Natural Learning Spaces

How does our learning environment stimulate what we want to say?

Today I listened to a inspirational and passionate Mum about how we could develop our outside learning spaces into a more natural environment where children are able to explore, be creative and challenged.  

There is so much research that supports the development of better outdoor spaces in schools, highlighting the benefits and positive impacts great decisions in this area are for all children. Findings have demonstrated significant improvements in resilience, team work, creativity and the ability for children to problem solve. The interesting thing is that these are almost a bi-product of increasing physical activity and having so much FUN. /http://www.educationreview.co.nz/magazine/february-2016/the-great-outdoors/. 

The recent inclusion of our bike track at school has got us all thinking and talking about the possibilities and that these possibilities could be endless. Swanson Primary School in Auckland has moved to developing more natural playgrounds. playgrounds that provide physical challenges with many loose parts that can be manipulated and adapted, to sensory areas where water play, sounds were stimulated.

Historically our school has been pretty traditional in its thinking about playgrounds. Having open greens spaces are valued and important as we are a big school with children who love the outdoors and enjoy being physical. This is evident in our high numbers of children involved in sports. Allandale has created veggie gardens and gardens around our school, flat playing fields, and several little play areas alss. We have an internal Wonderland with plastic playground, that is gated and a huge sandpit that is full everyday.  But we have the potential and drive to develop this further. To create spaces which support of development of resilient children that enjoy learning together and playing together. A place where the transition from Early Childhood centres to Primary School education is seamless. A place where nature and tikanga Maori are alive and kicking!

Allandale School Arts Festival 

Thank you to all the amazing Allandale School staff for supporting our children to express their talents through the arts.  Thank you to the support staff for supporting of staff and children in getting our arts festival organised.  

Thank you to our AWESOME children who shared their amazing talents from singing, dancing, performing arts, photography and visual arts.  

Lastly thank you to all our families and community for coming and celebrating in our children's learning.    

RESILIENCE

There has been a lot of talk about our at risk children not having or demonstrating  'resilience' but the more I think about it the more I see how much resilience they have and show us everyday. 

The definition of resilience is...

1 the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

"the often remarkable resilience of so many British institutions"

2. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.

"nylon is excellent in wearability, abrasion resistance and resilience"

synonyms:

flexibility, pliability, suppleness, plasticity, elasticity

Resilience is an important skill that in today's world our children aren't facing day to day. We, as a society tend to wrap our children in cotton wool to protect them from so much and this has allowed some of our children to grow up with no adversity therefore not developing their skills to be resilient. I've been thinking about how I grow up 1 of 6, we had a girls bedroom and a boys bedroom 3 in each. We quickly learnt how to share and get long with each other. We rode bikes without helmets, we climbed, jumped and made our own fun everyday. If we wanted something we would work together as a family to get it, nothing was instant. 

Our at risk children have much adversity in their day to day lives and in my humble professional opinion I believe we have some of the most resilient children I know. These chn face stresses and adult problems but manage to find their feet everyday  and come to school. Many of them with a smile of their gorgeous faces, with a good morning or a morena. I believe our at risk children don't need to be taught resilience as they teach me about resilience everyday. 
I believe what they need is teachers that recognise and can fill their emotional tanks up. 

Check In Check Out

As part of our PB4L tier 2 journey at Allandale School we have trialed the implementation of a new behaviour support programme h, Check In and Check Out. This programme has been researched and runs along the lines of CR & RP.  Developing relationships were chn are valued, listened to and respected provides opportunities for all chn to succeed. 

I have run this programme with 9 chn from senior school to junior school. All 9 chn are boys demonstrating challenging behaviours in the classroom and outside. CICO is a targeted intervention that looks at con-constructing daily individual behavioural goals. Every morning the chn and I identify the amount of points their would like to achieve for the day. We talk about their families and how things are going and what they find tricky at school. After lunch we get together again and review how they day has gone. Celebrating the successes and problem solving the difficulties that have been evident.

Teachers have identified...  

• Students look forward to seeing facilitator teacher everyday
• Students understand the process 
• Students seem to be calmer and positive throughout the day
• Students learning is more focused
• Students have two adults to celebrate their successes with
• Families and teachers all get to share positive comments about a child.
• Families share the successes the children are having at home too
• A decrease is negative behaviours.
• Classroom environments are positive focused. 

