254710 Ruia taitea: Transforming Education

  Until doing this paper, I hadn’t really given much thought into the origins of our education system in Aotearoa and why things are the way they are. I’d always considered education to be a traditional aspect and something that potentially didn’t keep up with the realms of an adaptive and changing society that we live in.  I suppose I just accepted it for what it was. In the last module I reflected on the colonisation of Māori and how there was an expectation by the Crown and British settlers that they would assimilate into European ways, because that was the ‘best’ way to do things. Settlers who came to Aotearoa had been heavily interpellated into a class system and wanted that system to be replicated in their new colony, including the education system.  Our current education system is modelled on a traditional Western society, it perpetuates the concept that there is a required and desired ‘normality’. Schools reproduce “a set of universals that articulate and normalis...

Ideology is a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.   More broadly, it can be understood as a comprehensive set of beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions about how the world is or ought to be. These systems often explain the social, political, and economic order, and they can guide individuals and groups in their actions and interpretations of events. Simplistically, ideology just means a set of more or less coherent ideas, norms and values with which we interpret the things that go on around us. Quite often aligning to and with culture. And there are so many ideologies within teaching and education! Connecting this to this week's main idea of interpellation (a concept used to explain ideology), assessment can be viewed as: How do people buy into ideologies? If we recognize and accept the misrecognition inherent in them, then we buy into them. Ideology is a framework we use to make sense of the world and ha...

Introduction For this assignment, I have chosen to focus specifically on a narrative I experienced during my educational journey. After 4 years of being a Deputy Principal, a Tumuaki job opportunity in Māhia-mai-tawhiti arose. This was an opportunity like no other; it was where I whakapapa to and was an opportunity to return home (although not a home that I grew up in or was remotely familiar with).  A successful application saw me appointed as Principal and beginning in this new role in 2013. I was now a keen and eager fresh Principal with many unknown challenges that lay ahead of me.  Te Mahia School was a small, rural country school with 65 students, 95% of whom affiliated as being Māori. It was a decile 1a school with a community that had high unemployment, intergenerational welfare, poor housing conditions, and deprivation statistics, such as barriers to health services and high suicide rates. One year into this role, a small handful of community members approached me abo...