What are Māori parents looking for?

Report to the Ministry of Education [2003]R. Bishop, M. Berryman, S. Tiakiwai and C. Richardson

The Experiences of Year 9 and 10 MāoriStudents in Mainstream Classrooms

Responses from Maori Parents in the schools

Discourse of relationships

• A better relationship between school and home

• Relationship between child and teacher

• Being Mäori matters

• Caregivers feeling comfortable

• Secondary schools unwelcoming to parents

• Teachers need to have a greater understanding of things Mäori

• Teachers need to know who the children are

• Teachers need to respect cultural preferences for learning

• Cultural tokenism

• School relationship with parents – non-existent unless there is trouble

• Relationship between child and parents is important

• The need to achieve as Mäori is important

• Face to face contact

• Parents also identified the importance of having a good relationship between themselves and the school.

• The parents noted how difficult this was particularly given the way the whole system did not value Mäori culture and knowledge.

• Furthermore, many of the parents did not have positive experiences of schooling and therefore found the idea of establishing relationships with the school as being intimidating and beyond their grasp:

• It is about respect and relationships. Respect and relationships between the staff of the school and the families whose children come here.

• Our children are expected to learn in a school system that has hardly changed from the 1850s, when Mäori were given an education based on schools in England…

• Secondary schools have done hardly anything to involve parents… because the secondary schools think they know what is best for the education of the children there.

What does ERO say about engaging with parents & whanau?

• Research suggests that effective school-home partnerships can enhance children’s learning at both home and school.

• Strong school-home links are of particular importance for children whose social class, culture, and/or ethnicity and cultural heritages differ from those predominant in the school.

The Mäori cultural concept of kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face) was seen by the parents as being important in their relationship with their children’s teachers.

Consider this in relation to our

‘Learning for Success’ Meetings

Consider this as we plan our

journey!

Parents also emphasised how important it was for the children to be able to achieve as Mäori, that is, that their Mäori culture and knowledge could be valued and respected in a learning context.

Parents were strong in their belief that their cultural identity and the cultural identity of their children as Mäori were important and should be affirmed within the school and the classroom.

Some have poor self-esteem about who they are, they fail academically and then schools give the message that Mäori only do well in kapa haka and some sports. Some other examples of this mentality are that the kapa haka group is good enough to be pulled out for visitors, for prize giving but not good enough to be part of the curriculum…

What does that say about the importance of Mäori? What are the real signs that being Mäorimatters at this college? What about next year’s curriculum?

How can we capture this in our

‘Learning for Success’ Meetings?

Parents identified that it was important to them that their children’s achievements as Mäori be acknowledged.

This point specifically referred to the need for the school to acknowledge that their children were Mäori, in order for their children to be able to stand proudly as Mäori and to achieve as Mäori:

How can we capture this in

our classrooms?

Knowing who you are makes you proud and makes you stand up. But once we know who we were and how beautiful our culture is – you know – you were proud to stand up and achieve… to start looking at who they are and

starting to see how it’s beautiful to be a Mäoriperson.

Should we make this part of our

Professional Learning Programme?

Part of our development of the site?

Parents highlighted the need for teachers and schools to have a greater understanding of Mäoriculture, language and customs. In particular, parents were concerned that schools were too monocultural and focussed on learning from a non-Mäori perspective. Parents believed that, by not acknowledging their children’s Mäori culture, teachers and schools were then marginalising their culture and in turn devaluing them as Mäorichildren.

What does it mean to be and

feel Māori?

Parents identified that group work was a culturally preferred way of learning and should be viewed by teachers as a positive strategy for teaching Mäori children.

I’m Mäori and I don’t feel comfortable making an individual decision about most things. I like to talk it over with others… I’m in it with other people.

Parents were clear in their expectations that teachers should learn about the children who were in their class. For example, this included learning about the child, where they came from, what their experiences were and what their culture and language was. The parents view was that this type of knowledge would help the teacher learn more about how best to teach their students.

