Future Clubhouses Hui29 October 2008

Ann MilneTe Whanau o Tupuranga

& Clover Park Middle School

Dr Manulani Meyer (2001)

Hawaiian epistemology―…everything I have learned in school, everything I have read in books, every seating arrangement

and response expectation – absolutely everything – has not been shaped by a Hawaiian mind‖.

―Dulled by the guessing game of another culture, still believing that literacy is the best indicator of

intelligence‖

―Always at the short end of a smaller and smaller identity stick‖

SCHOOLAFTER SCHOOL COMPUTER CLUBHOUSE

OBLIGATION CHOICE

STUDENT MEMBER

TEACHER MENTOR

RIGID OPEN-ENDED

ISOLATION COLLABORATION

... So how do we fit ?

Decile 1

Years 7 to 10

Samoan, Tongan, Cook Islands Maori

150 students

Change of status 1995

Decile 1

Years 7 to 13

Designated Character, Maori, Bilingual

180 students

New school 2006

Michael Apple (1999, p.18,19), urges us to …

―constantly hold dominant perspectives and practices — in curriculum, in teaching, in evaluation, in policy, …up to the spotlight of honest, intense, and searching social and cultural criticism.‖

He argues, however, that this spotlight has to be balanced with respect for, and insight into, the reality and daily lives of those under its beam.

Deadline looms for Maori claims

Pacific Island lending at all time high

Tinnie-house Gunfight

Another shopkeeper stabbed

In 2007 Maori students were:• 2.6 times more likely than Pakeha to be stood down • 3.6 times more likely to be suspended• 4.5 times more likely to be frequent truants• 3.2 times more likely to be granted early leaving exemptions

at age 15• 2.8 times more likely to leave school with no qualifications• 2.4 times LESS likely to attain a university entrance qualification

(18.3%) (Education Counts, MOE 2007)

33 still in school13 gained University Entrance

64 are still in school 51 gained University Entrance

100 students born in 1990, living in Manukau in 2007

There would be OUTRAGE and marching to parliament!

There would be DEMAND that this changed NOW!

If we all woke up tomorrow morning and suddenly those

statistics had flipped …

We have to challenge, question and resist the whole concept of going forward into the 21st Century, trying to cling to concepts and learning that came from the past.

So what's the problem and what should be done about it? I think it's to do with the whole idea of academic ability – particular, limited, types of verbal and mathematical reasoning (Sir Ken Robinson, 1999, 2007.

Am I suggesting that academic success is not an important goal? Of course not! Am I suggesting Maori and Pasifika learners should have some alternative, perhaps less rigorous goals? Never!

I am however, suggesting that western academic goals, and academic achievement, without cultural competence and skills fall way short of excellence.

Constructionism and the Clubhouse Constructionism is a learning theory based

on Papert's belief that "better learning will not come from finding better ways for the

teacher to instruct, but from giving the learner better opportunities to

construct"

ConstructioNism

Social Cultural

Sociocultural Constructionism

Individual and community development are reciprocally enhanced by independent and shared constructive activity that is resonant with both the social setting that encompasses a community of learners, as well as the cultural identity of the learners themselves (Pinkett, 2000,2002).

… an asset-based approach to community technology that sees community members as the active producers of community content,

rather than passive consumers or recipients

Constructionism

Social Cultural

Sociocultural Constructionism

Pedagogy• Critical • Social Justice• Culturally located• Bilingual• Integrated• Whanau – connected - relationships

Embedded in all school policy and practice Whanau as the underpinning organisation Students and teachers stay together Staff reflect students’ ethnicities Ethnic groups work together Older/younger students work together

throughout the day Intensive blocks of time Cultural norms, competencies and skills Our kids, not “other people’s children” (Delpit 1999)

1. self (cultural identity, who am I, where do I ‘fit’)

2. their learning (relevance to students’ backgrounds)

3. the teacher (mutual respect, trust, high expectations, support - whanau)

4. other students (positive peer influence & support -whanau)

5. the wider world (critical, emancipatory, anti-racist, tolerant, against prejudice)

6. and a reciprocal relationship between home and school (mutually beneficial, authentic partnership -whanau)

Our two schools believe six relationships are crucial to students’ holistic achievement and engagement in learning (Otero 2002). These are the student’s relationship to:

Unrealised Potential

Unlimited Potential

Global Learning

School LearningSelf Learning

CRITICAL PEDAGOGYSOCIAL JUSTICE

RELATIONSHIPSSelf

Learning Teacher Peers

Wider world Home/School

Special Needs At Risk ESOL

Special Abilities Gifted/Talented

• Cultural knowledge, understanding & competency

• Cutlural norms – living ‘as Maori,’ as Tongan etc

• Home, heritage languages• Identity• Self efficacy / potential• Whanau support• Values / Beliefs• Hauora / Wellbeing• Wairua / Spirituality

Learning is:

integrated – across subject areas and with students’ lives, cultures and realities (Beane, 2005)

negotiated – by students, with teachers

inquiry-based and student-driven – originating in issues of social concern that affect our youth and our communities and ending with the performance of this knowledge to a wide range of audiences

critical – it provides young people with the power and the tools to understand and challenge inequity and injustice and to make change in their lives

whanau-based – it is collective, cooperative, collaborative and reciprocal i.e. learning is shared –you receive it, you share it, you give back to other learners

based in strong relationships – with self, with each other, with teachers, with the learning itself and its relevance, with the world beyond school and between home and school.

culturally located and allows you to live your cultural norms throughout the school day

Developing a strong cultural identity however does not ignore the complex, multiple, shared, and fluid identities our young people navigate both in and beyond school – and that’s the purpose of our green, or global lens.

In order to effectively integrate all these other identities you first have to have a strong sense of self and we see cultural identity as the thread that weaves through, and acts as their compass, in all of the other pathways our young people walk.

Global Learning

School LearningSelf Learning

Computers and cables do not make effective networks

People do

Connections = Relationships of Trust Families to Clubhouse and schools & vice versa Families to history – family digital stories Young people to culture and elders – KaumatuaNet,

young people as mentors for elders, elders as a rich repository of cultural knowledge and languages for youth

Families to resources using advanced technology –economic, health, education

Young people and families to learning Families to their own networks – iwi, home marae, in the

Pacific

WHANAU - Connecting to Social and Cultural Capital

sociocultural constructionism (Pinkett

2000, 2002) – you can’t separate the learner from their context or their cultural identity – so use the assets of the community to actively design and produce content for learning.

Education should be learner-centred, empowering, liberating and grounded in praxis(reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it) (Freire, 1970)

Join the Kapa Haka group and learn some items

Cultural/Social activity

Compose items and design complex choreography – elders as mentors

Constructionism - cultural

Design & make costumes, dying, weaving flax using traditional knowledge

Constructionism – cultural, technological, social - identity

Live-in at the school marae 2 or 3 nights a week to practise

Cultural/Social - Identity

Make a short film about the group’s journey to the competition (Clubhouse)

Constructionism –technological

Gain NCEA credits for your performance & your documentary

Academic learning

Use the stage and your performance and understanding of this knowledge as a platform for protest about social justice issues

Praxis -transformation

Our definition of success and achievement is developing young people who will change the world and the key to that success is giving them

all the tools they need to act as agents of that change.

That means we have to think very differently about the way we deliver learning in our classrooms and about the messages we give our youth about who they are.

The Clubhouse is crucial to that journey.