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Image of children playing in the metaverse

What is the metaverse (and why should educators in Aotearoa care)?

Posted on October 11, 2022 by Josh Hough

By Josh Hough, Professional Learning Services Programme Manager CORE Education.

Imagine yourself as a young person taking your first steps into a new environment on the first day of school. Perhaps the school is steeped in history. Perhaps this all feels very grown up. Perhaps you're anxious about where to go, what to do, and how you’ll navigate this next step on your learning journey.

You walk across the school field, eyes fixed on the enormous building ahead that vaguely reminds you of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As you get closer, you see the fine details in the old red brick, the marks from the passage of many feet in the well worn floors, and the huge oak double doors standing open, inviting you to enter. 

As you step inside, a simple map pops up in front of your eyes. The line to the Student Services office catches your eye – these are people you’ve been told will be able to make sure your learning needs are met. You’re looking forward to meeting them.

Finding your way through the corridors, avatars of other ākonga greet you along the walk. They tell you about the school and reassure you that you’re welcome here, that you’re safe. They tell you about how great the facilities are, where you can go to ask questions, who their favourite kaiako are, and share inside secrets that only other students would know.

You relax. Perhaps this won’t be so scary after all.

The experience I’ve just described is a school induction metaverse experience created by Year 12 ākonga in a digital technology class I was teaching in 2017. Sure, it was scrappy and had a few bugs (alright, maybe more than a few – but I’m biased). A few walls disappeared at random. Occasionally the player would spawn under the floor and be unable to escape.

But man was it cool! I sure as heck didn’t teach them how to make that!

I didn’t (and still don’t) possess the skills to help create something on that level. I gave them the reins of their project and they galloped with it – creating a virtual world to support new ākonga with the transition from intermediate to secondary before their actual first day – an experience they wished they’d had themselves.

Back then, watching the ākonga work blew my mind. It still does now. It was the beginning of a metaverse unfolding before my eyes. Rangatahi leading the way, connecting the real world to a new virtual one from a place of passion and purpose.

What is the metaverse?

Not to be confused with Meta (the new “face” of Facebook), the notion of the metaverse has been around for 30 years. The term, metaverse, is a combination of the prefix meta which implies some kind of change or transformation and the word universe, which in context describes a virtual environment linked to the physical world.

In other words, a new and engaging reality evolving from and connected to our physical one in which we can explore, connect, play and learn. Sometimes this reality would be accessed through technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), and sometimes not.

While the term has been around for quite some time, we don’t (yet?) have the metaverse – the networked virtual world in which all of us can connect and co-exist together.

Rather, we have metaverses (plural) – contained virtual worlds such as the one I described above, or Second Life, or games like Minecraft and Roblox.

Why does this matter? Because it means the notion of the metaverse is still in its infancy. This is good news for educators, and the ākonga we teach. We can have a part to play in shaping it, and we haven’t missed the boat.

Why should you care about metaverses?

When education isn’t keeping pace with digital progress, technology is what defines the learning opportunities rather than those who understand what actually makes for effective learning.

This has happened before.

In 2007, the iPhone was launched and with it came the explosion of the mobile app market. The market was quickly flooded with thousands of “educational” apps created with no research on the science of learning behind them.

By the time the educational community caught up, it was too late. Sure, there came (and still are) great learning apps, but the sheer number of low quality products also continues to make it incredibly challenging for kaiako and whānau to find those that are truly educational.

Metaverses are becoming increasingly commonplace in education. There are also plenty of signals that point to the possibility of the metaverse coming soon, and if and when it does, it will be unignorable.

If we’re going to ensure these immersive, real-time, and eventually interconnected metaverse spaces serve the needs of our rangatahi and tamariki, then it’s important for us to be thinking about, designing, and experimenting with connections between the physical world and the virtual experiential one that support effective learning.

The time for kaiako and ākonga to start leading the conversation around the metaverse is now.

What can you do to get involved in the metaverse?

As an educator, you may be wondering what you should be doing to get involved and upskill yourself to guide ākonga in these virtual learning environments.

Here are three things you can start doing right now to become a metaverse pioneer:

  • Know how important you are

  • Learn about the metaverse

  • Take part in the conversation

1. Know how important you are

First, it’s important to know how necessary your role is. A good metaverse connects what’s happening in the virtual world to the real one, and it’s kaiako who guide ākonga to make this connection. 

