eye test

Bright Eyes: What does it mean to have a Pasifika lens?

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eye test

Bright eyes burning like fire
Bright eyes, how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes

(Art Garfunkel, 1978)

I’ve been working for CORE Education for about four years. Along the way, I have had the privilege and pleasure of facilitating professional learning solutions to support principals, senior leadership teams, and educators in all the different sectors that have Pasifika learners — early childhood centres, home-based child care services, primary schools, intermediate schools, secondary schools, tertiary providers, universities, and adult community education services.

But, this isn’t a blog post about how much I love working for CORE. Instead, I want to shed some light about the common thread that weaves through these different sectors. I have been working to hone my Pasifika lens — with a longitudinal view; by being cognisant of the transitions that exist in the education sectors, by building bridges to move freely and fluidly between them. This is the view that I would like to think that I impart to everyone I meet, who asks what a Pasifika lens looks like.

As a specialist in Pasifika education, it can be challenging to attempt to tackle the issues that individual educational contexts face. I may not be familiar with historical extenuating circumstances of particular Pasifika communities and how they have engaged with the formalised learning of schools. I might not be aware of what these schools have attempted to do in the past to not only increase community engagement, but also to foster connections with Pasifika parent communities that empower and embolden them to champion their children’s learning.

When I think about my work in schools, and how I can best use my skills as a specialist in Pasifika education, I see that I help schools to understand how best to use their data effectively to drive outcomes for their Pasifika students. This is a real passion of mine. You could say that I have been through lots of lenses in education — having been a product of the system myself as a student, a teacher, and now a human resource for teachers to improve their pedagogy for Pasifika learners. Having a Pasifika lens with multiple views has allowed me to experience the myriad of perspectives that I have come to know as being critically important.

I often get asked to provide a ‘Pasifika lens’ about schools’ strategic plans to increase Pasifika achievement. I do not subscribe to comparing Pasifika students by noting if their achievement results are on par, if not better than their non-Pasifika counterparts. Shouldn’t we be looking at how Pasifika learners achieve based on their own achievement, rather than in comparison to other ethnicities? It often feels, through the Pasifika lens that I was born with, that such comparison is designed to continually perpetuate this tail of underachievement rather than focus on their own achievement, their own success on their own merit.

How can I share my Pasifika lens?

How can I share my Pasifika lens with others? I have thought about this and the best analogy I can come up with is to look at the difference between an ophthalmologist and an optometrist.

An ophthalmologist is a specialist in the branch of medicine concerned with the study of disorders and diseases of the eye. They also differ from optometrists because of their different levels of training, and they’re able to practice medicine and perform surgery.

I feel that in schools I may be viewed as a Pasifika ophthalmologist, brought in because of my different levels of training in disciplines such as Music, Ethnomusicology, Anthropology, TESSOL, and Education. I might be expected to be able to provide expert advice to schools who have readily identified Pasifika achievement issues that have surfaced through their data. Schools recognise that when challenges or roadblocks start to appear in relation to Pasifika achievement, it is because they are acknowledging that low Pasifika academic results exist. Schools’ ERO reports should help to provide some key focus areas to significantly address discrepancies in their vision for Pasifika learners. Contributing factors that may have a negative impact on outcomes may lead to schools and clusters seeking to inform their pedagogies that are conducive to Pasifika excellence.

As a Pasifika ophthalmologist, I can test their vision, to test their Pasifika lens by customising and tailoring professional learning solutions that help them to understand that their actions impact on Pasifika student achievement. By catching the challenges early, schools can seek ways to foster language that can help to grow collaboration between Pasifika learners and their parents, families, and communities. By growing collaboration in this way enables the school or cluster to co-construct achievement strategies that are a main feature of the community focus of the ERO Pacific Strategy.

Do you see what I see?

A few questions come to mind when I consider how I can best assess what kind of vision schools and Communities of Learning have for their Pasifika learners:

  • How do you know that what you are doing is making learning and achievement better or worse for Pasifika learners?
  • How do you know that what you have written into your school charters, strategic plans, or Community of Learning achievement challenges that focus on Pasifika learners, have been formulated with sufficient consultation with Pasifika parents and communities?
  • How do we bring the Pasifika focus in your school charters, strategic plans, or Community of Learning achievement challenges to life in all classrooms? 

Where can I seek further assistance for my focus on Pasifika learners?

pasifika learner

CORE Education offers professional learning solutions that can address teaching as inquiry as an approach to investigate the impact of your pedagogy on your learners and community.

The courses are constructed for deep learning that will challenge your thinking while building on your prior knowledge of what already works for your Pasifika learners.

