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Mainstream Schooling = Whitestream Schooling


Recently I watched a clip on youtube by Dr Anne Milne.  Milne discusses how mainstream schooling is in fact whitestream schooling.  That when Europeans came to New Zealand, we took on their education system and essentially made Māori fit into the European mold.  New Zealand is renowned for having a world class education system. But do we really? When soo many of our Māori and Pasifika students are underachieving.  Is the focus on Literacy and Numeracy really working for our students?

One of the key parts of Milne’s (2017) clip that has stuck with me is when she touches on three aspects of Critical Pedagogy.  These being, empowered cultural identity, academic achievement and action for social change. The majority of schools focus mainly on academic achievement with little to no emphasis on cultural identity and social change.  Milne (2017) examined how by empowering students through knowledge of their identity and providing them with opportunities to create social change, literacy and numeracy skills were increased.

I believe we need to look at our school curriculum and reflect on how much of our curriculum is about each of the three aspects of Critical Pedagogy.  We need to critically look at what we are doing in our schools and question the status quo in order to provide a world class education for all New Zealand students.






You can find the clip I watched here:


Comments

  1. Mr MacJuly 26, 2018 at 2:28 PM

    Thanks for sharing about this Jade. There is huge potential for schools to grow and change within this whole area that Milne addresses.

    ReplyDelete

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