An eye on inequities
Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington alumna Brigit Kerr has been teaching for over 24 years, but a desire to make education more equitable saw her return to pursue her Master of Education.
“It’s about acknowledging that mātauranga Māori is an important worldview in Aotearoa. I’ve seen inequities in place in teaching, learning, and assessment and the impacts that this has on children’s wellbeing, their sense of self, and their identity as a learner,” says Brigit, who recently completed her Master’s.
“Part of my teaching experience has been working with the Education Review Office when they completed reviews at my previous school. That led me to think about how we were measuring student success and whether it was the best approach for our students,” explains Brigit.
“The Ministry of Education has focused in recent years on culturally relevant and culturally responsive teaching, but there hasn’t really been any discussion about how we can assess in equitable ways,” says the School of Education’s Associate Professor Robin Averill, who was Brigit’s supervisor.
“Brigit’s thesis looks at what classroom assessment would look like if teachers took a mātauranga Māori approach, and since it was completed, policy-makers have been taking notice,” says Associate Professor Robin Averill. Brigit has recently published a research article on culturally sustaining assessment from the thesis, led professional development sessions and is sharing her research at education conferences.
Brigit’s study started from the perspective that assessment needs to be integrated through teaching and learning, and that the emphasis on mātauranga Māori in teaching and learning should be used to enhance assessment design and practice.
Brigit’s research included a literature analysis, as well as personal interviews with leading educationalists. She is aware that as a Pākehā woman in education, she represents the majority of the workforce, so also had to increase her own cultural understanding. “I think it is our responsibility as teachers to build our understanding of mātauranga Māori and engage with it, embrace it, and embed it into teaching and learning programmes”.
The discussions with practitioners were the most valuable consideration for Brigit: “They shared their experiences and their understanding of assessment through the concepts of manaakitanga (care, respect, and hospitality) and wānanga (a sharing of knowledge, a place of learning).” She discovered how much she didn’t know and opened her mind to what they were saying.
One of the examiners of Brigit's work was a leading Māori education academic,” says Robin. “She not only saw great value in this work but took time to meet with Brigit to talk over some of her feedback, so that the final version of the dissertation has had changes made in light of her feedback. To have that buy-in from one of the leaders in Māori education thinking in New Zealand, adds weight to the value of this work.”
Brigit based her analysis around manaakitanga and wānanga, two of the five competencies in Tātaiako, the Ministry of Education’s cultural competencies for teachers of Māori learners. In the resulting Hauora Approach to Assessment framework, Brigit further identified key themes and subthemes to consider within assessment design and practice.
From manaakitanga came ngā hononga (connectedness) and ahurea tuakiri (cultural identity), and the sub-themes of care, empowerment, fairness and justices, awareness of self, and student identity. From wānanga came mana ōrite (power sharing) and whakamana i ngā kōrero (rich dialogues), and the subthemes of partnership, active participation, co-construction, learning-focused, and rich dialogue.
“If we use teaching and learning as an avenue to gauge an understanding of students’ knowledge and skills, and what they bring into classroom as individuals and students, we have opportunities to understand them as learners and people. By giving them an understanding of assessment and giving them a voice, we are uplifting them as partners in the teaching and learning paradigm,” says Brigit.
“The framework acknowledges students as critical people in the classroom. It acknowledges what experiences, beliefs, and views they come to school with, both from inside and outside the classroom, and acknowledges the inherent capabilities and skills they have, not just privileging those students who achieve because they fit into current assessment structures.”
Brigit now works as a Resource Teacher of Literacy and has begun to think about the impacts in the literacy domain and how her research could be implemented. “The biggest shift in my practice is being open to accepting broad and differing views of knowledge and skill acquisitions and not coming into assessment with an idea of what I want to see as a teacher.”
“One of the things I am starting to challenge now is what determines student success in reading comprehension, and whether the ways we measure that as teachers is capturing the knowledge and understanding of students who have diverse experiences and worldviews”.
Through this study, Brigit learned to listen more purposefully to colleagues, students, and those who understand mātauranga Māori.
Brigit says she also learned to consider how to position herself within the classroom. “Do you position yourself as an expert who needs to impart knowledge or as a learner who has something to contribute? How does this change during different parts of the days? And most importantly, if you have a deeper understanding of manaakitanga and wānanga, how might you position yourself differently?”
Associate Professor Averill has enjoyed being part of this study, as part of a continuous quest to see how we can make teaching and assessment more suitable for all learners, saying, “The answers are not only from academics, the answers are from people at the chalkface, in classrooms working with students all the time”.