As a guide for ākonga in the metaverse, you’ll be doing some of the same things you already do for them in the classroom. A good metaverse learning environment needs kaiako to:

  • select the right virtual spaces and experiences that reflect who ākonga are and that work for their specific needs

  • help navigate spaces that might bring up difficult things for ākonga

  • grow ākonga beyond their comfort zones and help them to tackle new challenges based on their strengths and difficulties

  • link what ākonga are learning with what they already know

  • guide the experience based on what’s been observed to spark new interest and learning inquiry

  • ensure metaverse learning experiences are used in ways that are inclusive

Without educators, effective learning in the metaverse will be left to chance. Or worse – big tech companies or people looking to make a quick dollar.

2. Learn about metaverses

A quick Google search for “metaverse in education books” will take you down a rabbit hole of great reading suggestions. If you’re looking for ways to learn more about metaverses that are locally contextualised, here’s two to get you started:

  • Register for CORE Education’s free Connecting learning spaces and virtual places webinar on 26 October and begin to workshop the opportunities metaverses create for ākonga, whānau and learning communities

  • Try out Microsoft’s Minecraft: Education Edition with your class. Ngā Motu, created by New Zealand game developer and founder of Piki Studios Whetu Paitai, is a Minecraft world where students can explore concepts of te ao Māori and is a great place to get started. There’s also a set of bi-cultural resources to support kaiako and tamariki to explore Ngā Motu together created by CORE Education and accessible for free

3. Take part in the conversation

The thing I miss most about being in the classroom is the curiosity and creativity of young minds. If I were teaching again, a learning inquiry I’d love to explore with ākonga would be “if the metaverse is a new place for us to ‘be’ together, what will be our tikanga?”

Developing a learning inquiry with your own class is a great way to get the conversation going and to learn alongside and from rangatahi. As we all know, and like I experienced back in 2017, rangatahi have a way of blowing our minds and trailblazing when we empower them to lead.

Some other ideas to take part in the conversation include:

  • try a metaverse learning experience with your class and write a reflective blog piece

  • host a kōrero about the metaverse and its implications at your next staff hui

  • start a conversation on your favourite education forum and see what comes back

  • talk to rangatahi in your own whānau and see what they have to say about the metaverse

  • reach out to your nearest tertiary provider or organisation embracing metaverse technologies to find out about what they’re doing

  • drop me an email (here’s my bio with my email address) and tell me your thoughts about this blog post. What’s making you excited? What do you disagree with? What would you like us to cover in our upcoming webinar about the metaverse?

A parting pātai

It doesn’t take a deep scan to forecast that we’re going to be hearing a lot more about the metaverse in education in the next few years.

The opportunity in front of us right now is to engage with both our communities and the wider technology community to co-create a connected, impactful, and inclusive metaverse. One that supports good learning. One that is good for ākonga and whānau.

What part will you play?

Key points

  • The metaverse is a new and engaging reality evolving from and connected to our physical one in which we can explore, connect, play and learn.

  • We’re already experiencing metaverses. The metaverse is still being developed, and is (probably) coming soon.

  • Kaiako, ākonga and whānau are critical to the development of the metaverse. Without them, effective learning in the metaverse will be left to chance.

  • There are lots of ways to experiment with, learn more about, and become involved in the conversation about metaverses in education.

Reminder

Register for CORE Education’s free Connecting learning spaces and virtual places webinar on 26 October

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Children working in hybrid learning environment

Disruptive educators and quality learning design

Posted on June 27, 2022 by Catherine Frost

Complexity and challenging times

We’ve encountered many new kupu/words/terms recently that describe different approaches to the delivery of learning. Hybrid learning, online, off-site, blended learning, synchronous, asynchronous, remote learning, are just a few. These disruptions come at a significant stage in our national curriculum refresh, as we near our vision for learning in 2025.

I have been fortunate to experience and observe many students, educators and schools during unexpected serious ‘events’: COVID, floods, earthquakes, community losses, and family trauma. In these times the existing systems and strategies that support learning are immediately disrupted, timetables forced to change and adapt, sometimes in an immediate and reactive time frame. These events can cause issues around wellbeing and learning, as well as inclusion, equity and accessibility. In addition, stress, workloads, negative behaviours, pastoral incidents, and group dysfunction can increase. 

I’d like to share in this blog my observations about learning design; what happens in our classrooms. How do the effects of ‘disruptive events’, both human and natural, test the robustness and quality of what ākonga (students) experience in the classroom and our pedagogical choices as educators?

