‘Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Responsiveness’

I started out looking into this topic by examining my cultural intelligence using the self-assessment tool on Te Toi Tupu’s website.  The assessment is based on the work of Van Dyne, Ang, Ng, Rockstuhl, Tan and Koh (2012) who define cultural intelligence as “an individual’s capability to detect, assimilate, reason, and act on cultural cues appropriately in situations characterised by cultural diversity” (p.295).  I found that I placed myself approximately half of the time as ‘confident in my understanding’ and half the time ‘aware but still developing my understanding’.  What this said to me was that I still need to work on my understanding of differing cultures and be able to respond to them appropriately.  A high level of cultural intelligence is essential in our schools as we become more diverse as a nation.

My school has started to look at its own cultural responsiveness.  We have started with things like our mission statement and values incorporating Maori and Pasifika input and they are written in English and Maori.  The values were written after staff and community input – being a whanau hui where it was discussed.  As well as incorporating the unique nature of our special needs school we wanted to have Maori community input as we have 67% Maori enrolment.

Our Vision is:

Collaboratively with our families, whanau, arga, community, in developing our akonga to their full potential in a caring, safe and supportive environment.

Our Mission Statement:

“Together we learn, care and achieve”

“Kia taatou ka ako, ka awhi, ka piki ake”

The vision and mission statement really do incorporate what the school is about, its culture, our tikanga.  In this way we really are trying to put relationships first to develop a better environment for students to thrive.  Bishop et. al. (2009) state “positive, inclusive relationships and interactions will lead to improved student engagement in learning” (p.734).  They also described interviews with students saying “Maori students in effective teacher’s classrooms… spoke at length about the importance of whakawhanaungatanga and whanaungatanga; that is, the process of establishing relationships and the quality of the relationships that are established” (p.739). I feel that the relationships we build are integral to student’s ability to fulfil their needs and achieve their full potential.

One thing we could do with working more on in my school, is planning and assessment.  We have begun to use Narrative Assessment and other forms of formative assessment which help to look at the development of the student and their abilities.  What we could do better is look at including a full section of background for the student and places for family to put comments.  I have often found that with my special needs students there will be skills they will display at home but not at school.  A good partnership with home allows us to know of these skills and help the student generalise them and build on them.  This opening up of communication between home and school is also encouraged by an open door policy where parents are welcomed to events and everyday school sessions alike.  This open door policy has been noted as successful by other schools on the home-school partnerships page on the Ministry of Educations website.

We still use printed paper and scrapbooks to present our student portfolios and they will often get lost at home.  Moving toward digital portfolios would help alleviate this issue and allow parents regular access to student information and the ability to contribute.  A possible down side to digital portfolios in our schools context is a potential lack of access to devices as we are decile 2 and therefore have a low socioeconomic catchment community.  Once again this would be something that would have to be discussed with our school community before it was implemented.

Because:

He aha te mea nui o te ao

He tangata, he tangata, he tangata

References

Bishop. R., Berryman, M., Cavanagh, T. & Teddy, L. (2009).Te Kotahitanga: Addressing educational disparities facing Māori students in New Zealand. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(5),734–742.

Ministry of Education, (n.d.) Home-school partnerships. Retrieved from: http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Beyond-the-classroom/Engaging-with-the-community/Home-school-partnerships/?tab=js-tabcontainer-1-tab-2

Te Toi Tupu (n.d). Cultural intelligence self review tool. Retrieved from: http://www.tetoitupu.org/cultural-intelligence-self-review-tool

Van Dyne, L., Ang, S., Ng, K. Y., Rockstuhl, T., Tan, M. L. & Koh, C. (2012). Sub-dimensions of the four factor model of cultural intelligence: expanding the conceptualisation and measurement of cultural intelligence. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(4), 295-313.