Reflections on my positionality in relation to Te Tiriti

 

Kei whea au?

Where am I in relation to Te Tiriti o Waitangi in Education?

I am in the process of attempting to honour the obligations and commitments of my ancestors, recognise that I am a beneficiary of a system that has oppressed Māori. The education institution I am a part of, contribute to and work within, has aspirations of a Te Tiriti-led future. My role in the university as Kaiārahi Tiriti (Tiriti o Waitangi mentor) has been a privilege, and instrumental to my conscientisation. This role has given me time to gain a solid understanding of Te Tiriti, the context in which it was created and the intentions and aspirations behind its provisions.

As we hope to become treaty partners of equal mana (Tawhai, 2024), I can’t help thinking: where are my fellow Pākehā in this? The hegemony who appear to be at best willing though unsure - a situation I recognise all too well, which can lead to a form of paralysis (Hotere-Barnes, 2015). I see ,my role as a descendant of settlers (I trace my tipuna on both sides of my family back to Scotland, and through exploration of my whakapapa as part of understanding my situated position as part of the Kaiārahi work I came to realise my ancestors have been here longer than I thought, possibly dating back to the late 1800’s; at some level, I have come to understand that thinking my ancestors haven’t been here that long somehow assuaged a sense of colonising guilt).

As a Pākehā I need to reimagine myself in resistance to the hegemony that I am arguably a part of, and to imagine a new construction of both myself within the education system and a newly imagined education system itself. Or at least contribute to reimagining my institution, and my place within that institution.

Barriers in the education system

 Barriers in the education system

The main barrier that exists within our current education system is that mainstream education takes place within a  Western-centric cultural hegemony. This means that those whose first language is English and who come from a Western culture more immediately feel a sense of when engaging with course content, as it reflects their world and worldview, is familiar, reassuring and comfortable.
Very often - almost always, in my experience - the Western perspective on any topic is the first that is taught, and established as a "truth". Very often, other perspectives or understandings of a topic - mātauranga Māori, for example - are not explored or engaged with.
In some cases, even at tertiary level other perspectives and cultural understandings of knowledge are not only not taught but actively denigrated. It is a system in which not all learners, not all cultures, feel they belong or welcome. This sense can be reflected back to the learner through the bias of course content, teacher attitudes, unconscious bias, the hidden curriculum, and even outright racism.

These barriers will continue to exist until thinking changes at every level of the education system.. The greatest shift would come from change taking place at the highest levels of the system, where decisions in education policy are made regarding what is important to be taught and assessed, and how it should be taught and assessed, and what is important in the classroom. Creating a shift in thinking at this level, which would filter throughout the education system to be enacted in classrooms and lecture halls across the country, requires multiple cultural perspectives and ways of understanding being engaged in and contributing to the process of creating policy and making change.

Narrative / Counternarrative

 

Narrative / Counternarrative

Dominant narrative: One of the key threads in my learning narrative is that I have been successful as a learner. A part of my narrative identity (McAdams, 2011) in education is that, when my mental wellbeing was in good form, I was a good student, successful within the system. Or, at least I understood the system in which I was engaged well enough to succeed within it. I chose subjects I could do well in and avoided those that were not suited.

My narrative identity was reflected in two prominent measures of success: the grades that I received for my efforts, and feedback from teachers on my submitted work. Success was measured in how well my work met the expectations and standards set by the curriculum - a situation seen to be not only unproblematic but actively aspired to by everyone.

A counter-narrative:
The counter-narrative to this is uncomfortable: that I was only ever as clever as I thought I was because I engaged in a system that reflected my culture, used my language, was steeped in my Pākehā cultural background, enacted in a learning environment where I understood the rules, and reflected the same understanding of the world that I grew up with. The curriculum was made for me to succeed.
For much of my education, I have taken for granted the fact that I belonged within its systems. I moved from the magical consciousness of primary and even high school through to a naive consciousness (Freire, 2000) that began to form in tertiary education - though even then, I felt that I belonged, that this system was for me and it was certainly not my problem if you felt otherwise.
As I continue learning, a critical awareness is creeping in, I am “developing, strengthening and changing (my) consciousness” (Montero, 2014, p. 296) and increasingly understanding of the effects of this system on others - those who do not feel they belong, who do not see their worldview or cultural understanding of knowledge reflected.