You will implement targeted actions either in your classroom or with your school community that make a meaningful difference. These actions will be decided by you, supported by evidence-based practices that you will learn within these courses. There are a range of learning tasks from face-to-face sessions, interactive webinars and online discussions.

 

Image Credit: Eye Test from Pexels CC0

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making connections

Building horizontal connections

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making connections

The opposite of horizontal is vertical. It is singular in its focus and one dimensional. It is an isolated line that does not encompass or broaden to anything deep or meaningful. It is thin and narrow. When learning is separated from context or compartmentalised, it has the danger of being stored in a box in the recesses of our mind — or not even stored at all.

Research demonstrates that skills taught, practiced, and tested in isolation are not used as consistently or effectively as skills taught when children are actually reading and writing (Basic skills belong in context.
—Lucy McCormick Calkins, 1980).

When a brain learns something new, it forms new neural pathways. These new pathways become stronger the more they are used, causing the likelihood of new long-term connections and memories.

Research shows the importance of connecting to existing knowledge

What comes with teaching in 2016 is the luxury of up-to-date research into how learning happens. We no longer need to guess about how to teach our learners. Teaching has changed. There is a plethora of research that has been growing exponentially since the late 1980s into what works for teaching and learning — and this research keeps being updated daily.

We now know the importance of integration and connecting to prior knowledge when we teach some new skill or content. It is much easier for the brain to learn something new when it can hook onto something: a schema (a system or framework for organising new information). Constructivism proposes that new knowledge is constructed from old.

The 2013 Research report: Educational Practices that benefit Pacific learners in tertiary education states that:

Learning in traditional Pacific Island culture took place everywhere: at home, during gatherings, in the fields and at sea. “Family and community were inextricably interwoven, like strands of pandanus, into a coherent ‘school’ of learning” (Onikama, Hammond, Ormond & Koki, 1998, p. 1).

…success in education is still largely attributed to the influence of family, friends and community (Meyer, Weir, McClure, Walkey & McKenzie, 2009).

Building horizontal connections in our classrooms is when we deliberately activate the prior knowledge and worlds of our learners with the new learning we are introducing. It is also about validating learning contexts that are familiar and valued in the worlds of our Pacific learners. This builds on the strengths that our learners have and acknowledges their contexts as legitimate contexts to learn.

How can we build horizontal connections between informal and formal learning?

How can we build horizontal connections between the worlds our Pacific learners walk in (informal learning), to the worlds of school (formal learning)?

If we deliberately strategise to make these worlds intersect, then we can amplify these learning opportunities.

opportunities to amplify learning

For instance, Pacific sports such as volleyball or Kilikiti could be used to as assessment opportunities for Physical Education and Health. Students could evaluate the similarities and differences between Cricket and Kilikiti in a piece of persuasive writing.

Polyfest is not only a rich cultural experience for dance, it could also be a context for mathematics and physical education. Could this be a data gathering opportunity? Students could measure their heart rate prior to practice, then straight after to notice increased elevation. It might be more engaging than drawing a bar graph of the heights of boys versus girls in your classroom! Could students capture a sample of student voice as a qualitative and quantitative measure. They could come up with their own survey questions in regards to Culture, Language, and Identity, then survey participants from different schools. Or, for Technology, look at the different stakeholders that are invested in this event. There are so many opportunities, it just takes a culturally responsive mind to validate these as legitimate contexts for learning.

Cultural responsiveness will find legitimate contexts for learning opportunities

White Sunday is a highlight of the calendar year for Samoan and Tongan families. It is a day for parents and communities to acknowledge and celebrate childhood by hosting special programs during church services that include scriptural recitations, biblical story re-enactments, and creative dance performances. Many Pacific students spend hours preparing for these church performances; these could be assessment opportunities for English, Drama, and Dance. How can we make it work?

Learning happens outside of school in many naturally occurring situations; like strands of pandanas, let us weave these learning opportunities together.

As we broaden our horizons to maximise wider community connections, let us think about how we can build relational trust to be in true partnership with our Pacific community.

In talking to your learners and families, have you thought of building a more holistic picture of your learners:

  • Which churches do your Pacific learners attend?
  • Does anyone in their family have a leadership position within the church?

Could you connect with this wider community to hold a partnership meeting where church members alongside schools, solution-build how to amplify natural learning opportunities?

Learning opportunities to promote and foster deeper understanding

Below are some questions Delta Learns has created to help teachers plan teaching and learning opportunities with authentic learning contexts that promote and foster deeper understanding. The checklist questions provide prompts to scaffold and maximise the learning opportunities.

Do:

1. Have real-world relevance

Provide authentic contexts that reflect the way the knowledge will be used in real life.
Checklist:

  • Does the context of the course represent the kind of setting where the skill or knowledge is applied?
  • Is the pathway students take through the learning environment flexible, where students are able to move around at will?

