te reo Māori safe place

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world

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(Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 5.6)

te reo safe place

Recently I listened to the Radio New Zealand interview with Te Taka Keegan and something he mentioned opened an avenue of new thinking for me.

“When you become fluent, you can see things through a different lens.”

In 2007, I was privileged to be a CORE eFellow. The quote by Wittgenstein in the title of this post informed my eFellow research, which looked at podcasting as a tool to help students develop their oral language capability. My findings revealed that some students needed time to develop and become confident in their use of oral language within a safe space. In this way, they can develop the necessary skills before being expected to use those skills combined with standing in front of an audience. With podcasting, students could record and listen to themselves, and practise, and improve. They could then tentatively put this recording out to the world for others to engage with through a podcast, but still be one step removed from the oral presentation. Emboldened by the positive feedback of their peers, they could take the next step of using those oral-language skills within a real-time presentation to the class or school.

The key learning was that we needed to enable those who couldn’t speak in front of people to continue to develop the necessary skills in a different environment. And, in this way, I felt that I had supported these students to extend the limits of their world.

Now, the same quote has come to mean something more to me as the limits of my world expand.

There is a debate in New Zealand at the moment about the inclusion of te reo Māori as a compulsory subject in schools. Te reo Māori was given official language status in New Zealand in 1987, and te Tiriti o Waitangi is a founding document of this country. New Zealand is a bicultural society — so, let’s look at Keegan and Wittgenstein again:

“When you become fluent, you can see things through a different lens.”

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”

If we are truly to live the vision of being a bicultural society, shouldn’t we all expand our world and see this country through the lenses available to us? Shouldn’t we truly be able to ‘talk’ to each other and bridge the barrier that is in place through these limits? Don’t our children deserve to be able to see the world through as many lenses as possible? Especially if one crucial lens was taken away from some of our children through draconian policies that banned the use of their language in the first place.

jane nicholls

I am in the privileged position of having the choice to be part of a bicultural society. I can make the choice to see through another lens. Many of my friends do not have that choice — as someone once revealed to me:

“When my children and I open our door in the morning to head out to school, we don’t have a choice to be bicultural. We have to step out into the dominant culture and look for signs of our own culture within that world.”

I am taking the time to learn and practise my reo in a safe space, which is my very supportive workplace. Through its support and encouragement, I am emboldened to begin to expand my language as I step out into different parts of my world. Our schools can be that safe place for our children to learn and practise.

Have you found your safe place yet?

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Focusing stories

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Storying live

One of my favourite parts of my job is to visit schools around New Zealand and help them tell their curriculum story through video.

I have been interested in the process that schools go through when they let us into their place to help them tell their curriculum story. I find the whole process of 'storying' intriguing. By sitting down and taking the time to explore their own school story individually, and then telling the story to each other as they tell it to us, you can see new possibilities opening up.

Principals have told me that, after we leave, they can see even more possibilities for change and growth in their schools. It is as if our visit becomes a step in the process of change.

People construct identities through their talk in interaction with others

Greer Cavallaro Johnson mentions that 'people construct identities through their talk in interaction with others' (2009, p270). This is evident when you place a video camera in front of someone. They are not only telling you the story of their curriculum change, but also their place within that change. It is interesting to see them explore this narrative through a different lens. They have been active in the process, but the process of storying allows them to see what their place was in that process, and to reflect on the experience.

Telling stories is an interactional process

storying-video

Greer also discussed the 'interactional process of how people tell and respond to stories' (2009, p275), which got me thinking about the part that we actually play in the storying process. By inviting the school to tell their curriculum story, we are providing a lens through which to look at what is happening in the school. We have a specific focus — that of curriculum development. We funnel what we see and what people tell us through this lens to reveal the parts that make up the change and the perceived outcomes. Next, we pull the story together, and present it back to the school. Prior to this, the school may not have taken the time to see how all the parts of the change process connect together. There are always many different initiatives occurring in schools, and sometimes those within the school do not see the interconnections between the initiatives and how they influence each other.

Story tellers are in charge of how they want to be heard

The last point I picked up from this paper was that 'storytellers are in charge of how they want to be heard' (2009, p281). I think, a lot of the time, in the process of telling us their stories, teachers and leaders see how they want things to be rather than how they might currently be. And this is the story they tell. It is a 'looking forward' story. And, hopefully, with telling us their story, reflecting on where they have been and where they are heading, schools find the process of telling their story an actual step in the process of making their story a reality.