Human disruption comes in many forms

An online group of DisruptEd educators, and many ‘disobedient’ educators across Aotearoa, are championing educational disruption. Disobedient disruptors deliberately seek to improve the effect of outdated educational systems and strategies to better meet the needs of ākonga. These educators have much in common with the natural and societal disruptors. They test existing systems, to see that they are fit for purpose in meeting learner needs, now and in the future. This group of educators see beyond the surface of the systems and strategies to the depth of the systems and their impact on our ākonga. This ‘seeing’ leads them to intervene; to become disruptive and disobedient, to make changes, deliberately design intervention pedagogies, take transformational action that questions and begins to shift the systems that surround them to reducing and removing their negative impacts.

They do this quietly and almost invisibly. They almost always demonstrate the instinctive values of empathy and equity, because they know how it feels to be disconnected and excluded. They show humility and passion, and are naturally collaborative, believing that "it takes a village to raise a child". Their lens of equity, inclusion, and awareness, is wide and deep. They focus on relationships they have with colleagues, students, whānau, community, local council and businesses. These networks provide both the guidance for their intervention, and the resources that support it. They also create an invisible 'wellbeing shield' system of teaching and learning within their classrooms, that protects and inspires ākonga and them as educators, from the negative influences outside. They design quality learning that gets into, and more importantly stays in, the hearts and minds of their learners, because they know the greatest tool of change available is their fundamental task of learning design and relationships.

“The design of learning is the fundamental task of teachers – they do it every day, sometimes explicitly as an extension of their planning, but more often it's what happens almost naturally as a result of the structures and systems that exist in most classrooms.” (Wenmoth, 2022)

How quality learning design looks and feels

In almost every case I have observed, these disruptors are experts at the design and delivery of authentic, engaging, and outstanding learning. They also take a huge social risk, as their efforts and solutions can be unwelcome to colleagues and leaders who like the status quo. So often, in spite of the systems that surround and restrict them, they design classroom learning that develops students' creativity, critical thinking, resilience, collaboration, connectedness, empathy, self-awareness, testing bias in themselves and those around them. They knowingly create a barrier from the damaging school systems and external events, by designing fun, engaging, high quality learning. They constantly develop positive, equity focused relationships, and inclusive learning environments. You can feel the uplifting power and energy of these as you enter their classrooms. When these pedagogies are in place, I see students in a ‘learning flow-state’, where time passing goes unnoticed.

Ākonga are bursting with passion and excitement, spending hours actively problem solving, not realising time is passing, creating learning euphoria and wellbeing. Designing, building, testing, failing, trialling, feeling the full joy of learning just like they did in pre-school where the systems were truly student-centric and equitable. This form of learning design transcends time, place, events, internet and device access, as it is grounded in the ability to work together to find solutions. It gets to the depth of what it is to be human, connecting at our most basic level.

The disobedient, disruptive classroom appears chaotic and disorganised from an external view. Look more closely and you will see undetermined problems and solutions being discussed, co-constructed, solved and collaborated on, educators and learners side-by-side. Failures are embraced as valuable learning opportunities. Students who know how to design, jump between stages and steps, model, test, evaluate, present, and refine as their process demands they do so. As they develop this capability, they begin to, unknowingly, design themselves.

Quality learning design – an authentic experience

A Year 12 student is learning in a focused local curriculum environment; alongside community businesses providing support and materials designing and building a Hobbit playhouse for a new space at the nearby community pre-school. Normally this is a young man who struggles with self-confidence, fitting in, numeracy, literacy, dyslexia and dyscalculia, and grasping scientific principles. During this authentic learning experience, he is not at all aware of his ‘academic’ personal learning challenges, or that he is exemplifying assessment for learning strategies. He has stepped into his creative, observational, empathetic, caring, human, and innovative logical mind, driven by the authentic needs of the pre-school children he is designing for. His desire to earn NCEA credits is nowhere to be seen.

Photo of the house from Hobbit

Credit: photo by Joshua Harris on Unsplash

In one part of this design project, he is communicating his creativity visually, modelling a Roman arched window using Autodesk Inventor (free student industry standard computer aided design (CAD) software). Using this complex visual design modelling software does not highlight his learning challenges, it bypasses them, and instead uses his refined cognitive abilities to make alternative and usually more efficient creative and innovative connections.

The iterative problem solving design process, requires him to seek out particular knowledge, understand, then do, act, as it is needed. Not focusing on his existing knowledge or lack of, the design process has guided him to understand and do. He has designed an outcome to improve the lives of a range of very young tamariki. Without realising the complexity he has achieved, he has applied the static physics, calculations and principles of forces of a Roman Arch – hoffnerphysics into his Hobbit playhouse, designed and custom built in a complete end-to-end process. He has drawn on the disciplinary knowledge of maths, science, technology learning and without noticing, has understood and applied understanding of principles he needed to, when he needed to, in order to successfully create a completed, quality outcome. He has demonstrated exceptional standards of oral, written and visual literacy, is authentically collaborating, gathering data, feedback, advice, sharing with and learning from his classmates who are also engaged in problem-solving, authentic and unknown, design thinking mode, and he is enjoying it!