2. Provide authentic activities and tasks

Activities and tasks are loosely defined, requiring students to define the tasks and sub-tasks needed to complete the activity.

Comprise complex tasks to be investigated by students over a sustained period of time.
Checklist:

  • Do the activity and tasks mirror the kind of tasks performed in real-world applications?
  • Is the activity presented as an overarching complex problem (or series of small sub-steps) that is worked on over a longer period of time?
  • Do students work on the activities and tasks for weeks rather than minutes or hours?
  • Are students able to choose information from a variety of inputs, including relevant and irrelevant sources?

3. Provide access to expert performances and the modelling of processes

Checklist:

  • Does the learning environment provide access to expert skill and opinion from a variety of sources?
  • Does the learning environment allow access to other learners at various stages of expertise? (E.g., Putting students in groups or letting them work with a mentor.)
  • Are the students able to hear and share stories about professional practice [editor: i.e., examples of what is professional practice]?

4. Provide multiple roles and perspectives

Provide the opportunity for students to examine the tasks from different perspectives, using a variety of resources.
Checklist:

  • Are students able to explore issues from different points of view?
  • Are students able to use a wide variety of learning resources and materials (not just a single textbook)?

5. Provide the opportunity to collaborate

Support collaborative construction of knowledge
Checklist:

  • Are students able to collaborate (rather than simply co-operate on tasks)?
  • Are grades given for group effort of a whole product, rather than individual effort?

6. Provide the opportunity to reflect

Promote reflection to enable abstractions to be formed
Checklist:

  • Are students required to make decisions about how to complete the task? (reflection-in-action)
  • Are students able to move freely in the environment and return to any element to act upon reflection? (Non-linear)
  • Can students compare their thoughts and ideas to those of experts, teachers, guides and other students?
  • Do students work in collaborative groups that enable discussion and social reflection?

7. Promote articulation to encourage students to verbalize their knowledge and thinking

Articulation enables tacit knowledge to be made explicit. Provide opportunities for students to articulate the knowledge they gained.
Checklist:

  • Does the task require students to discuss and articulate beliefs and growing understanding?
  • Does the environment provide collaborative groups and forums to enable articulation of ideas?
  • Does the task require the creation of a polished product that requires presentation of thought and argument?
  • Does the task enable presentation and defence of arguments?

8. Tasks are seamlessly integrated with assessment

Provide for authentic assessment of learning within the tasks.
Checklist:

  • Are students assessed on the product of the investigation rather than by separate testing?
  • Are there multiple assessment measures rather than a single measure?

9. Create polished products

Create polished products valuable in their own right rather than as preparation for something else. Allow competing solutions and diverse outcomes.
Checklist:

  • Are products of performances polished and refined rather than incomplete or rushed drafts?
  • Do students participate in the activity for extended periods of time?

10. Provide coaching and scaffolding at critical times

Instructor does not attempt to ‘transmit’ knowledge. Instructor’s role is supporting rather than didactic.
Checklist:

  • Is the teacher’s role more supportive than didactic?

Keep weaving the pandanus strands to explicitly link the naturally occurring worlds that our Pacific learners walk in. By valuing horizontal connections, Pacific worlds will be validated as authentic and meaningful learning opportunities.

 

References:
Delta Learns website: Toolkit for Innovative Teaching and Learner Success: Building Horizontal Connections

Image credit:
Connections image used under CC0 Public Domain

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window on the world

Mirror and window contexts for learning

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Window on the world

I look out the window and what do I see? A world of wonder that stimulates my curiosity, and opens my eyes to a world that is different from mine. I do this so I can gain insight into how others work, live, and feel; their history, myths, and innovations. I see things I wouldn’t otherwise see. This window is bright and colourful; my teacher helps me open the latch.

Our New Zealand Curriculum allows freedom of choice and exploration for teachers and students to value window texts (texts and contexts that are foreign to the worlds of the learner). These window texts help students see the world through different eyes and perspectives. This is a key part of our curriculum. It helps our young people get prepared for a future society.
looking in the mirror
The opposite of window texts are mirror texts. I look in the mirror and I recognise experiences, contexts, worlds that are similar to mine. These texts and contexts reflect my culture, values and beliefs. I look in and see myself. The mirror is metallic and shiny; my teacher holds it for me.

When we have our learners at the centre of our curriculum choices, we ensure our texts and contexts are evenly balanced with both mirror and window texts.  All of these choices are critical, because they send out subtle and not-so subtle messages about whose knowledge is important, what success looks like, what achievement matters and whose worldviews dominate. On the positive side, J. Cummins writes:

“Students who are empowered by their school experiences develop the ability, confidence, and motivation to succeed academically.  They participate competently in instruction as a result of having developed a confident cultural identity…”
(Cummins, 2001).

