Cultural Responsiveness

Examine how indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness (IK&CR) are informing the way you are taking action.


Step 1: What is your understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness and what area mentioned above do you want to focus on for discussion?


Indigenous knowledge is knowing everything about that culture and a group of individuals. Cultural responsiveness is being able to learn and be respectful of your own culture plus the culture of others. I think I was looking at our community needs during the take action planning process of the inquiry.


I had already had the children prior to this inquiry working together collaboratively on Google Docs using a Tuakana - Teina relationship. We had parents/whanau involved and being informed all throughout this process. We asked for feedback and we listened to their ideas and feedback and shared this with the children. I was always respectful to all tamariki and whanau.


Step 2: Examine how indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness are informing the way you are taking action.


Understanding the Culturally Responsive Practice for Maori Scale is something that we should be putting doing in our teaching practice everyday. I strongly believe that Whanaungatanga: building relationships was an integral part of our inquiry as we needed to have relationships with our students and their parents/whanau to have a successful outcome. Bring parents/whanau into the learning environment is so important and children having that authentic audience brings more meaning to them when they are doing a piece of work. In our school, we have a learning showcase each term. This is when parents/whanau come into the hub and their child or other children show them through their learning through the term and get feedback and praise for their learning. This is a time that we can build relationships with many of these families.


Step 3: What might you need to consider or take action on to move up to the next level of cultural responsiveness? What are the next steps?


I think my next step is to be thinking about what I can do to know everything about the cultures of all students in our hub. I need to make sure that these families/whanau are available to be part of our school community. In my home base I have a wide range of cultures and what I would love would be a day where they can come and talk to the hub and share some special traditions, and or special occasions that they think others should know. I want them to be fully engaged in our school community as well as all children to be informed about how to be respectful to all cultures.


References


(Source: Asil, M. (2017). A School-Based Measure of Culturally Responsive Practices. Frontiers in Education

2(17), 1-7. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2017.00017)