I spent all of last week in Auckland, visiting schools, so between that and my parents' visit the week before, I haven't taken much time to reflect on all that's been happening.
One thing that's happened is my ethics application is finally approved. I'm happy it's approved and interested to do what I wrote in the application (mostly interview people), but honestly, even if it had never been approved, I wouldn't have cared very much. I am meeting lots of people and talking to them about what they teach and I'm learning so much. Since I have no desire to publish anything, whether I do formal research is neither here nor there to me. Even with the ethics application to make it official, I'm not sure what I'm doing counts as any sort of formal research... but regardless, I'm excited to keep talking to people about what they're doing in their classrooms.
My ethics application gives me permission to interview teachers and students. I want to understand how NZ social studies teachers choose topics to study, to what extent students backgrounds are taken into consideration, and what topics students consider significant. Here in New Zealand, teachers have so much freedom (or permissiveness as they call it, which makes me laugh) to choose their content in social studies classes. In years 9-13, the only specific content required is "Understand how the Treaty of Waitangi is responded to differently by people in different times and places." All other achievement standards can be tied to any content the teacher chooses. For example in year 11 history: "Understand how people's perspectives on past events that are of significance to New Zealanders differ."
In the history standards, you see "of significance to New Zealanders" a lot. Essentially, history from any part of the world can be taught, as long as it can be tied back to New Zealand in some way. The national assessments (which seem pretty legit) align with the standards, so it behooves a teacher to make sure content is chosen that helps students do well on the assessments. More on the assessments in another post...
Beyond getting my ethics application approved, the big thing I've been up to is visiting four schools in Auckland. If I had to summarize each in a word or two:
School A: underwhelming, but fine
School B: thoughtful, organized, traditional
School C: old school
School D: critical, inspiring, a bit of an island unto itself
In all, I left these school visits feeling challenged to rethink so many things about how, what, and why I teach. So many things that are taken as the norm in US schools are thought about in completely different ways in New Zealand. It messes with your mind in the best possible way.
This feeling of internal conflict was highlighted during a Skype job interview on Tuesday morning. The questions asked were the epitome of the US educational system. I knew the answers I was supposed to give, but I just wanted to give the interviewer a mouthful. I did my best to keep myself in check. We'll see if I make it into the district "pool." :)
One thing that's happened is my ethics application is finally approved. I'm happy it's approved and interested to do what I wrote in the application (mostly interview people), but honestly, even if it had never been approved, I wouldn't have cared very much. I am meeting lots of people and talking to them about what they teach and I'm learning so much. Since I have no desire to publish anything, whether I do formal research is neither here nor there to me. Even with the ethics application to make it official, I'm not sure what I'm doing counts as any sort of formal research... but regardless, I'm excited to keep talking to people about what they're doing in their classrooms.
My ethics application gives me permission to interview teachers and students. I want to understand how NZ social studies teachers choose topics to study, to what extent students backgrounds are taken into consideration, and what topics students consider significant. Here in New Zealand, teachers have so much freedom (or permissiveness as they call it, which makes me laugh) to choose their content in social studies classes. In years 9-13, the only specific content required is "Understand how the Treaty of Waitangi is responded to differently by people in different times and places." All other achievement standards can be tied to any content the teacher chooses. For example in year 11 history: "Understand how people's perspectives on past events that are of significance to New Zealanders differ."
In the history standards, you see "of significance to New Zealanders" a lot. Essentially, history from any part of the world can be taught, as long as it can be tied back to New Zealand in some way. The national assessments (which seem pretty legit) align with the standards, so it behooves a teacher to make sure content is chosen that helps students do well on the assessments. More on the assessments in another post...
Beyond getting my ethics application approved, the big thing I've been up to is visiting four schools in Auckland. If I had to summarize each in a word or two:
School A: underwhelming, but fine
School B: thoughtful, organized, traditional
School C: old school
School D: critical, inspiring, a bit of an island unto itself
In all, I left these school visits feeling challenged to rethink so many things about how, what, and why I teach. So many things that are taken as the norm in US schools are thought about in completely different ways in New Zealand. It messes with your mind in the best possible way.
This feeling of internal conflict was highlighted during a Skype job interview on Tuesday morning. The questions asked were the epitome of the US educational system. I knew the answers I was supposed to give, but I just wanted to give the interviewer a mouthful. I did my best to keep myself in check. We'll see if I make it into the district "pool." :)
What was really exciting about the fourth school was seeing that their politics were at the center of all that they do. The words we heard over and over again were hegemony, critical (as in critical consciousness), and colonial/colonization/colonizing. The entire structure of the day and physical structure of their learning environment was different than most schools. The "classroom" was actually a huge space that allowed for many different configurations of furniture and people. Students and teachers worked individually, in small groups, and in a few cases, large groups. There were many ages in the same space and students were expected to self-monitor. Like many schools I've seen in NZ, no one was telling them to put away their cell phone or quit the Youtube videos. It seems that most of the content is taught thematically, with the first theme for the year being tino rangatiratanga. It loosely translates to self-determination, but like most Maori words, is hard to translate and is contested, historically. (It's a phrase used in the Treaty of Waitangi, meaning many many dissertations have likely been written on the implications for the meaning of the words.) I would love to go back to get a better sense of what I was seeing, but my first impression left me really intrigued and inspired.
The four schools were in different parts of Auckland, so I got to see different neighborhoods and figure out the (really terrible) bus system. There's nothing like walking an hour in the rain through the suburbs of South Auckland to make you a little annoyed at the world. However, by the last day, I felt confident in my bus abilities and knew to account for the fact that the bus would be 20-30 minutes late and it would take us at least an hour to cross the city.
Also in Auckland we went to Polyfest, which is a huge competition between schools. The website refers to it as "the largest Pacific dance festival in the world." It's that, but more than that, Polyfest is the traditions and cultures of students coming alive in a very modern way. They are clearly SO into their performances-- schools I visited were devoting a lot of their time and energy to preparations-- and you could see their commitment during the festival. It was like a giant show choir festival, state football tournament, and community festival, all rolled into one--except with so much more meaning embedded into it. On the day I was there, it was sunny and hot and there were thousands of people wandering around, watching, eating, etc. It was easy to treat it like a fun day at a festival. This event was clearly THE place to be for anyone in South Auckland. However, when you really stop to think about it, this festival is so much more. It's quite powerful it is to have teenagers standing proud, performing music and dance that is so central to their culture.
I have a hard time even imagining how this could translate to Minneapolis. Can you picture four days of competition, with students performing music and dance, and an Ojibwe Stage, Somali Stage, Hmong Stage, Mexican Stage, Ecuadorian Stage, Swedish Stage, and a Norwegian Stage? Now picture 80,000 people attending and students working for weeks to get their performances perfect. It would be amazing to see, but I'm not sure how to make it happen.
Looking at my title on this post, I think I over-promised and under-delivered. Next time I think I need to explain more about how my thinking is being challenged. Stay tuned. First I need to canoe down the Whanganui River and then I'll be back. :)
I have a hard time even imagining how this could translate to Minneapolis. Can you picture four days of competition, with students performing music and dance, and an Ojibwe Stage, Somali Stage, Hmong Stage, Mexican Stage, Ecuadorian Stage, Swedish Stage, and a Norwegian Stage? Now picture 80,000 people attending and students working for weeks to get their performances perfect. It would be amazing to see, but I'm not sure how to make it happen.
Looking at my title on this post, I think I over-promised and under-delivered. Next time I think I need to explain more about how my thinking is being challenged. Stay tuned. First I need to canoe down the Whanganui River and then I'll be back. :)