Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural responsiveness in my practice
This is a topic that has become very important to me. I strongly believe the students I teach have a wealth of indigenous knowledge. In the reading, Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom (2011), Gutierrezz and Rogoff explain that by validating the students' cultural identity and valuing the knowledge that the students bring with them, we have the potential to make the difference to our students learning. This means really knowing and understanding our students, not just academically but what their beliefs are and what is important to them. Professor Russell Bishop emphasises the importance of building the teacher-student relationship. This shifts the idea of the teacher in front of the class delivering a lesson to their students, to a more friendly, more inclusive, interactive teaching and learning situation. I am a strong believer in making learning topics more representative of our students worlds. I also believe in using "Ako", where we have teachers as learners and learners as teachers.
Our school strategic plan states that we are committed to the celebration of cultural diversity.
For our students, it means
* the incorporation of cultural perspectives as an integral part of the classroom programme, * the celebration of the individuality of each student
* a focus on tolerance and respect of all cultures
For our staff it means
* awareness and embracing of different cultural perspectives
* fostering opportunities to develop the respect and tolerance for all cultures
* high expectations of all our students
The reading, Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom (2011), goes on to say "culturally responsive teachers contextualise instructions in cultural forms, behaviours and processes of learning familiar to students". Our school has embarked on the communities of mathematical inquiry PD, where we understand how important families are to Maori and Pacifica, how everyone helps out and how everyone has a job to do and that no-one is left behind. So we base our mixed ability groups on this concept- we are a mathematics family, no one is left behind.Each member in the group has to understand the strategy the group has used. Another very important aspect of a family is respect, which we also include in our lessons. This allows for students to generate friendly arguments in order to understand the concept/strategy fully. Other core values we expect to see children using are reciprocity, inclusion and belonging. We further include the student's culture and life by making up story sums that are based around their lives and culture, gaining this information from what our students tell us and from their recounts. We also make up problems about celebrations in their cultures. Our children also have the ability to celebrate their culture during the language weeks that are celebrated in New Zealand. The first week back at school, next term is Fijian language week and we have a Fijian family coming in to assist the classes to learn about the Fijian culture. We have already celebrated Samoan, Tongan, Maori and Arabic Language weeks as well as Matariki.
While we do a great job in celebrating our students' cultural identity I think we could probably do more about understanding indigenous knowledge. There are only a few teachers who have opted for the TESSOL diploma. I found the paper about bilingualism very informative. What people don't fully understand is what Cummins calls the 'common underlying proficiency' idea, where the first language has a rich base and ideas learnt in one language can be transferred to the second language- it does not have to be re-learnt. So in the classroom we should encourage students to develop their skills in their first language and give them incentives to use their first language in the classroom in order to learn concepts in their second language. Our children come into our class with great knowledge, we as teachers need to plan for this transference of knowledge.
It is very important that we know our students prior knowledge and build on that.
References
Cummings, J. (1992). Teaching for transfer: Challenging the two solitudes assumption in
bilingual education. In J.C. a N.H. Hornberger (Ed). Encyclopedia of language and
education (2nd ed). Boston. MA: Springer Science
Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education,
53(2), 106-116
Edtalks. (2012, September 23) A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].
Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994
Our school strategic plan states that we are committed to the celebration of cultural diversity.
For our students, it means
* the incorporation of cultural perspectives as an integral part of the classroom programme, * the celebration of the individuality of each student
* a focus on tolerance and respect of all cultures
For our staff it means
* awareness and embracing of different cultural perspectives
* fostering opportunities to develop the respect and tolerance for all cultures
* high expectations of all our students
The reading, Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom (2011), goes on to say "culturally responsive teachers contextualise instructions in cultural forms, behaviours and processes of learning familiar to students". Our school has embarked on the communities of mathematical inquiry PD, where we understand how important families are to Maori and Pacifica, how everyone helps out and how everyone has a job to do and that no-one is left behind. So we base our mixed ability groups on this concept- we are a mathematics family, no one is left behind.Each member in the group has to understand the strategy the group has used. Another very important aspect of a family is respect, which we also include in our lessons. This allows for students to generate friendly arguments in order to understand the concept/strategy fully. Other core values we expect to see children using are reciprocity, inclusion and belonging. We further include the student's culture and life by making up story sums that are based around their lives and culture, gaining this information from what our students tell us and from their recounts. We also make up problems about celebrations in their cultures. Our children also have the ability to celebrate their culture during the language weeks that are celebrated in New Zealand. The first week back at school, next term is Fijian language week and we have a Fijian family coming in to assist the classes to learn about the Fijian culture. We have already celebrated Samoan, Tongan, Maori and Arabic Language weeks as well as Matariki.
While we do a great job in celebrating our students' cultural identity I think we could probably do more about understanding indigenous knowledge. There are only a few teachers who have opted for the TESSOL diploma. I found the paper about bilingualism very informative. What people don't fully understand is what Cummins calls the 'common underlying proficiency' idea, where the first language has a rich base and ideas learnt in one language can be transferred to the second language- it does not have to be re-learnt. So in the classroom we should encourage students to develop their skills in their first language and give them incentives to use their first language in the classroom in order to learn concepts in their second language. Our children come into our class with great knowledge, we as teachers need to plan for this transference of knowledge.
It is very important that we know our students prior knowledge and build on that.
References
Cummings, J. (1992). Teaching for transfer: Challenging the two solitudes assumption in
bilingual education. In J.C. a N.H. Hornberger (Ed). Encyclopedia of language and
education (2nd ed). Boston. MA: Springer Science
Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education,
53(2), 106-116
Edtalks. (2012, September 23) A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].
Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994
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