Our ‘Learning for Success’ Meetings

are an opportunity to build this

knowledge.

How do you show this?

If the teacher demonstrates cultural knowledge it has an effect on the children. They see the teacher as an individual who respects them and knows where they are coming from. The children see those teachers who have made an attempt to try and get on the same thought patterns, wave-length as them.

What else are we simply

blind to?

When I looked at the Science book I could have cried. They did some work on tides. It was all about the moon and the sun and the earth. Mäori ideas about tides would easily have fitted in… All our Mäori tikanga would fit in there

Academic Counselling as one way

to engage with whānau

• Effective schools listen to the aspirations that parents and whānau have for their children.

• Effective schools ensure that all their communities have a voice and a sense of identification with the school and its goals.

• Schools willingly share ideas and strategies that parents and whānau can use at home to support children’s learning.

‘there is support for parents to be talking to their children about learning and schooling and having high expectations of them and their future in learning, especially for lower achieving students’.

New Zealand students' perceptions ofparental involvement in learning andschoolingJanet Clinton a & John Hattie (2013)

Barriers to parental involvement in education: an explanatorymodelGarry Hornby* and Rayleen Lafaele

…………it can come from them having had negative experiences with their children’s previous schools, or through them experiencing either learning or behavioural difficulties during their own schooling. Lack of confidence may also come from parents taking the view that they have not developed sufficient academic competence to effectively help their children. This view is more apparent as students progress through secondary schools and their academic work becomes more advanced(Eccles and Harold 1993).

We have to support whānau to change their discourse too at times if they deficit theorise!

Parents who believe children’s intelligence is fixed and that school achievement is mainly due to children being lucky enough to have high ability will not see the point in getting too involved in their children’s education.

They believe that children’s innate ability will set a limit on their achievement so that such things as encouraging children to do their homework or attending parent–teacher meetings at school are viewed as a waste of time.

Parent-teacher factors for us to consider in our meeting with whānau:

• Different goals and agendas

• Different attitudes

• Differing language used

So this calls us to:

Listen

Take on board different views to ours

Check our understanding

Academic Counselling

Involves us as professionals in reappraising how we relate as both to students and to parents and whānau.

We have to be prepared to support both students and parents to be actively involved in setting educational goals and not simply giving the answers, expecting students to respond.

REMEMBER: Central to the success of

academic counselling is what we do

after the meeting!

• tracking• target Group Interventions• extra Tutorials• using evidence to underpin

practice• taking a proactive and

planned approach with assessments and exams such as NCEA

• building positive relationships across the school

• establishing high and clear expectations

• challenging departments and teachers to take responsibility for Māori students academic achievement

• developing a shared vision and taking responsibility across the school

• working interdependently from the SLT to teachers and Māori students.

VIDEO WATCH: http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/Videos/School-stories/Ngaruawahia-High-School

http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/Videos/Interviews/Student-voices

Māori students leaving Te Kotahitanga schools at year thirteen, reflect on their experiences in these schools since year nine. They highlight their experiences in these schools and communities that have supported them to embark on tertiary study.

VIDEO CLIP WATCH

The Effective Teaching ProfileCulturally appropriate and responsive teachers demonstrate the following understandings:

a) They positively reject deficit theorising

b) They know and understand how to bring about change in Māori students’ educational experience and are professionally committed to doing so in the following ways:

Caring for Māori students as culturally located individuals Caring for the participation and achievement of Māori students Creating a secure, well-managed learning environment Engaging in effective teaching interactions Using a range of teaching strategies to promote change Promoting, monitoring and sharing outcomes for and with

Māori students

Building on

SuccessPB4L

Academic Counselling is one vehicle not the answer

The Effective Teaching Profile will provide a tool for wider systemic change through classroom practice

Focu

s fo

r o

ur

on

goin

g p

rofe

ssio

nal

le

arn

ing

thro

ugh

20

14

an

d b

eyo

nd