Week 5 - Practice - Laws and Ethics Influence

Our profession is a tricky one as we have worked hard for our degrees, been provisionally registered and been under the guiding hand or a mentor then build up our years in teaching.  Our parents / families in our school community know that but it still doesn't stop them questioning what or why we are doing things.  Sometimes we have to hold our tongues when suggestions are given to us or comments are made as that shows our professionalism. The reality is it is still an emotive job as we are working with children whose parents are, quite rightly biased.  

The Code of Ethics according to the Education Council of New Zealand for Certificated Teachers is the professional interactions of teachers are governed by four fundamental principles:

• Autonomy to treat people with rights that are to be honoured and defended.
• Justice to share power and prevent the abuse of power.
• Responsible care to do good and minimise harm to others.
• Truth to be honest with others and self.

We as teachers are also to show commitment to learners, parents / guardians, family / whanau, society and to the profession, (Education Council. n.d.) and I am certain that most teachers adhere to this. 

For the past 3 years we have been a BYOD school - optional from Year 4 to Year 8.  The children and the parents sign a code of conduct regarding the use of devices.  They also sign a form related to where they are happy for their children to be photographed.  This includes our newsletter, facebook page, website and newspaper.

I have one family who choose to not have their child's photograph on facebook for their own reasons.  They are happy for them to be published everywhere else.  

The issue we come across is that I know who the child is, along with all the other staff members but when being involved with public, community events we have had the instance happen that photos are taken and are published on our Community facebook page.  What we have to think about as a staff is when we know photos are to be taken do we let the community member know they can't take photos of a certain child or is that breaching privacy?  My thought it is breaching privacy but all I asked was, I saw the photos taken before they were published and then discretely asked for certain ones to be deleted.  This was not acting on any code of conduct but just common sense before a problem arose.

The negatives related to this was the parent could have been very upset with the school in thinking we don't take any notice of her requests when if it had happened it would have been a genuine mistake.  

This has got me to thinking about school camp. We are away in 4 weeks and during our parent session where we discuss expectations I have made the decision for the first year ever to discuss photo etiquette.  After teaching for 22 years this is another place the world is changing.  We have police vetted our parents and always discussed confidentiality on camp but now I need them to think about the photos they take and where they will be published.  I had a wonderful parent put photos on facebook last year but this year we will discuss sending them all to me and I will out them on a disc and give to families, then it will be the parents choice to where they share their photos.  

The questions recommended from Hall ( 2001) will help to guide my thinking process when discussing with the parents about camp.  The questions being - 

• “Which stakeholder should be given priority? Why?
• What restrictions are there to your actions?
• Which courses of action are possible?
• How should the course of action be implemented? “ (p.5)

It is not going to change camp or the amazing experiences that we have on camp but certainly is another level of our ever changing world in education.

References - 

Code of Ethics for Certified Teachers 

Retrieved from:https://the.org. etiquette/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0

Hall, A. (2001) What ought I to do, all things considered? An approach to the exploration of ethical problems by teachers. Paper presented at the IIPE Conference, Brisbane. Retrieved from http://www. etiquette.govt. confidentiality/Culture/Developing-leaders/What-Ought-I-to-Do-All-Things-Considered-An-Approach-to-the-Exploration-of-Ethical-Problems-by-Teachers

Week 4 - Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness.

I grew up in rural Southland where my family ties to Scotland was very loud and proud with the sounds of bagpipes, highland dancing and the ode to the haggis!  Being at a rural school where all the children were from generational sheep farmers, my awareness of other cultures was very limited.  We had 1 or 2 families who identified with being Maori, who would come and go depending on the shearing season.

Now teaching in a similar rural setting I have noticed how dramatic the demographics of a rural community has become.  As my own children are being brought up in a similar lifestyle I can see their experience is truly enriched with the friends they are making that have come from all around the world.  Their eyes and emotions are more in tune with many different cultures, which is something I didn't have.