Perhaps best of all in our current environment, he is empowered by designing for equity. He has made the circular entry door wide and high enough with a cobbled ramp access, the interior furniture and the window sized to be accessible for all ages and sizes of preschoolers, toddlers to 5 year olds including the 4 year old cerebral palsy girl in a wheelchair. With support from his local marae, the walls of the playhouse are decorated with poutama, tukutuku symbolising genealogy, learning and achievement. There are textured images from the fantasy trilogy, labels are 3D printed in braille, and movie filming locations are shown on a map of Aotearoa.

 

Infographic

Learning design for wellbeing

Best of all, he exudes passion, deep happiness and satisfaction, as he immerses himself in his own measurable and accountable, lead-follow-lead design process. He doesn’t notice when he has completed requirements of multi-disciplinary achievement and unit standards, almost invisibly guided in the potential quality of those outcomes by his disruptive educator. He isn’t thinking from a place of 'self’ as he moves through his challenge, he isn’t counting credits, ticking NCEA boxes, he is feeling the same joyful learning experience that the pre-schoolers he is designing for are in.

The educator is in a supporting, observational role only. Design capability was established, strengthened and progressed during his Year 7 to 10 schooling. At senior secondary level, he is experiencing the freedom to be agentic, independent, resilient and autonomous, using these years to demonstrate his capabilities that step up naturally each year.

This learning strategy is not only great for his wellbeing. It reduces educator stress, workload and increases professional enjoyment. The educator can now be re-positioned to an agentic, 'aside' the learner role, noticing where and how during the process the student demonstrates specialist learning, the levels and disciplines the learning draws from, and is evidenced in. The educator collaborates and co-constructs learning design with other learning area specialists for guidance and advice as is required. Formative feedback is used throughout the process, as and when needed to ensure the learning evidence is documented and demonstrated clearly, for others to follow and give feedback on. This demonstration and documentation relies on digitally fluent students to draw on appropriate digital tools to use, record, design and transform their ideas into a feasible outcome. 

The completed outcome and design process documentation folio, provides evidence of assessment for learning across science, maths, technology (materials, digital and DVC technological areas), Social sciences and English, with over 40 credits at NCEA Level 2 and 3.

An interesting human observation of this classroom is how effortlessly ākonga transition into a creative-flow state. They are busy, engaged, and time passes very quickly. Reactions to the bell signalling the end of the session, is often unheard, and mostly unwelcomed.

Perhaps this is because ākonga have the opportunity to be designers and have responsibility for the design process, so feel the accountability, the views, culture and needs of the real people, stakeholders and end-users they are collaborating with. They are designers of ‘things’, products, systems, environments, spaces, and ultimately, themselves as emerging adults.

Design creativity being the most basic of human activities requires the highest order of thinking. To ‘intervene by design’ (the essence of technology/STEM/STEAMS learning) is to improve our environment and the things in it that humans use.

Design creativity involves many forms of thinking and forces the designer to both draw on existing understanding, and to seek out new knowledge to fill identified and obvious gaps.

Critical and ethical thinking – understanding the needs of people and place what is, what could and should be. 

Collaborative, community, and evaluative thinking – reacting to and taking on board feedback from the environment, stakeholders and end-users. Creating outcomes for others, develops equity thinking.

Creative and innovative thinking – developing resilience to test, trial and explore unknown concepts to see how well they may perform, be ‘fit for purpose’.

Thinking and learning in authentic, unknown contexts is both meaningful and engaging for all students. For students who learn differently, those with mild to severe learning needs that traditional learning often excludes, find themselves easily excelling as their creative connective brains thrive in this design environment. Design and its reliant thinking capabilities, develops students skills and understandings into real-world ‘event-proof’ capabilities.

If we are courageous enough to be proactive rather than reactive, we could use our current complexities and challenging events to shine a lens of designing for equity in our classrooms

Learning design for equity

Could the most important focus be on how we design high quality classroom learning that develops capabilities in creativity, critical thinking, innovation, communication, collaboration, empathy, patience and resilience, challenge and question bias,  where the vision, goal and outcome demonstrate equity? Being able to design effective and high quality learning has always been the core role of educators, but how many of your colleagues actually know how to design learning that is measurable, accountable and meaningful? 

Maybe a shared definition of future focused high quality learning design could be one that is measurable in how it contributes to equity, supports learner transition and progression, provides that elusive future focus we are searching for? 