Storying for professional learning, reflection, change, and growth

I believe that ‘storying’ is a very important process for reflection, change, and growth. It can be used effectively to help students tell the stories of each other, of their change, and for schools to tell the stories that are happening within. What a fabulous professional learning opportunity it would be for teachers to tell the stories of other teachers, and to help them see the change, growth, and connections that may not be evident from within. Imagine then combining those separate stories into the story of the school. How much could we learn from telling each other’s and our own stories?

Here is the latest curriculum story from NZC Online

References:

Narrative inquiry and school leadership identities (2009) Greer Cavallaro Johnson

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Digital citizenship – have we considered this from a cultural point of view?

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Photo of a marae pay in an iPad

I have just had my eyes opened to something that I had not considered: What is the culture of the Internet?

One of our important roles as educators is to help our students become successful citizens of the many different worlds that they will inhabit — for example, the world of academia, the world of work, the world of their social lives, and the world of the Internet.

Up until now I thought of the world of the Internet as being one world, one place to prepare our students for, however, at the Nethui  I heard a talk by Dee O'Carroll with the title Māori and the social media — pathways forward, based on her PhD research. Dee presented many challenging points, and I was really taken with her discussion around appropriately practicing tikanga Māori in online spaces.

The Internet is made up of a network of communities. As the world gets smaller more and more families are moving away from, what I like to call, ‘the home of their hearts’, to live in other places for many different reasons. As these families disperse they can lose contact with their history, and in the case of people moving overseas, their language. Communities such as virtual maraes provide a space for those who have moved away to keep connection with the home of their hearts, and with the protocols around being a part of that community.

As teachers, we have the privilege to help students to learn how to be citizens of this complicated online world where you can be with your friends on Facebook, with your classmates in a shared blog, and with your whānau in a virtual marae. This Internet thing is more complicated than I had first thought, and more exciting in the possibilities that it presents for us as educators.

Our challenge — to help our students be confident, connected, lifelong learners in the complexity of both the physical and the virtual worlds.

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EDtalks at ICOT 2013 – prompts to thinking

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Last week I attended the 16th International Conference on Thinking in glorious Wellington. It was an action packed week where delegates could experience four ignite talks, five world class keynotes, 5 inspiring performances, and 8 breakout sessions. By the last day I could see many weary thinkers, summed up by this tweet by Susan Feron:

Susan Feron tweet: ICOT 2013

My conference experience is like this … but multiplied! During the conference I was privileged to sit down and talk one-on-one with nearly 40 presenters and capture these conversations as EDtalks. I heard all about Lane Clark's new thinking framework, Cassandra Treadwell explained the exciting "So They Can" project in Kenya, John Edwards helped me to explore his concept of "Siren Voices", and Carol Burnes wove a story with such an eloquent choice of words that it was like watching an artist sculpting.

I was privileged to engage with so many diverse ideas, and so many generous people. Now the process starts of re-engaging with these ideas as we edit the EDtalks and bring them to you. In the next few months you will be able to revisit ideas you met in workshops, introduce yourself to new ideas that you couldn't quite fit in your conference schedule, or experience the ideas afresh if you missed out on the opportunity.

To start you off we have Steve Maharey's opening address for the conference:

Think: Education for creative, innovative, flexible people from EDtalks.

And we have the first of the Ignite speakers, Brendan Spillane:

Pull up a chair from EDtalks.

If you want to be informed when each of the videos are posted online you can follow @edtalks on Twitter, or for a monthly digest, sign up for our email update.

 

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Professor Guy Claxton EDTalk | Can schools prepare you for anything?

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New from the EDtalks crew …

Professor Guy Claxton is well known for encouraging teachers to think about building their students’ learning power, and now asks the provocative question, “Can schools prepare you for anything?” Professor Claxton spoke at the 2012 Graham Nuthall Annual Lecture in Christchurch where he explored this question in full. Traditional education aims to raise standards by any means, but we are coming to see that preparing young people for tests, and preparing them for life, are different goals. How do we deepen learning so that it systematically builds the learning dispositions that the next generation will need? As work on Key Competencies and 21st century skills evolves it is becoming clearer just what it takes to raise standards in a way that helps kids be ready for anything.

After the lecture CORE Education’s Keryn Davis had the chance to ask Guy about the key messages he had for teachers wanting to deepen learning and build learning dispositions.

You can find out more about Professor Claxton’s work at:

Visit EDtalks to find more inspiring talks like this one

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