Leadership Teaching

I begun my teaching and learning career 13 years ago. Beginning as a very excited beginning teacher in a Year 5 and 6 class. After 4 years of being a classroom teacher I became involved in the senior management team at our school. 2 years after my initial induction into our senior management team I become DP, Team leader and SENCO. Throughout this time I taught across the entire school From Year 6 to Year 2. 

I have been a DP, a team leader, SENCO over the past 9 years and during these years I have adapted my leadership style and the approaches.

Recently I have been thinking about the cultural toolkit that I bring to my leadership areas especially as I have been Acting Principal for the past 5 weeks. 

PLD on Cultural Responsiveness and Relational Pedagogy has provided me with the opportunity to reflect through a lense that values relationships and cultural. With this as a focus  I'm thinking about balancing the need to support staff growth vs celebrating staff success and meet individual needs vs school wide objectives and how this can become a juggling act. 

While I don't know the answers I have made some observations and I have some questions...

Staff that play together stays together. 

(Will develop a team that enjoys things beyond a work place relate to each as people not just colleagues)

Collaborative communication is paramount.

(Will develop a team that has trusting, respectful communication is a team where learning is honest and real) 

Shared direction and vision.

(Will develop a team that understanding where they are heading and willing supports everyone to get there) 

Cultural Responsiveness and Relational Pegagogy

Coming out of the closet

Recently I have been involved in the Cultural Responsive & Relational Pedagogy team at Allandale School. This team consists of different members of staff from Allandale School. Our team is Tania Doherty, Wendy, Ashton, Aroha, Cilla, Wiremu, Dianne, Teresa and myself.This teams focus is to forge strong links between staff, our children and our families. It is about lifting practice in order to lift the success for all our children.

At our last discussion a team member suggested that once you believe in this thinking and you 'come out of the closet' and can never go back. While I didn't fully understand nor grasp the magnitude of what she was saying to us back then I totally understand now!

Research tell us that to be successful educators of Maori students we, the professionals, need to be Culturally responsive and demonstrate a high level of understanding around relational pedagogy.  And while I understand that when some of our teachers were being trained this thinking may not have been seen as important I believe that is is still our responsibility to address it now.  

Being Culturally Responsive and showing Relational Pedagogy is not hard, as it is celebrating and respecting the basic needs of our children. As I come out of the closet I see it everywhere. I see it in the faces of the children at Allandale School. I see it when children are playing and when children are learning. I see it when children are learning how to read and write and when they are learning about playing together. What is incredibly interesting to me at the moment is the more I see it the more it become clearer and the more important I feel about it and the more I want to grow it. 

I see it not only in the faces of our children but in the faces of our teachers. I see it in the faces of teachers when our children are teaching us. I see it in the faces of teachers when they are talked with a growth mind set to each other. I see it in the faces of our teachers when they are talking about amazing things that have happened to them during the learning day. 

I see it EVERYWHERE in our school and I want to see it MORE! I want to see it where I don't see it. I am so hungry for all our children, our families and our staff to feel it and see what I see and feel. I want them to feel the warmth of being Culturally Responsive and being shown Relational Pedagogy. I want them to feel to inspiration of showing Culturally Responsiveness and showing Relational Pedagogy.

I love Allandale School and I am passionate about this school, our children, our families, and our staff and I am so excited about developing my knowledge and the combined knowledge of us all.  

Week 32 - PRACTICE - Changes in Practice

WOW, what a journey, 32 weeks learning, coaching, support and exploring. A journey that I have travelled with 5 other colleagues and closely worked alongside 2 of these colleagues. This postgraduate programme has provided us with multiple opportunities to trial, discuss and reflect on our new knowledge and thinking.

While my learning has developed many of the twelve  New Zealand, Ministry of Education criteria for Practising Teacher Criteria this reflection will focus on only two, criteria 4 and 7.