Being culturally responsive means caring for people, and caring for their learning. Bishop, (2012) As a teacher, this is something I endeavour to do in my classroom practice and teaching. As a teacher I do not accept the deficit and have the expectation that everyone will succeed and make progress to the best of their abilities and in their own style.

Our school does well -
One important part of cultural responsive pedagogy begins with student - teacher relationships and more importantly authentic caring which Savage etal (2011) describes as “Authentic caring entails getting to know students, attending to student input regarding teaching and learning, respecting students’ intellectual abilities, and valuing identities students bring into school from home”.

In our staff meetings we always dedicate a time to our priority learners and ESOL children. Our ESOL teacher has a major part in this and all staff are there. This way we can discuss the child in a more holistic way and look at how we as a school community can enhance the learning for this child. this is the benefit to being a small rural school.  Over time we all get to know our students and their families very well.

Research by Gay (2002) states there are five essential elements in culturally responsive teaching.  They are “developing a knowledge base about cultural diversity, including ethnic and cultural diversity content in the curriculum, demonstrating caring and building learning communities, communicating with ethnically diverse students, and responding to ethnic diversity in the delivery of instruction” (p.106).

Along with this, once a term we hold migrant meetings.  This involves the Principal, Board of Trustee reps, the ESOL teacher and a classroom teacher.   The families are welcome to bring their children and there is always food involved.  We discuss what is happening for the term, they tell us what we are doing well for their children and how we can develop what we have got to make it better for them.  Communication is the key to including all.

What we are continuing to develop - 
We know we have these great meetings with our families but what we have highlighted is that we still need to incorporate their strengths into our curriculum programme.  This would make the families feel they are even more involved, if they can share their knowledge and passions with our children.  This is something we are continuing to develop over 2017

With a focus to the Unitec Poutama we are still on step one as we need to incorporate more Maori knowledge concepts to our assessment process, yet looking at relationships we are demonstrating our own principles.

A real interesting and topical perspective, indigenous knowledge and being culturally responsive, on our ever changing landscape of children in our schools... one I think about often but sometimes unsure of whether I do enough in my practise but certainly something that is evolving over time.

References -

Source: Edtalks.(2012, September 23). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. [video file].Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49992994

Gay,G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2),106-116.

Savage,C, Hindleb, R., Meyerc,L., Hyndsa,A., Penetitob, W. & Sleeterd, C.(2011) Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: indigenous student experiences across the curriculum .Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39(3), 183–198:

Week 3 - New Zealand Educational trends...

New Zealand Educational Trends

The New Zealand Education Review Office in 2012 has three areas for priority learners that we should all be focused on if students are to be at the heart of learning.

1. Shifting the focus to student centred
2. Responsive and rich curriculum
3. Using assessment information to know about, and plan for students' learning

I am going to focus on shifting the focus to student centred as I believe I was doing that until I read the article from ERO and realised there were many more elements to being student centred, which is great for my thinking and classroom practice.

Many educational environments are shifting the focus of their classrooms to being student centred but there needs to be an understanding from the staff involved to how this may happen.  To what this looks like and sounds like, to what this is like for the children and their families as this shift involves the students to become a partner in their learning.  This is a beneficial shift for Maori children as this helps provide good opportunities for them to bring what they know and their ways of knowing and making sense of the world.  (ERO, 2012)  In my situation our school community comprises of 24% migrant children therefore the same philosophy applies to them.

It involves the students taking on Leadership Roles with their learning.  They need to be involved with the planning process of the next steps, their goals, reporting on their progress to their parents.  We do discuss the next goals but I know I need to develop their learning rubrics so the children can identify their next learning step.

