III. IDENTIFICACION
3.2 Definición del problema y sus causas
3.2.2 Análisis de causas
The Rongohia te Hau evidence showed that for the two schools in this study, traditional transmission pedagogy had been challenged and disrupted for a group of teachers over a twelve to eighteen-month period. This resulted in an increase in culturally responsive and relational pedagogy in some classrooms. The research findings demonstrated that in order to accelerate success for Māori learners, a personal process of conscientisation, resistance and transformative classroom and/or leadership praxis was required and experienced by SCLTs and kaitoro. Consequently, time was spent developing knowledge and understandings about culturally responsive and relational pedagogy, before spreading the work to the wider group of participating staff. Shortly after Rongohia te Hau, kaitoro engaged SCLTs in learning about the Observation to Shadow-coaching tool and process, which further developed their theoretical underpinnings of the new pedagogy. From here, participants spent time practising using the tool and engaging in critical learning conversations and shadow-coaching with each other.
Following their own implementation of this process, SCLTs began to spread the Observation to Shadow-coaching work to some of their staff, working alongside teachers who were generally regarded as friendlies, or colleagues who tended to be open or reflective practitioners. They gathered and used evidence to respectfully challenge and disrupt pedagogical theories and assumptions that were underserving Māori learners. Culturally responsive and relational pedagogy provided the new knowledge framework to base teachers’ next steps on. Through the Observation to Shadow-coaching work, some teachers in the school were able to answer the
following questions around their practice: ‘Where am I going?’ ‘How am I going?’ and ‘Where to next?’ (Hattie & Timperley, 2007).
However, through the Rongohia te Hau surveys, Māori students consistently reported less culturally responsive and relational pedagogy was occuring within classrooms than teachers did. This provides clear proof that implementation had not yet been sufficiently spread and embedded in classrooms across the two schools. Furthermore, the continued deficit discourses around Māori students suggests the work the SCLTs had started, had not yet targeted the staff who most needed to redefine the way in which they interacted with Māori learners. Zoe and Kat both stressed that one out of five teachers changing their practice is neither urgent or collaborative enough for large-scale reform to occur. While many of the SCLTs worked with friendlies to develop their expertise with the Observation to Shadow- coaching process, Māori learners were still experiencing traditional transmission pedagogy in most classrooms. The 2015 walkthrough observation evidence showed that at Pohutukawa College this was occurring in approximately 46% of classrooms and at Totara College, 65%.
Three points arise from these findings. Firstly, prevailing discourses of dominance represent historical power-over approaches. Survey evidence showed that some teachers believed that Māori students were doing as well as could be expected, given their home/cultural circumstances. This constructed truth (Freire, 1986) may have provided them reason enough to avoid taking personal responsibility for change. Furthermore, SCLTs previous educational experiences (entrenched in traditional transmission pedagogy) may have consitituted a habitual and unconscious need for knowledge and power to drive professional learning, consequently driving a need to be experts before implementing a new way of being across the school. As discussed in Chapter One, knowledge and power are interdependent (Focault, 1980) and have been used to dominate Indigenous peoples since colonisation. If we as educators are to resist this discourse, we must adopt power-sharing approaches. As kaitoro have voiced in the previous chapter, in order to relinquish our expert status, we need to be willing and courageous enough to be vulnerable, responsive and co- learners.
Secondly, the focus on working predominantly with friendlies brings into question the depth and analysis of the Rongohia te Hau data, in order to priortise the most effective implementation of Mahi Tahi. Were questions such as; What groups of teachers or leaders could help spread Mahi Tahi; or What groups of teachers do we need to priortise working with, asked? Taking more time to make sense of the Rongohia te Hau data through critical questioning may have helped the two schools in the research better understand their context and consequently plan a more strategic spread of the kaupapa. Furthermore, having the courage to go beyond working with friendlies may have gone further to produce the transformative change needed to benefit all Māori learners, and to promote social justice.
This leads to the third notion that has surfaced in the research. Although Rongohia te Hau is critical in nature, it is not the critical response to the issue of addressing the inequity that exists for Māori learners. Rather, it provides the evidence that is needed to formulate the relevant and collective critical response within a school. Therefore, as the saying goes, weighing the pig doesn’t make it grow any faster (English Language & Usage, 2015) and using Rongohia te Hau to capture a picture of the pedagogy that is occuring within a school will not produce accelerated success for Māori learners. However, reframing new realities through a relearning and unlearning process with a sense of ugency (Berryman et al., 2016), is more likely to impact on Māori learners.