“Criteria 4: Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice”  and “Criteria 7: Promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment” have been evident throughout the entire 32 weeks and was a catalyst for my involvement in this programme. Our Community of Learning (COL) is committed to providing the staff of all ten schools with opportunities to grow professional learning and development and to do this is a collaborative, inclusive way in order to lift best practice. As I reflect on my involvement in this programme, I think about the level of my commitment not only to myself and my own continually learning but my commitment to help and support others in completing this programme. As a Deputy Principal in our school, I believe that it is my professional responsibility to support ongoing learning and development for our staff. It is my responsibility that staff feel valued and respected for who they are and what they bring to our school. It is my responsibility to support staff in embracing new ways of thinking and questioning old ways of thinking. It is my responsibility to ensure that problems are understood and that solutions are found.  Our involvement in this programme has provided me with all of the above. Opportunities to trial and explore together, to question, think and reflect and to be able to encourage and lend on were all parts of this journey. As a result of these opportunities my ongoing professional learning and development changed to being open to other viewpoints, asking for help from others, working with others and taking a back seat, relying and trusting other people. This has truly promoted a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment with our group.

Growth is a funny concept, you think you are growing in one area and before you know it you recognise growth in many parts of your life.  Being committed to ongoing professional learning and development through our involvement in this postgraduate programme has provided me with a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning environment. Learning is an amazing concept that continues to grow beyond its expectations.

Reference List:

Ministry of Education (nd). Practising teacher Criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/

Week 31 - PRACTICE - Professional Context - Crossing Boundaries

Mapping my interdisciplinary connections:

Interdisciplinary connections in education are the relationships we have within and between subjects, people and resources. An interdisciplinary approach is where subjects are woven together and taught through integration rather than in isolation. Many advocate that this approach can weaken the delivery of what is taught and provide confusion (Jones. 2009). The advantages of an interdisciplinary approach are many but the development of connections and relationships between subjects, people and resources providing children with multiple opportunities to experience and learn (Jones. 2009). Education is moving beyond  individual silos between a wider community.

My DP and SENCO roles mean that I co-ordinate the support our children and their families with special needs and these needs have become more and more complex over time. When I first started this position, there was a definite course of action between the types of support delivered. Support was totally based around achievement and academic progression. The students that were generally supported were students with high learning needs, ORS students, HHN students and or HLN students. For these students I predominately worked alongside the RTLB service and Special Education agency. These relationships were built on teachers capabilities, building knowledge and understandings for staff and also provided our students with multiple resources, access to people support, teacher aides, therapy of different kinds, and to access support tools such as assistive technologies. However, family connections were minimal and only extended to parental consent this meant that there was a missing piece to support and meet the needs of our children.

Families and children need to be at the forefront of support and we will need to take an interdisciplinary approach to supporting our students and this includes their families. This approach will also support the thinking around developing Cultural Responsiveness and a Relational Pedagogy (CRRP) (Cowie. Otrel-Cass. Glynn & Kara. 2011). CRRP develops building on relationships of care and connectedness, power is shared, culture counts, sense-making, shared decision-making and developing a common vision (Cowie. Otrel-Cass. Glynn & Kara. 2011). These contexts are mirrored in the support agencies of SWIs and The Children’s Team. These agencies support the children, their families and the school through a multi levelled approach and have access to many different services that a family and school could need in order to support their children.

Developing a Cultural Responsiveness and a Relational Pedagogy  in the area of special need educational co-ordinator through developing strong relationship with The Children’s Team and SWIs will be my new focus interdisciplinary approach (Cowie. Otrel-Cass. Glynn & Kara. 2011). An approach that looks at the strength of partnership and weaving together rather than of silos and isolation.  

Reference list:

Cowie, B., Otrel-Cass, K., Glynn, T., & Kara, H., et al.(2011).Culturally responsive pedagogy and assessment in primary science classrooms: Whakamana tamariki. Wellington: Teaching Learning Research Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.tlri.org.nz/sites/default/files/projects/9268_cowie-summaryreport.pdf

Jones, C.(2009). Interdisciplinary approach - Advantages, disadvantages, and the future benefits of interdisciplinary studies. ESSAI7 (26), 76-81. Retrieved from http://dc.cod.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=essai

Source: Thomas McDonagh Group. ( 2011, May 13). Interdisciplinarity and Innovation Education.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDdNzftkIpA

Week 30 - PRACTICE - Professional Online Social Networks

The 21st century teacher understands that we must continually learn in order to meet the needs of our students. Access to social networks have enabled teachers to become connected educators (Office of Ed Tech. 2013). Online social networks provide access for teachers to connect to colleagues, students and parents. Hallway conversations now go far beyond the hallway of a school, they have become the hallway to the world.