Traditional systems and disruption

Across all ages and year levels I have seen the students of these ‘disruptors’ regardless of being 5-years-old or 18-years-old, demonstrate passionate, meaningful, connected and transformative learning.

“projects, passion, peers, and play. In short, we believe the best way to cultivate creativity is to support people working on projects based on their passions, in collaboration with peers and in a playful spirit. Most schools in most countries place a higher priority on teaching students to follow instructions and rules (becoming A students) than on helping students develop their own ideas, goals, and strategies…. Opposite: I believe the rest of school (indeed, the rest of life) should become more like kindergarten.” (Resnick, 2018)

So do we want academic, credit-counting students, or do we want healthy, resilient, creative, collaborative students who will become the adults of our future society?

Perhaps best of all these things, this design approach to high quality learning has the biggest positive impact on personal hauora, resilience, connectedness, and wellbeing. The disruptive ‘events’ that we have and continue to experience are significantly impacting the hauora of our rangitahi and tamariki, their whānau and communities. 

We understand that our education systems are no longer ‘fit for purpose’. The increasing numbers and frequency of ‘events’, are handing out a pounding and an opportunity to school systems. Some systems, (such as streaming, timetabling and hierarchy of learning areas) are clearly not only not serving the needs of our present learners, educators and communities, they are often creating very real barriers that damage the learning and the child. 

Disruptive and disobedient educators

These disruptive and disobedient educators also go beyond their own classroom and school systems, by making small changes that disrupt traditional barriers. They bypass transition systems, building relationships with local year six, seven and eight primary educators, maybe through kāhui ako networks, so they can get meaningful student data to enable their goal of a ninth year of learning. Within their own school systems, these educators are creating strategies to ensure they can teach the same class of students in year nine and ten, so that learning is consistent, coherent, and correctly prepares the student for success at NCEA. In our Hobbit playhouse example, the educator made sure all students had deep design capabilities, confidence in collaboration, community connectedness, and could authentically experience joyful learning and relive their preschool experience by being creative. They had permission over a sustained period of time, to enjoy and celebrate failing that developed sustainable levels of resilience, self awareness and critical consciousness.

In Disobedient Teaching: Surviving and Creating Change in Education (2017), Welby Ings describes how external events and disruptive/disobedient educators sit within current educational systems:

"As educational institutions perceive talent, few innovators are attracted to professional structures that expect them to be a cog in a machine. Highly innovative people may train as teachers, but they rarely stay long in the systems.” (p.127)

As we hear so often, those with the passion and desire to redesign the systems, the ones we need for things to change, likely leave despondent, burnt out and exhausted. 

So if negatively impacting events like covid, earthquakes, floods, acts of terror, abuse and crime within our communities, are likely to continue, then maybe it is time to consider, what is the core role of educators? Is it to be disruptive and disobedient to the educational systems they exist within? And if so, what does this mean for our classroom educators, communities, leaders, and decision-makers?

What can each educator do then? Being responsible for a classful of sponge-like minds is the greatest privilege of any adult. Education is society's biggest R&D opportunity; to research the next generation, to design and develop the required future.

So what about sustainability and longevity?

Rejecting short term thinking and ineffective systems, learners who experience high quality future-focused learning, will then contribute to the ‘thinking-long’ philosophy by becoming transformational members of society, in groups with strengthened community hauora, equity, connectedness, resilience and patience.

Surely learning that remains in the heart and minds of learners, that could rise above and resist the impact of external events is the goal for all educators wherever we are in the system?

We have heard about this learning ‘utopia’ for many years from Sir Ken Robinson, Michae Fullan, Derek Wenmoth and others, about the ‘thinking-long’ approach where school systems, timetables, local and national political cycles could be designed to serve seven future generations, rather than then year/three year/term goals, ERO cycle, or reporting schedules. 

Our wero?

Our wero is currently to design new and equitable ways to deliver learning. Could now also be the time to re-focus on ‘the fundamental task of teachers’; meet the needs of every student for the whole of their schooling by being adept designers of high quality, future focused learning and systems, that will safely ride the waves of any external ‘events’ and evolve the no-longer fit-for-purpose systems we exist in? 

Talk to us at CORE if you want to explore the possibilities raised in this thought piece with one of our professional learning facilitators.

References:

Ings, W. (2017), Disobedient Teaching : Surviving & Creating Change in Education, Published by Otago University Press

Resnick, R. (2018)  Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play, Published by The MIT Press

Wenmoth, D. (2022) retrieved from Futuremakers website

 

 

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Matariki constellation

Matariki – our past, our future

Posted on June 7, 2022 by Anahera McGregor

Ahhhh Matariki, here you are again. This year, I think, your presence will be different. This time more people know your name. This time they will look for you. This time, the ancient being you are, will be honoured. Mānawatia a Matariki. 