Teaching as Inquiry ERO, (2012) shows the connection between deliberate teaching and learning is not yet well developed.  It states the teachers are creating opportunities to learn and leaders are advocating this, many are not focussed the deeper more critical element of the relationship between achievement, progress and teaching.  To have this would be promoting accelerated learning opportunities.  A fine example to me was when I undertook the ALiM ( Accelerated Learning in Mathematics) programme in 2016.  I had always thought I was competent in teaching maths but I did struggle with how to get through to those children who historically weren't succeeding as they were coming through the years.  After the professional development we received and critically analysing our teaching practice, we were able to then develop a programme which was rigorous, stimulating and ultimately successful for our target group, of which were 20% migrant children.  Accelerated learning works best when teachers and learners try different approaches to teaching and learning which might benefit the students.

Many of my questions and thoughts relate around the idea that if we could be less obsessed with academic standards and qualifications and place more emphasis on values and attitudes to problem solving and life(Hood, 2015), would this create learners who are more equipped with life after school and make them reflect more on their passions to find success from different avenues?

References - 

Education Review Office. (2012).

ERO (2012) Teaching as Inquiry: Responding to learners.  Wellington: Education Review Office.

Hood, D. (2015) The Rhetoric and the Reality: New Zealand Schools and Schooling in the 21st Century Fraser Books.

Week 2 - Identify and evaluate the context of my practice.

Characteristics of our community -

We are a rural school with sheep and dairy farms surrounding us. Many of our children that attend are generational children whose parents and Grandparents have gone through the school as the younger generation take over the farm.  In our classrooms we are multilevelled and I can often have a child for up to 3 years and have siblings in the class.  We are seeing a change happen - due to more migrant workers coming into the district for farm work we have more South African and Filipino children attending. We are now 20% Asian children and employ a teacher to work with our ESOL children.  We are classed as a decile 9 but the doesn't seem to reflect our families in our Community now yet I know it is supposed to.

Culture of school - 

A climate of a school should be unique to any particular school and thats ok but it should be positive, and the culture is deeper, based off their values, how do they do things, how people treat each other.  (Warner, 2015).  I feel we have a positive climate at school.  Our children greet visitors by yelling our 'hello' in the playground as they enter the gat, they open doors for adults, they are polite to each other and there is a true feeling of whanau where older children help the younger children.  We have happy children, most of the time and they are working on strategies for those moments when things don't go their way.

Approximately 7 years ago we introduced a new mission statement and after consultation with our community we came up with, 

“Making an impact”

Whakahihi ana te haere - Walk tall – Be proud of myself, my school & my community

Whakahau ana te tu - Stand strong – Believe in myself, respect others & be honest

Whakahirahira ana te whainga - Aim high – Set goals and do what I can to achieve these

These statements, underpin our values which are interwoven into our classroom at all times. They are acknowledged and reminded of in our day book, certificates for assemblies, notes in our newsletters. Our children become exposed to our expectations when they enter our transition class attached to our local playgroup and are displaying these attributes throughout their school life.

I am not sure how you would measure it as we do get comments from visitors to our school but is hard to show as official evidence.

Our Principal is very respectful to we as teachers being Professionals and I know that respect is reciprocated as all the teachers work hard, are passionate about their role within the school.

Food for thought -

We love our South African and Asian families and the children are so happy all the time at school but it does pose a problem when trying to involve the families.

In our school we operate with 40 families and when you are trying to get people to come up for governance in Board of Trustee roles or to be on Home and School or fundraising committees is becomes harder and harder to 'spread the work load. Yet I suspect this is hard in any school community no matter what the size of the school.

How we try to get around this is to hold a new family session just after Gypsy Day on the first of June. This is when we traditionally gain new families from Dairying Contracts changing. We also hold a migrant meeting once a term. We phone all our families involved and send out emailed invitations, so they can translate them. Our Principal, ESOL teacher, a classroom teacher and a couple of Board members go and they talk about what is happening at school, explain things in the newsletter, ask the families what is going well, and how can we help them to make things easier.

Our families really appreciate these meetings and things are beginning to change. We now have one of our Filipino Dads on the Board and 2 parents have attended the Home and School meeting.