A turning point for me; that exemplifies the importance of this balance and the impact it has on our Pasifika learners, was listening to a student reflect on his educational experiences. As part of a professional learning and development workshop, University of Auckland Pacific students were invited to share their reflections on their educational experiences as Pacific young people in the compulsory sector. A young Tongan male exposed the fact that his Tongan world, contexts, heros, values or history were never acknowledged in any way or form through his journey as a learner. This imbalance of mirror texts left him feeling marginalised; like his fāmili (Tongan word for family) worldview did not warrant a mention about what was and is important to him

balancing the scalesThis experience led him to studying Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland to try and tip the scales into balance.

How can we ensure our learners get a balance of window and mirror texts, so that they grow with confidence and build a strong sense of cultural identity that is rich and valued in your curriculum choices?

Quite often in an honest effort to be culturally responsive teachers and schools tokenise culture rather than building on cultural contexts for authentic learning. It goes beyond using Pacific names in mathematical problems, or tapa cloths on walls.

Misatauveve Dr Melani Anae (Senior Lecturer, Director of Research, Pacific Studies, Te Wananga o Waipapa, University of Auckland) states what is urgently needed is ethnic enhancement programmes i.e. teaching students the socio-political and historical contexts of Pacific cultures and peoples in the context of their learnings. For example, teaching them (within the primary/secondary/tertiary sectors) the socio-political and historical contexts of the myth/song/performance they are learning about, when cultural dances are being performed.

Do you have a balance of window texts and mirror texts in your curriculum?

A starting point would be teachers allowing choice, valuing Pacific texts and heroes, critical analysing of the negative stereotypes that overflow in media, and ensuring Pacific ākonga can be proud of what they see in the mirror that the teacher holds for them.

Image sources:

Window image: CC Public Domain: https://pixabay.com/en/window-open-ocean-sea-beach-1163609/
Man looking in mirror: our own creation of an image by an unknown artist.
Scales image: by Eva Brosnan: http://unisci24.com/322481.html

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pasifika in waitangi

Pasifika in Waitangi

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Pasifika in Waitangi
Māori Navigators
L-R: Jason Ruakere, Teanau Tuiono, Anaru White, Shannon Vulu

The one and only time I had previously seen Waitangi was in a passing drive-by. Moana Timoko, a fellow CORE facilitator, showed me what Waitangi looked like under the cover of darkness. We drove past the night before a professional learning event at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Kaikohe. I would later find out that we had driven past Te Ti Marae and Tau Rangatira, before approaching the bridge on the other side.

When I actually set foot on Waitangi Treaty Grounds, it was for the last whānau hui with Wharehoka Wano before assuming his new role as iwi manager in Taranaki for Te Atiawa. I guess, in some small part, this blog post serves as a tribute to him for his inspiration to me as a contemporary Māori leader who now returns to his community to serve the needs of his people. He will be missed at Tātai Aho Rau — CORE Education.

I have written about Pasifika connections with Māori in two previous blog posts — Pasifika in Parihaka and Pasifika’s position in honouring the bi-cultural Te Tiriti partnership. I see this blog post as a culmination of the learning from these previous posts, reflecting on my understandings of Pasifika connections in the context of actually visiting Waitangi in the flesh. As a Pasifika person in Aotearoa, because I am conscious of being staunch in my own Samoan culture, it helps me to understand and value what it means to be Māori in Aotearoa. The events that have unfolded since the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi have leaned itself more to Pākeha benefitting from the agreement, whereas Māori have continually tried to regain tino rangatiratanga.

russell - hell-hole of the pasificBefore we went to Waitangi, a group of us visited Russell Kororareka, ‘the hell hole of the Pacific’ (the catch phrase plastered all over the island) to take note of the settlement. The Māori settlement quickly gained notoriety when prostitution arrived in the area, together with the whaling trade and new settlers. Busby had originally planned to have the town of Victoria built, but these plans were later scrapped when the capital city was moved.

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talona

Talanoa tips with Pasifika learners

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Talanoa = conversation/s. These are conversations that build and strengthen relationships between Pasifika learners and teachers, teachers and parents, and schools and Pasifika communities.

Everyday talanoa (conversation) is part of life; it is a way of communicating to our peers, colleagues, and workmates. The talanoa is one form of communication that can easily be used when communicating with our Pasifika learners, their parents, families, and communities?

In this blog post I have shared with you ways of engaging with your schools, and questions you may ask as you work through using the talanoa process. What do Pasifika success, Pasifika aspirations, Pasifika presence, Pasifika engagement, and Pasifika achievement look like in your school or field of work? These ideas are outlined below to support you in your work.

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