I paused just the other night and looked at the sky cloaked in all its glory. Each star, millions of miles away, ever constant, ever seeing, ever present. My momentary reflection made me think about just how old the stars are. They have led generations, they have guided waka around the world, they have given signs and have provided comfort and wise counsel. 

They remain the same, yet we have changed. Our world is ever changing – he ao hurihuri tēnei ao. 

The word ‘mātai’ is synonymous with star gazing. It is also a word that we use for ‘examine’. In the development of the new Aotearoa New Zealand and Te Takanga o te Wā histories curricula, mātai is used in the guiding whakataukī Mātai whakamuri, kia anga whakamua – look to the past to move forward. Matariki provides the impetus for us to do just that, reflect on what has gone before and to prepare for the future. So what then is our past, and what will be our future? 

With every generation comes change. We have evolved as a society, and continue to evolve as a society. That is how nature works. And thank goodness for that. Those of us who have glimpsed into the window of our past know we have seen dark times. We still see, feel and hear the impact of those times, that is, if we choose to do so. For those that are yet to learn the history of this land, the time has arrived. 

Prior to the signing of te Tiriti o Waitangi, te reo Māori was the predominant language of the land. Māori culture, society and identity were intact and māori (normal). In the span of the next one hundred and fifty plus years we experienced the most horrific legislation, for example the 1879 Māori Prisoners Act (Māori imprisoned without trial for an indefinite period of time), the 1863 Suppression of Rebellion Act (any Māori deemed to be in rebellion with the Crown were punished with land confiscation), the 1863 New Zealand Settlements Act (allowed the Government to confiscate land as punishment for those who fought against the crown), the Pepper Potting policy in the 1960s where whānau Māori were housed in non-Māori areas to hasten the assimilation process, and the list goes on and on. Be it racist policy, the perpetuation of racist discourse, the racist slander we might even experience in our own families, down to the ‘everything is so Māori nowdays’,  tells a story of where we have been, and shows us where we need to get to in order to ensure the world looks different for our future generations. 

And the world is looking different. Hope is being restored each time a Māori word is pronounced correctly. It is restored every time ‘mainstream’ media uses te reo Māori in our TV shows. When we go to the supermarket and see bilingual signage, when people call out racist behaviour, when people invest time in learning the language, when people seek to change – to do better and to be better. When mātauranga Māori is naturalised back into ‘mainstream’ society, as we see with the Matariki holiday, things are changing. 

This year marks the first time we will celebrate an indigenous public holiday. To me, it is a very public way to honour mātauranga Māori. If people didn’t know what or who Matariki was, they will now. It is a deliberate act of re-indigenisation, challenging the face of eurocentricity and New Zealand culture. This, among other forms of cultural reclamation and revitalisation, are becoming more and more normal. Iwi are investing significant heart, time and resource into the identity of their uri – identity that has been, like land, dispossessed for generations, for many of us. We are pursuing cultural responsiveness. We see so much grace and willingness to work in partnership that there is a sense of te Tiriti o Waitangi slowly gaining mana and finding a home in society, beyond rhetoric and into spaces of authentic implementation. Although the term is beginning to sound slightly cliche, Aotearoa is getting ‘woke’. 

It is good to reflect on how far we have come. As we prepare to consider what our contribution to the narrative of our land will be, our collective story will eventually become history, what deliberate acts might we do to ensure mātauranga Māori is returned equitably to the winds, ngā hau e whā, of Aotearoa? Hiwa-i-te-rangi, the ‘wishing star’ of the Matariki cluster, will soon be visible to the eye. What might we lay before her, what are our hopes and dreams for our land? The responsibility for the future sits on our shoulders and in our hearts. He aha tāu? What part will you play?

 

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Children working in classroom

Building relationships through letting go of control

Posted on May 30, 2022 by Kirsty Macfarlane

Existing in relationships triggers everything.

Manulani Aluli Meyer (2008)

What does it mean to exist in relationships in the context of a classroom? One of the first things I was taught during my teacher training is that relationships are key. Up until recently I believed I was doing my best to foster relationships between myself, the students and their whānau. This belief in my abilities to build and develop meaningful relationships was tested when I was accepted as a recipient of the Dr Vince Ham eFellowship with Core Education. Through my research I was forced to re-evaluate what it meant to form relationships, and the work that needed to be done to do this.  My eFellow project was structured around this research question:

How can real-time reporting, via Seesaw, support reciprocal/ako relationships between learners, whānau and school?

