1. Future Clubhouses Hui
29 October 2008
Ann Milne
Te Whanau o Tupuranga
& Clover Park Middle School
2. Dr Manulani Meyer (2001)
Hawaiian epistemology
―…everything I have learned in school, everything I
have read in books, every seating arrangement
and response expectation – absolutely everything
– has not been shaped by a Hawaiian mind‖.
―Dulled by the guessing game of another culture,
still believing that literacy is the best indicator of
intelligence‖
―Always at the short end of a smaller
and smaller identity stick‖
3. SCHOOL AFTER SCHOOL
COMPUTER CLUBHOUSE
OBLIGATION CHOICE
STUDENT MEMBER
TEACHER MENTOR
RIGID OPEN-ENDED
ISOLATION COLLABORATION
... So how do we fit ?
4. Decile 1 Decile 1
Years 7 to 10 Years 7 to 13
Samoan, Tongan, Designated
Cook Islands Maori Character, Maori,
150 students Bilingual
Change of status 180 students
1995 New school 2006
5. Michael Apple (1999, p.18,19), urges us to …
―constantly hold dominant perspectives
and practices — in curriculum, in teaching,
in evaluation, in policy, …up to the spotlight
of honest, intense, and searching social
and cultural criticism.‖
He argues, however, that this spotlight has
to be balanced with respect for, and insight
into, the reality and daily lives of those
under its beam.
6. Pacific Island lending at all time high
Deadline looms for Maori claims
Tinnie-house Gunfight
Another shopkeeper stabbed
7. In 2007 Maori students were:
• 2.6 times more likely than Pakeha to be stood down
• 3.6 times more likely to be suspended
• 4.5 times more likely to be frequent truants
• 3.2 times more likely to be granted early leaving exemptions
at age 15
• 2.8 times more likely to leave school with no qualifications
• 2.4 times LESS likely to attain a university entrance qualification
(18.3%) (Education Counts, MOE 2007)
8. 33 still in school
13 gained University Entrance
100 students born in 1990, living in Manukau in 2007
64 are still in school
51 gained University Entrance
9. If we all woke up tomorrow
morning and suddenly those
statistics had flipped …
There would be OUTRAGE and
marching to parliament!
There would be DEMAND that
this changed NOW!
10. We have to challenge,
question and resist the
whole concept of going
forward into the 21st
Century, trying to cling to
concepts and learning
that came from the past.
So what's the problem and what should be done
about it? I think it's to do with the whole idea of
academic ability – particular, limited, types of verbal
and mathematical reasoning (Sir Ken Robinson, 1999, 2007.
11. Am I suggesting that academic success is not
an important goal? Of course not! Am I
suggesting Maori and Pasifika learners should
have some alternative, perhaps less rigorous
goals? Never!
I am however, suggesting that western
academic goals, and academic achievement,
without cultural competence and skills fall way
short of excellence.
12. Constructionism and the Clubhouse
Constructionism is a learning theory based
on Papert's belief that quot;better learning will
not come from finding better ways for the
teacher to instruct, but from giving the
learner better opportunities to
constructquot;
13. ConstructioNism Individual and community
development are reciprocally
enhanced by independent and
Social Cultural shared constructive activity that
is resonant with both the social
setting that encompasses a
community of learners, as well
as the cultural identity of the
learners themselves (Pinkett,
Sociocultural 2000,2002).