Since starting my career as an educator in 2005 we have had access to the use of laptops through our Government supporting the TELA laptop scheme (Melhuish. 2013). This tool has grown from a resource that was slim, storage folder, holding your diary, your planning and assessment to a tool that provides opportunities to grow as a learner, that stimulates communication and conversation (Melhuish. 2013).   

Wenger (2000), identifies Communities of Practice as key in educators embracing ‘teachers as learners’ and online social networks are a community of practice that supports the communication between people with a common focus and similar goals.  I belong to many different communities of practice including professional online social networks from facebook and blogging to google plus. These always have a focus and tend to be for a specific professional purpose, a need for communication and listening to others or a need to share and gather others ideas and information.

My use of social media in my teaching practice is delivered through two separate avenues, a tool for professional development and a communication tool. I use my professional blog in two ways, firstly to communicate with parents and share the learning of my students and secondly as a way to document appraisal evidence. Parents, grandparents and families can see what their children have been learning and celebrate in their success. Parents will often comment about how proud they are of their achievements. My blog also acts as a storage facility of evidence that supports me meeting my registration requirements. Upon reflection to expand the use of my blog within my practice I need to be more culturally responsive by power sharing and provide my students with opportunities to write posts and add comments. Potentially there could be a lot of challenges such as disappointment around children not getting comments, responding to other people's ideas, technical problems and children provide appropriate feedback to others.

I also use online social networks such as facebook and google plus within my teaching practice. Both of these tools are predominantly used as ways of connecting to other colleagues and/or other professionals. I use facebook to provide me with access to a shared knowledge or thinking or to deepen my knowledge or understanding of something and this is delivered through our ‘Awesome Teachers’ facebook page. It is a tool that allows me with a space to communicate directly with teachers at Allandale School and within our COL. I also belong to numerous teaching facebook pages and this allows me to stay connected to world views within the realm of education. Google Plus is a newer social network for me and I mainly use this for sharing information and having conversations around my study. To build on the use of this tool within my practice I could introduce it within a classroom setting. Having a classroom facebook or google plus account could have huge benefits including clear communication and expectations and more opportunities for children to access learning in a one on one situation. Some of the challenges we could face would be privacy and safety of our students and balancing learning time and family time for both the teachers and children.

Online social networks are a tool of the time and educators need to embrace its capability within a learning environment. This needs to be delivered in a thoughtful and deliberate way to ensure that all children and families are safe and that the interactions are of benefit. Online social networks provide educators and learners with opportunities to explore the world from within the four walls of their classrooms.

 

Reference list:

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved on 05 May, 2015 from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han…

Source:Office of Ed Tech. (2013, Sep 18). Connected Educators. [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=216&v=K4Vd4JP_DB8

Source: Tvoparents. (2013, May 21). Using Social Media in the Classroom.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riZStaz8Rno

Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization,7(2), 225-246.

Week 29 Practice - Influence of Law and Ethics

Teachers in New Zealand schools and classrooms face moral and ethical dilemmas everyday and the 21st Century teacher needs to think of cultural, social and ethical pluralism to resolve these dilemmas (Hall. 2001). Once upon of time ethics for teachers were black and white and seen through one lens however now there are multiple shades of grey to consider and the individual child needs to be in the forefront of thinking.  

The digital world is becoming embedded in our schools and classrooms. It is a way of linking to anywhere in the world and also within our own communities. Texting, messaging, websites and facebook have all become tools of the trade for teachers. Teachers use these tools to provide children access to the world and under careful guidance, the world access to our children. Lines of communication between teachers and our students’ families are also important and teachers lives are becoming more and more accessible to our parents and this leads me into my ethical dilemma.

Easy access to technology has created an ethical divide between a teacher's personal life and professional life, when it comes to being accessible to our students and their parents. Relationships are an important tool of my pedagogy. I believe that the better relationships I have with staff, children and their families the better I can do my job. This job is no longer a 9.00 to 3.00 contact job, teachers get texts and phone calls from students and their parents  at all times of night and day.

I have decided that my personal cell phone number would not be given out to parents because I was contactable at school. I was religious at doing this for the first 11 years of teaching and as a result never received phone calls from students and or their parents at home. While I have staff members as my friends on facebook I also was deliberate in not friending parents. Two years ago I decided to give parents who needed access to me my cell phone number and this year I accepted a friend request from a parent. The combination of parents having access to both of these has provided me with an ethical dilemma, building strong relationships between parents and myself and allowing parents to encroach into my personal life.  

