as a result of the inquiry and the means of demonstrating evidence of learning.

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