I believe after reading about the Norms, (Stoll,1998) we endeavour to use these ideas to making our school a safe, positive place for our learners. With a continued focus on our Statement the children will have these ideas placed in front of them all the time. This is always changing, improving as the students go through and as things influence and change from around you. Our staff is a small and stable staff which helps to create our culture. Staff are the consistent entity to build culture and climate as students are the piece of the puzzle that flow through it. (Warner, 2015)

References - 

Academy for SELinSchools. ( 2015, Apr 28).What is school culture and climate? [video file].Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-_NvhlcusQ

Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London.

Week 1 - Community of Practice.

Defining my Community of Practice - 

My environment - 

When I think of a Community of Practice, firstly I think of the Environment I teach in.   
I teach at a rural school of 65 children. We are a decile 9 and over the years we have become increasingly more transient and multicultural with families coming in related to dairying.

We have 3 classrooms which work full time and 1 classroom which is Board and Community funded for mornings.  At the end of the previous year,  it is put to our Community about funding the 4th teacher in mornings for core subjects and for many years now the answer is yes.  This takes a lot of effort from the Community for raising the money.

We are a small staff of 3 full time staff, thats including the Principal, 1 principal release teacher, 1 teacher who comes in for 0.2 ORRS funding and ESOL funding, 1 office receptionist and 1 teachers aide but amongst this small group of people we have a lot of different strengths, interests and passions.  McAlister (2016) states that size of group does not matter as powerful discussion can occur in the smallest groups.

My Community of Practice - 

Wenger & transient-Wenger, 2015, describe Communities of Practice as groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly, and this is what I feel everyone on our staff is like.  Everyone has information and practical ideas from their strength, passion and happy to share.  Staff are happy to take these ideas and develop them for their own professional gain.   Knox (2009) explains in his video that a Community of Practice is a group of people sharing a passion for something they know how to do. They interact regularly to get better at what they do. He also says, the purpose is to create, expand and exchange knowledge to develop individual capabilities.

Within my Environment I believe our Domain is our staff and our shared domain of interest is our children. Our principal often reiterates our ideas and to check that, are the ideas going to be benefit the children at our school.  It is all about the kids.  Yes, there is the mandatory paperwork we have to complete but for everything else is it about the children. 

Our Community is the staff and in particular our teaching staff.  We are all willing to share from our strengths.  This happens in our set staff meetings where we discuss the latest things we have heard in our practice or record ourselves and use this as a learning / moderating tool.  As mush as we have to overcome feeling self-conscious about this, we do walk out of there having something to think about our own teaching.  This is interwoven with the Practice Wenger (2000) discusses, where we share tools, stories.  All of this practise also happens anecdotally when we visit other classrooms and have a professional discussion about what is happening in our rooms.  As our classrooms are multilevelled this also helps us to have a flow from the different ages as we know what is expected in each classroom.  Wenger (2000) suggests that “In the end, the success of the community will depend on the energy that the community itself generates, not an external mandate”. 

It's all about me - 

We as a staff are all valued for our contributions.  I am the staff member that often 'thinks outside the box' for ideas that are more kinaesthetic, involving more than one curriculum area at a time, for bringing in the creative side to learning so no matter what planning we do, there are elements of all our ideas.  Ironically I have also been involved in ALiM ( Accelerated Learning in Mathematics) in 2016 and I share a lot of strategies I have learnt from there.  Our target group of 10 children made huge gains after being on this programme and I am looking forward to ALiM 2 in 2017.
This environment with passionate teachers who are all willing to learn off each other make for a very effective Community of Practice.

References - 

Knox, B. (2009, December 4).Cultivating Communities of Practice: Making Them Grow.[video file].        Retrieved from https://app. with the.com/media/31246/view

McAlister, M. (2016). The Creative Nature of Communities of Practice. Transformative Dialogues:
     Teaching & Learning Journal, 9(2), 1-7.

Wegner, E (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7(2), 225-246.