After receiving, what I deemed as inappropriate texts from a parent and while I was not prepared to change my cell phone number. I did decide that I needed to sever ties between my professional life and personal life and defriend them from my personal facebook. While making this decision I had many ethical questions beginning with…

• What are the requirements of being a teacher?
• What was our school’s policies and procedures on this subject?
• Would this damage the relationships I had built with my parents?
• How would this decision impact on my students?
• Was this fair on my family?
• Would there be other consequences that I was unaware of?

I followed through with my decision and defriended people that blurred the lines between my personal and professional life. The outcome of this was a parent messaging me asking “why I had defriended them and questioning if they had done something”. My response was I needed to separate my professional and personal lives.

As identified in the Facilitator’s Guide (2012), a teacher’s “(e) RESPONSIBILITY TO THE STUDENT’S FAMILY (1) The professional educator in full recognition of the public trust vested in the profession, shall: (A) Respect the dignity of each family, its culture, customs, and beliefs; (B) Promote, respond, and maintain appropriate communications with the family, staff and   administration; (C) Consider the family’s concerns and perspectives on issues involving its children; and (D) Encourage participation of the family in the educational process”. While my actions and decisions to remedy my actions did not warrant as unprofessional conduct as they did not violate the above codes my decision could be seen by some as not strengthening relationships between parents and myself.  

Teaching is a minefield of ethical dilemmas and  teachers need to think of cultural, social and ethical pluralism and all stakeholders in order to resolve these dilemmas.

Reference list:

Connecticut’s Teacher Education and Mentoring Program. (2012). Ethical and Professional Dilemmas for Educators: Facilitator’s Guide. Retrieved from http://www.ctteam.org/df/resources/Module5_Manual....

Hall, A. (2001). What ought I to do, all things considered? An approach to the exploration of ethical problems by teachers. Paper presented at the IIPE Conference, Brisbane. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Developing-leaders/What-Ought-I-to-Do-All-Things-Considered-An-Approach-to-the-Exploration-of-Ethical-Problems-by-Teachers

Week 28 Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Responsiveness in my Practice:

My understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness within an education field, is one that looks at and nourishes the entire child, looking at who they are, where they come from, their interests, passions, strengths and weaknesses and celebrates these concepts as an integral part of daily teaching and learning practice (Bishop, Berryman, Cavanagh & Teddy. 2009). Te Kotahitanga research has shown that Maori students feel valued and succeed when schools embrace ‘Maori language, curriculum content that involves Maoridom and Maori knowledge and involves teaching and learning shared relationships (Savage, Hindleb, Meyerc, Hyndsa, Penetito & Sleeterd, 2011). Kia Eke Panuku (2013-2017) describes 5 core elements required in order to develop Culturally Responsive and Relational Pedagogy as ‘Whanaungatanga - Relationships of Care and Connectedness, Mahi tahi Kotahitanga - Power shared and learners have the right to equity and self determination, Whakapapa - Culture counts, learners’ understandings form the basis of their identity and learning, Ako - Sense-making is dialogic, interactive and ongoing, Wanaga - decision-making and practice is responsive to relevant evidence, Kaupapa - Our common vision and interdependent roles and responsibilities focus on the potential of learners’.

As our school is made up of 422 students and 311 are Maori we have decided to go on our own journey of developing a more culturally responsive and relational pedagogy learning environment. As developing a learning place that is culturally responsive and shows relational pedagogy lifts Maori achievement and success for Maori. We have enlisted the support of Te Whare Wanaga o Awanuiarangi and our COL across school specialist teacher to guide as on our journey. We begin with getting a team of staff together that were interested in developing and leading our school on this journey. This team consists of senior management, teachers and support staff. We then brainstormed what each on the five core concepts (as indicated above) would look like in our school and in our classrooms. This provided us with expectations, from 1 to 5, that were tailored to our school’s needs and goals while embracing culturally responsive pedagogy. Then our surveys went out to all Year 4 to 6 students, all staff including and to our families. This provided us with both student and family voice. The team begun ‘Rongohia te Hau’ classroom walk-throughs, two people would sit in a classroom with a focus of gather all evidence. These were very structured, 5 minutes mapping, 10 minutes writing everything that the observer sees and hears from both teacher and children and then 5 minutes looking at the classroom environment. After each observation, a group of three or four people would moderate the observation against our 1 to 5 criteria. Our next step to to pull all our information together, information from our surveys and classroom observations and also our achievement, attendance, at risk, pastoral care, GIFTED, PB4L data to present our school with a real picture of how culturally responsive we are and also if we demonstrate a pedagogy of relational care.   