I had a hunch that through live reporting, whānau, students and I would switch easily between the roles of teacher and learner. I optimistically saw myself collaborating with whānau and students to complete my research. This optimism was quickly dashed by my first whānau focus group discussion, which was attended by one parent. This experience taught me my first lesson – that good intentions and morning greetings are not enough to create the type of strong and trusting relationships I was looking for. I had not taken the time to nurture and grow these relationships, instead I expected whānau to engage in ways that were dictated by me. I expected whānau to engage with me simply because I had good intentions; I had failed to recognise inherent power imbalances.

According to Berrryman, Lawrence and Lamont (2018) to break down power imbalances and build culturally responsive relationships, educators must create spaces in which to first listen to our students and their whānau. Building respectful relationships takes time and commitment. I realised that I needed to create opportunities for whānau to be part of the classroom. I also needed to create opportunities and space for whānau to engage with me. I wanted my research project to build this space and I assumed it already existed. My initial forays into the project showed me that I could not move forward with relationships without first having established them. This realisation led me to organise a cake and reading afternoon with the children and their whānau.

I invited whānau to attend a cake and reading afternoon in the classroom during class time. In preparation the children baked a cake and we practiced two songs – Kina Kina and Si Manu Laititi to sing to the parents. The whānau of six children arrived and the children showed their parents their favourite parts of the classroom and what they had been learning. It was insightful and meaningful for me to watch the children interacting with their whānau. One chose to show how he used Mobilo© to make Beyblades©. Another wanted to show all the artwork they had completed in the classroom and proceeded to walk their family around to see it. I witnessed children choosing their favourite picture book and having their family read it to them. Interestingly the children whose whānau did not attend enjoyed interacting and playing games with the adults that were there. It showed me the value of a wider whānau connection, and how tamariki can connect with the whānau of other students in meaningful and productive ways.

Kirsty Macfarlane blog image

What was different?

The cake and reading day was a success, it was a turning point in my research and my understanding of what it meant to build relationships. But what was different?

  • The event was led by whānau and ākonga. Whānau came and went as they pleased, and ākonga led the interactions in the classroom. 

  • I let go of control. In essence this letting go involved me standing back and allowing the event to unfold, which was not as easy as it sounds. There were many times I wanted to step in, take over, point something out. It also made me feel very vulnerable, open to perceived judgement that I was not doing enough for my students.

Kirsty Macfarlane eFellows blog image

The cake and reading day was a pivotal moment for me. It resulted in the beginnings of an embodied understanding of what it means to be in relationship with whānau and ākonga. Relationships cannot be simply a cerebral undertaking; a checklist of steps to be taken to ensure that I ‘know’ the whānau and tamariki that make up my classroom. This research project has shown me that relationships take time and effort. Relationships are not static, they are continually changing and require each person to respond to that change. I am starting to realise that existing in relationships with tamariki and whānau means being uncertain, taking risks, listening, adapting, giving space and letting go of control. There is no handbook for relationship building, rather it requires each person to be present and open to the other—relationship building requires ongoing work.

The e-fellowship experience has enabled me to cultivate a new understanding of what it means to be relationally connected with whānau. This understanding manifested itself in the following ways:

  • Waiting in silence for as long as it took each whānau member to read a report before starting a conference: 

  • Staying on the phone and listening to a parent who was going through a difficult time:

  • Working with a parent helper’s timeframe— as opposed to a set schedule from me—so that they can pop in when they are able to: 

  • Creating opportunities for children to make more choices in the classroom: 

  • Taking the time to allow conversation to flow rather than launching straight into what I want to say: 

  • Inviting parents to be part of the class in ways determined by them.

All these examples demonstrate that time is one of the most important aspects embedded within building and maintaining relationships. Each relationship is different and requires constant attention and time. The question is how do I create this time and space, in a current education system that does not value it. 

You can read Kirsty Macfarlane's 2021 eFellow's report here. 

 

References

Berryman, M., Lawrence, D., & Lamont, R. (2018). Cultural relationships for responsive pedagogy: A bicultural mana ōrite perspective. Set: Research Information for Teachers 3-10

Meyer, M. A. (2008). Indigenous and authentic: Hawaiian epistemology and the triangulation of meaning. Handbook of critical and Indigenous methodologies, 217-232. Thousand Oaks; SAGE Publication.