Smith (2005) talked about Māori being part of the struggle against the Pākehā hegemony whether they liked it or not, whether they knew it or not; this must also mean that Pākehā, as wielders of that hegemony, are a part of it also - whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not. One question I find myself asking is this: why would members of the cultural hegemony (Pākehā) challenge and change a system that so heavily favours them? 

Moving from conscientisation to transformative praxis (Smith, 2005; Freire, 2000) I must engage - intellectually and physically, emotionally and even spiritually - in a kaupapa that sits outside the worldview that has been reflected back at me, ratified and celebrated, throughout the entirety of my educational experience.

In my experience, for those who wear it, privilege is weightless - in order to feel it, to understand that perhaps you are part of the problem requires stepping into discomfort. It is interesting to explore and understand the discomfort this involved, and to wonder what it would take for others in my position, those like me, particularly Pākehā, to do so also (Hotere-Barnes, 2015) - I am beginning to think that understanding this may just be central to creating change in the Western Dominant education system here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

References

Freiri, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuim.     

Hotere-Barnes, A. (2015). Generating ‘Non-stupid Optimism’: Addressing Pākehā Paralysis in Māori Educational Research. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 50(1), 39-53. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40841-015-0007-y     

Montero, M, (2014) Conscientization, in Teo, T. (Ed.). (2014). Encyclopedia of critical psychology. Springer.

Smith, G. H. (2005). Beyond Political Literacy: From Conscientization to Transformative Praxis. Counterpoints, 275, 29-42.     

What has education done for me?

 

What has education done for me?

 The logo of my high school when I was there - no reo Māori, only the dead Latin language

Education has shaped my life in two ways: as a practitioner, employed in education in one way or another for the last 15 years, and as a learner.

My high school experience was uneventful, populated with small moments that defined the direction on my learning - a maths teacher needlessly underscoring my ongoing lack of understanding in front of the class, for example, or hearing second-hand praise from my English teacher, which lit my shy and anxious teenage heart up with warm affirmation.

I attended art school but was too mixed-up, anxious and distracted to make the most of it, an opportunity I look back on and wish I could do all over again. According to the dominant narrative of what matters, I came through okay, grades-wise; yet, for myself I made very few artworks or pieces that I considered successful, that held meaning for me or met the criteria of success as far as I was concerned.

I returned to learning when our first child was on her way with one intense year of graduate teacher’s college. Here, the real learning occurred when it was applied, in the classroom, where it mattered. I was successful in gaining good grades in the academic side of things - essays exams, etc. - but I knew my applied learning in the classroom was riddled with small failures in classroom management, student interaction and support and an overall lack of understanding and confidence in what I was doing. I was only beginning to understand, back then, that the process would take years to gain mastery over. Perhaps those grades were only an indication that I was ready or had enough foundational knowledge to truly begin learning.   

My narrative identity in terms of education is that I apparently know what it takes to be successful in the system, though I personally have my doubts about those levels of success. One of the ways to be successful is to concentrate on your strengths and jettison the subjects that you feel weak in. For example, my high school mathematics experiences led me to believe I was weak in maths - I didn’t “get it” and, while my teacher highlighted this fact, he also did nothing to help me get it. The narrative was that maths was something you got or you did not.

As I watch my high school-aged daughter struggle with maths, I am aware of the same narrative arising in her education experience., and how it leaves her feeling when - with a little one-to-one help - she comes to understand what is asked of her and her self-belief grows before your eyes.

The readings and learning in this module so far have led me to reflect on how teachers contribute to the narrative identity of the learners in their classroom - through the culture they create and the way learners are treated. I’ve recently experienced this with my two children, who both had the same teacher in Year 7 who did very little to create an inclusive, supportive culture in his classroom, situated in a school that also had a negative culture overall. We witnessed the rapid decline in mental and social wellbeing that occurred for each of our kids, and in both instances changed schools for the better. 

This is all perhaps summed up in a comment made recently by a colleague, which rang true and has stayed with me, sitting at the heart of my thinking about this: no one cares about what you know, they will only remember how you treated them.

 The logo of my high school now - a move from Latin to te reo, macrons/tohutū in place - perhaps people are now also pronouncing the name of the school correctly