Week 28: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Lynch (2012) states that “culturally responsive pedagogy is a student-centred approach to teaching in which the students’ unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student’s cultural place in the world.” This also links to Ladson-Billings (1994) ideas as they refer to culturally responsive teaching as a pedagogy that understands the importance of including students' cultural positions in all aspects of their own learning. They also list some characteristics that should be shown in culturally responsive teaching. These include positive perspectives on parents and families, communication of high expectations and student-centred instruction. Only being in the professional six years I have found my cultural responsiveness has developed through experience and being exposed to a range of situations. As with any experience and situation, there is always learning to be had.

One area of cultural responsiveness I feel our teaching staff work well in is having the relationships with our students and whanau. Many of us commit to coaching or managing a sports teams. This gives the teachers the opportunity to form relationships with those students not necessarily in their classroom and gives the students the opportunity to form a relationship with a teacher in the school that they can trust and have meaningful discussions with should they need to. As Cowie, Otrel-Cass, Glynn and Kara (2011) state “Teachers need to be seen out in the community by the students and families. A person who is visible in the community is more likely to be respected as having a commitment to, or investment in, the community (he kanohi kitea).” The school has an ‘open door’ policy where parents are welcome to take an active role in our school community. They are also encouraged to come along to sporting, cultural and academic events that the school takes part in.

Another area our cultural responsiveness that has been an area of focus for our school is creating a curriculum and resources reflective of the diverse cultural needs we have in our school. As we have a prominent number of Maori students we have worked on including Te Reo Maori as weekly competitions. This also gives our Maori students the opportunity to feel empowered and teach others their language, heritage and culture. As reflected in Cowie et al. (2011) “for many students from Maori and Pasifika backgrounds, teaching other students younger or less skilled than themselves offers a culturally authentic opportunity to show and share what they have learnt.” We also include a whole week learning a different language each day which involved various quizzes, activities, competitions and a dress-up day.

“Genuine, productive relationships among teachers and their Māori students, whānau, iwi and wider communities are vital foundations for effective teaching and learning.” (Ministry of Education, 2011)

Figure 1. Tataiako Competencies. (Ministry of Education, 2011, p.3)

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

Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishing Co.

Lynch, M. (2012). What Is Culturally Responsive Pedagogy?. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-lynch-edd/culturally-responsive-pedagogy_b_1147364.html

Ministry of Education. (2011). Tataiako: Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Māori Learners. Ministry of Education. Wellington.