While our journey is only beginning, I have already learnt so much about developing a Culturally Responsive and Relational Pedagogy. Culturally Responsive and Relational Pedagogy can be present in every space in a school from the library to our restorative justice programme, every space is a learning space. Culturally Responsive and Relational Pedagogy is not limited to a bilingual environment, nor does it involved only speaking a language. Culturally Responsive and Relational Pedagogy may not exist simply  because you are an experienced teacher in a lead role within a school.  Culturally Responsive and Relational Pedagogy is developed by teachers and staff that truly care about children, that believe in empowering children, that coach and guided children to achieve success.

Our journey has provided us with the opportunity to begin to look more clearly and with focus at our practice, school wide systems, where we spend our money and how we teach and learn at Allandale School. Developing a more culturally responsive and relational pedagogy throughout our school will support our Maori students to reach their true full potential.  

Reference list:

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

Savage,C, Hindleb, R., Meyerc,L., Hyndsa,A., Penetitob, W. & Sleeterd, C.(2011) Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: indigenous student experiences across the curriculum .Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 183–198:

Kia ora and welcome to Kia Eke Panuku. (n.d.). Retrieved May 29, 2017, from http://kep.org.nz/

Week 27 Practice: The Broader Professional Context

Our children are facing an ever changing world,  a world where everything is accessible while some things can seem totally unattainable. Like our ever changing world the field of education is also ever changing as a result of the impact of global trends (OECD. 2016). Trends are many such as urbanization, the global economy, environmental change and the nature of conflict, the most pertinent to me and the children that I have is the impact of globalisation, especially surrounding ‘family matters’ (OECD. 2016).

In the OECD report (2016) ‘family matters’ identifies the move from historic notions of the makeup of a family to a new reality. We no longer have the traditional breadwinning dad, stay at home mum with four children (OECD, 2016). Children are now coming to school from diverse family groupings and these family dynamics have a huge impact of their education both positive and negative. More and more of our children come from families of divorce, single parents, grandparents bringing up grandchildren and smaller families with older parents and this has impacted on how we teach and how children learn.  

Children who live in a non-traditional family can face challenges and barriers. Evidence shows that many of our children are living in single parent families, same sex families and or being brought up by grandparents. The financial burdens and prejudice placed on these families have a negative consequences and this is evident in the OECD (2016) report. The consequences for these children are poor health, household debt, high stress levels and poverty. The consequences in schools are a raise in behaviour concerns, low achievement and success at school and total disengagement with education.

Children that have diverse family structures need to have strong positive relationship at school. Cowie, Otrel-Cass, Glynn, & Kara (2011) identify the importance of building positive relationships through developing a ‘Culturally responsive pedagogy’. ‘Teaching in a culturally responsive way involves power sharing—tuakana teina in action (Cowie, Otrel-Cass, Glynn, & Kara. 2011). A classroom that has developed shared power has built strong trusting relationships that embrace and celebrate who the child is,  where they come from and this is essential for today’s children. Developing relationships should also be extended to using these new family structures in the school and classroom. Utilizing all parents experiences and knowledge to support learning in the classroom from older parents, mixed race, mixed gender will prove our children with a balanced look at society (OECD, 2016).  

The world is an ever changing place and education mirrors the world, educators need to continually build positive relationships to ensure that diversity is celebrated and all our children are successful.   

References:

Cowie, B., Otrel-Cass, K., Glynn, T., & Kara, H., et al.(2011).Culturally responsive pedagogy and assessment in primary science classrooms: Whakamana tamariki. Wellington: Teaching Learning Research Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.tlri.org.nz/sites/default/files/projects/9268_cowie-summaryreport.pdf

OECD. (2016) Trends Shaping Education 2016, OECD Publishing, Paris. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/trends_edu-2016-en