Wōku whakaaro nō wāku pānuitia. Thoughts from my readings.

Transformative Education Week 1- posted in Week 2!

Better late than never...that is definitely part of my education story, but that's not a story for now. This is connected to "Who am I in Education", and a start at creating my education story.

When I attempted to write a post about education in my life last week, I kept writing and deleting "my story". I was trying to find a pathway of linear events from my past to my present to "explain" education in my life. I couldn't. I also noticed that, depending on where I started, and what I choose to highlight, my narrative and how I could/would be perceived by the reader was changed. I was fixed on writing a single story, yet could not decide what that would be as I wanted a story that would give me a sense of worth in the eyes of the reader.

After I finished watching (just today!) Chimamanda Adichie's 2009 video "The danger of a single story", I was struck by this short sentence- "The consequence of the single story is that it robs people of dignity". I realised that had been trying to curate a story that would be easily understood and accepted by my new peers and teacher, and therefore give me a sense of being worthy. However, after the readings and video, and watching other videos and talking with my partner and friends, I know that the role education plays in my identity-my education story- is multifaceted, and follows multiple paths and tracks.  

For today, I will say that education in my life has been dominant, pervasive, continuous, oppressive, enlightening, confusing, supportive, institutional, grassroots , rebellious  expensive (only just paid off my student loan from 1997!)...and more. 

From my earliest memories at kindy with my Mum and brother and other neighbourhood tamariki, to today-enrolled in a PGDip- Education  there are so few events and times that aren't directly connected to education, especially the dominant white western stream of education we have in Aotearoa. 

I went to kindy, school, university, became a primary classroom teacher (though this path been fraught and non-linear), and now in tertiary education again. When I was in (and also in-between) these roles, I was learning about activism, climate change, racism, gardening, colonisation, mediation, yoga, anarchy, permaculture, the food industry, health, well-being, communication, fear, shame, trauma, compassion, care, empathy, support, ...and more. In all these aspects of education, I was in groups and communities of sharing and learning, and within these had failures and successes. 

I will leave it at that as I want to post something today. Though by doing this, I have begun to curate, create, and draft a narrative around myself and my role as a teacher. This story is still raw, unedited, and I haven't completely owned it yet, so I am not ready to share.

Transformative Education Week 2- posted in Week 3!

When I was reading Smith's 'Beyond political literacy...' and the question 'What is hegemony? How is it manifested in education?' was posed on the stream page, I had these thoughts...

My understanding is that hegemony is the dominance of one culture over others in a society, and that this is reinforced through politics, education, media, entertainment.  

One way it is manifested in Education is via the national curriculum and what students are required to learn and focus on. The NZ Curriculum is designed and created in within the dominate culture- mainly Pākeha- and is still hugely weighted to focus on reading, writing, and math as the core learning areas for Primary, and Math and English are still key areas at high school. 

With my primary teaching 'hat' on, I was thinking about the new Math curriculum, the expectation that math is taught for 1 hour each day now, and the resource options that schools were given to choose from.  This was just generally just "accepted" and there was no major- if any really- challenge or resistance to this, and those of us who love math and teaching math, were in agreement. To me, this is continuing the dominant narrative of the importance of math, and it's placement above other learning areas (other than writing and reading). I also thought about how, for almost all my career, reading, writing, and math, has been the main area of  all staff professional development (PLD) - with one of these being the overarching  PLD each year. 

I think I have been thinking about this after John was talking about this critique of the idea that math is so important and that no-one questions this or its place in our education. There is a hegemony regarding maths and the importance, and this has been reinforced through the media, especially with it's focus on maths under achievements as a major problem. 

My kura chose to go with the Oxford Math, and we are in the beginning stages of implementing this- 1st year- but what struck me from the 1st PLD we did, was that the context of the math problems still lay in a predominantly white/western centred worldview, and many of the problems were money or economy related. We were just looking at place value, so maybe other areas may have other themes!

I do often wonder what could primary education be if we stopped hierarchising math, reading, and writing, as the main areas of learning?...