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.

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.

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. 

I am Māori. I whakapapa Māori, therefore, I am Māori. Although I am visibly white, my own upbringing follows the same as many Māori. My Nana was Māori but she hated it. She distanced herself as far as she could from te ao Māori, her iwi, her hapū, her whānau. She faced battles that she would never talk about and became disconnected. I was, therefore, disconnected from birth. 

When I began my own journey at high school to attempt to reconnect, I was judged harshly for it. I faced a barrage of comments like, “You’re too intelligent to take te reo.” and “You don’t look Māori, why would you choose it as a subject?” These negative comments displayed the racism that was evident in both my community as well as in the education system but I only truly see this in hindsight; the hindsight I have as I try to walk with a foot in both worlds. I accept and acknowledge my white privilege while I fight to bring about equity in education. The deficit thinking that te reo Māori is a lesser subject and that Māori learners are lesser than Pākehā learners was evident then and still is today.

For the eFellowship I completed with CORE Education in 2021, I worked on the proposition of a Year 10 Māori whānau class. This was something quite different for the traditional co-ed school I worked in, especially when only 14% of the 1200 ākonga at the school and five of the 85 teaching staff were Māori. I developed a plan with three main aspects that I hoped would produce significant change in equitable teaching and learning. These were: 

• cross-curricular learning through authentic learning experiences, 
• embedding Te Ao Māori in the learning, and 
• Creating a whānau environment. 

By creating a class of ākonga Māori, I believed a barrier to Māori success would be automatically removed as there was no opportunity for “unconscious bias” within the class. Whānau and ākonga would be invited to decide on the learning they wanted from the kaiako at the start of the year. Those decisions would be integrated across the four subject areas of English, Social Studies, Science and Mathematics and would be the basis of project-based learning. As kaiako, we would facilitate and identify the learning that was occurring naturally based on a belief that this approach should lead to a greater understanding of the learning by the students as well as its application. 

The quantitative and qualitative results spoke for themselves. Ākonga improved across the board in test results with the majority making a larger leap than their Pākehā counterparts. They also grew in confidence as learners and articulated this clearly. However, that “unconscious bias” that I believed would be removed was not. It was gone between the kaiako of the class and the ākonga but the wider school was a different story. 

The kaiako and ākonga of this class dealt with racism from a variety of sources and in a multitude of ways throughout the year. Relievers of the class would say inappropriate and racist things. One example of this was when a particular relief teacher asked the two “whitest” students in the class, “Why are you with this lot?” Another example was when a different reliever said to the class, “Is this why you wee Māoris can’t get along with anyone else? They keep you all together.” 

This blatant racism was, as you can imagine, not taken lightly by ākonga and they fought back as they knew how. They yelled, they left the room and they hid the relief teacher’s keys. Although their responses to these acts were not behaviourally acceptable, the pastoral team did not care about the why. The assumption that, due to previous pastoral records, our ākonga Māori just behave badly meant that discipline instead of understanding was the go to. Kaiako of the class were expected to manage every aspect of their students’ school lives by the pastoral team unlike what would ever be expected of any other classroom class teacher. 

Other staff members would make racist comments about the class to these kaiako and challenge why we would want to teach them as a whole. One of the kaiako even said that she felt, “like my skin colour has changed.” SLT approved the class going ahead but would not hear about the racism being faced and showed no support of the class. In fact, one student from the class had a verbal altercation with a staff member and was removed to alternative education without the normal processes being followed, those that any Pākehā student would have gone through. We, as kaiako of this class, all were able to acknowledge our white privilege from this experience with one teacher stating that she, “could not believe how blind she had been to what our ākonga Māori go through.”

What I have learnt from this experience is the importance of being actively anti racist. Our actions can not only give our ākonga confidence in us but they can bring about change. Change that is desperately needed in this country, in our education system. Below I have compiled a list of some of the things I learnt to do throughout the eFellowship and my action research project.

1. Teach our history accurately – we must acknowledge the voices and experiences of Māori in our history and teach these. This may mean unlearning what we, ourselves, know and have learnt but it is vital in order to make change. Have students think critically about the voices that are heard and how we can include those that are often missed out. Ka mua, ka muri.
2. Understand and explain that everyone is capable of racism, not just ‘bad’ people – if we continue to buy into the idea that only ‘bad’ people are racist, we are denying the ‘good’ people the chance to examine their own actions and thoughts and how these support and sustain the racial hierarchy in society.
3. Acknowledge the harm that is caused by racism in all its forms – ākonga need to feel heard when it comes to the pain they experience due to both overt and covert racism. The impact of racism on a person is not lessened because someone did not intend to be racist.
4. Do not be silent and encourage others to speak out – being silent when you observe racist behaviour is being complicit.
5. Understand and acknowledge that every person’s experience with racism can be different.
6. Be aware of the racial trauma of ākonga – we must support those who have been traumatised by racism, not just challenge those who instigate it. The system and the people within it largely benefit from white privilege which does not allow for the recognition of the generational trauma that has been felt by Māori in education. Be sensitive.
7. Model the behaviour you expect in your classroom – be inclusive and demonstrate what this looks like. All ākonga should feel valued and safe in the spaces we create.
8. Change should be the aim – blame and shame is not helpful so we must focus on how we can make and be the change we want to see.

We must be prepared to have difficult conversations. We must be prepared to learn, unlearn and relearn. We must be prepared to be uncomfortable. For our ākonga, we must be better.

You can read Sarah Lassen's 2021 eFellow's report here.