Constructionism
… an asset-based approach to community technology that sees
community members as the active producers of community content,
rather than passive consumers or recipients
14. Constructionism
Pedagogy
Social Cultural
• Critical
• Social Justice
• Culturally located
Sociocultural • Bilingual
Constructionism • Integrated
• Whanau – connected
- relationships
15. Embedded in all school policy and practice
Whanau as the underpinning organisation
Students and teachers stay together
Staff reflect students’ ethnicities
Ethnic groups work together
Older/younger students work together
throughout the day
Intensive blocks of time
Cultural norms, competencies and skills
Our kids, not “other people’s children” (Delpit 1999)
16. Our two schools believe six relationships are crucial to students’
holistic achievement and engagement in learning (Otero 2002). These are
the student’s relationship to:
1. self (cultural identity, who am I, where do I ‘fit’)
2. their learning (relevance to students’ backgrounds)
3. the teacher (mutual respect, trust, high expectations,
support - whanau)
4. other students (positive peer influence & support -
whanau)
5. the wider world (critical, emancipatory, anti-racist,
tolerant, against prejudice)
6. and a reciprocal relationship between home and
school (mutually beneficial, authentic partnership -
whanau)
17. Unlimited Potential Special Abilities
Gifted/Talented
Global Learning
•Cultural knowledge,
understanding & competency
• Cutlural norms – living ‘as Maori,’ CRITICAL PEDAGOGY
as Tongan etc SOCIAL JUSTICE
• Home, heritage RELATIONSHIPS
languages
Self Learning
• Identity Self School Learning
• Self efficacy / potential
Learning
Special Needs • Whanau support Teacher
• Values / Beliefs
At Risk Peers
• Hauora / Wellbeing
ESOL Wider world
• Wairua / Spirituality
Home/School
Unrealised Potential
18. Learning is:
integrated – across subject areas and with
students’ lives, cultures and realities (Beane, 2005)
negotiated – by students, with teachers
inquiry-based and student-driven – originating in
issues of social concern that affect our youth and
our communities and ending with the
performance of this knowledge to a wide range of
audiences
19. critical – it provides young people with the power
and the tools to understand and challenge inequity
and injustice and to make change in their lives
whanau-based – it is collective, cooperative,
collaborative and reciprocal i.e. learning is shared –
you receive it, you share it, you give back to other
learners
based in strong relationships – with self, with each
other, with teachers, with the learning itself and its
relevance, with the world beyond school and
between home and school.
culturally located and allows you to live your
cultural norms throughout the school day
20. Developing a strong cultural identity however
does not ignore the complex, multiple, shared,
and fluid identities our young people navigate
both in and beyond school – and that’s the
purpose of our green, or global lens.
In order to effectively integrate all these other
identities you first have to have a strong sense of
self and we see cultural identity as the thread that
weaves through, and acts as their compass, in all
of the other pathways our young people walk.
24. Connections = Relationships of Trust
Families to Clubhouse and schools & vice versa
Families to history – family digital stories
Young people to culture and elders – KaumatuaNet,
young people as mentors for elders, elders as a rich
repository of cultural knowledge and languages for
youth
Families to resources using advanced technology –
economic, health, education
Young people and families to learning
Families to their own networks – iwi, home marae, in the
Pacific
WHANAU - Connecting to Social and Cultural
Capital
25. sociocultural constructionism (Pinkett
2000, 2002) – you can’t separate the
learner from their context or their
cultural identity – so use the
assets of the community to
actively design and produce
content for learning.
26. Education should be learner-
centred, empowering, liberating
and grounded in praxis
(reflection and action upon the
world in order to transform it) (Freire,
1970)
27. Join the Kapa Haka group and learn some
Cultural/Social activity
items
Compose items and design complex
Constructionism - cultural
choreography – elders as mentors
Design & make costumes, dying, weaving flax Constructionism – cultural,
using traditional knowledge technological, social - identity
Live-in at the school marae 2 or 3 nights a
Cultural/Social - Identity
week to practise
Make a short film about the group’s journey to Constructionism –
the competition (Clubhouse) technological
Gain NCEA credits for your performance & your
Academic learning
documentary
Use the stage and your performance and
understanding of this knowledge as a platform
Praxis -
for protest about social justice issues transformation
28. Our definition of success and achievement is
developing young people who will change the
world and the key to that success is giving them
all the tools they need to act as agents of that
change.
That means we have to think very differently
about the way we deliver learning in our
classrooms and about the messages we give our
youth about who they are.
The Clubhouse is crucial to that journey.