 

 

 

 

 

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Children smiling in classroom

Everyone belongs….don’t they? Creating safe spaces

Posted on May 30, 2022 by Rashida Longley

Growing up in England, I often felt culturally different – not only to my peers, but also to my parents and extended family. School and home were two different worlds for me and neither overlapped and this left me feeling a sense of isolation, disconnectedness and voicelessness.  I have sensed those same feelings being re-lived in many of my students today. They don’t talk about their culture and what the student experience is like for them.  I suspect it was the same for me. 

As educators, we’re probably all be familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You cannot make progress towards the ultimate goal of self-actualisation without working your way through the lower tiers. Do our classroom spaces reflect this pathway? 

Creating spaces where students feel welcome and a sense of belonging is important. It takes continuous effort to make sure our classrooms are welcoming; that we are welcoming. Words we use are welcoming. We smile, we share kai and play games so that students can get to know each other and feel at ease in the class. We might do an activity to create a class treaty so that everyone gets a say in how the class culture will be.

However, I invite you to ask yourself the same question I asked myself: am I co-creating a space with students where they can truly be themselves? Or, am I inviting them into MY space, and wanting them to feel a sense of belonging in the space that I have created? 

This prompted me to put together a proposal for the Dr Vince Ham eFellowship, to do some research into something that was so important, something that could mean that inclusive really means inclusive of all.  My final research proposal aimed to collect student narratives and stories to identify factors that create a sense of belonging for students from diverse cultural backgrounds. 

From MY space to OUR space – don’t filter the culture

As part of my routine at the start of the year, I introduce myself to each of my classes by doing a mihi and sharing aspects of my life. In return, I ask students to share with me, individually, their mihi, and just one slide about their life, using images. This is done in conjunction with a student profile sheet. This allows students to tell me, in confidence, about themselves and how they feel about taking this class, and answer some questions about their learning experiences. Of course, I do this to build connections between us – it’s about creating a space where they feel comfortable and are able to share themselves.

Rashida Longley eFellows blog image 1

 

As I gathered student voice for my research, I realised that I was not creating a space where students could ‘be themselves’. What I was doing was creating a sense of safety in MY space. I was still very much controlling the space.  My own culture was the dominating culture and, alongside a colonial education system and curriculum, did this inhibit a true sense of belonging? I think so, and I still have a lot of work to do to allow students to be themselves. 

From my research, it was clear how important identity and belonging on your own terms are to students.

‘In class, there is usually one one point of reference and that is the Pākeha perspective and that can lead to feelings of exclusion for students who have not been brought up in a Pākeha world’

‘When people are talking, I can just say “this is my experience”. Yeah. And I don't have to filter out the culture’

There are two things we need to think about, the firstly how do we turn teacher practices around to be more inclusive. 

The second is about how we can then create a space where students can be themselves? 

My thinking has now turned from inviting students into my safe space towards answering the question ‘how can I create a space where students (and teachers) can be themselves?’ What does this look like in the classroom? In my practice? What does this language sound like?

Recognising the power of the dominant culture

The first thing we need to stop doing is making assumptions that just because we live in a country where European culture is dominant, that all students are familiar with it. In one interview, the following comment from one of the students really resonated with me.

‘Teachers will often make reference to pākeha popular culture “you will all have heard this song, your grandparents will have played it……” this immediately disconnects you from the class if you have not grown up in this culture or country’

I have experienced this feeling. I still experience it. It does not just happen in the classroom; it happens in many, many aspects of my  life, including in my social life when talking to people about music, TV and films and food. 

Yet, I was still guilty of this within my teaching – teaching through the dominant culture. 

Something that I will now do is to use the REAL influences in my life. My childhood landmarks are connected to my own British Ugandan Indian cultural references (yes, mostly Bollywood) music, films, actors and singers but also ood and festivals. In this way I can find connection not through common experience but through modelling respect for authentic and unique experience.

One way in which we can easily change is to re-think our language, this would make a big difference.

Depending on the purpose, this can be rephrased:

‘This is a song from MY childhood, MY grandparents played it”

‘Think of a song you have heard throughout your childhood’

(get students to play it, share it)

There are no assumptions being made about knowledge or culture here – but what it will do is allow students to share openly. 

There are many examples that will come to mind about how we can make small, simple changes in order to co-construct safe places for our culturally diverse learners. Another example that comes to mind in my teaching is when I teach Organic Chemistry. I will consciously draw attention to more indigenous medicine from a variety of cultures to look at the chemical composition of the active ingredients.  

My challenge to you is to reflect on your current practice and think about how you can make small changes so that all your students feel that they truly can be themselves in your classroom. I believe that these small changes will make all the difference to your students and their sense of belonging. 

You can read Rashida Longley's 2021 eFellow's report here. 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
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