Digging deeper into cultural relationships for responsive pedagogy

The following reading was given to me to share with my SLT and use as a starting point for unpacking what an Epic Leader and and Epic Leadership Team look like/sound like/feel like/act like. 

Cultural Relationshipos for Responsive Pedagogy - A bicultural mana orite perspective. Mere Berryman, Dawn Lawrence, and Robbie Lamont

It can be found at NZCER.

This article reframe the discussions around cultural responsive and relational pedagogy.  The authors do this by renaming this space cultural relationships for responsive pedagogy. They bring relational and responsive pedagogy together. This is meant to be an and/and model with both componesnt being interdependent. It discusses learning relationships from a bicultural, mana orite perspective.  Something which I am still getting my head around understanding, so that the words 'lip-service' and 'tokenism' don't get associated with our kura.

Below are the key points and that I took out of the article in relation to working with my SLT.  I have put questions next to each which we could address as a team.  

Cultural Relationships

• Understanding the nature of effective relationships is foundational -             Q: What do cultural relationships involve, and how would we recognise these in practice?
• Mana Orite - the relational intent of the Treaty of Waitangi: interdependent relationships, brings responsibilities to both groups to maintain the mana of the other, and understand the mana of both as orite (equal). -                       Q: what does maintaining the mana of each other look like?                         Q: what are  the foundations of interdependent relationships?                        Q: do we want to perpetuate or disrupt traditional power relationships?          Q: can we use mana orite as a position from which to seek solutions for             relational engagement?    
• Bringing all the metaphors/principles to life (whanaungatanga, kotahitanga, whakapapa, kaupapa, ako etc) will only work if they work in synergy -           Q: how can we bring these principles to life in our SLT?
• The paradigm of unconscious bias helps explain patterns of discrimination -   Q: do we each hold unconscious bias?                                                       Q: if we do, are  we empowering or disempowering our member when this         bias comes to the fore?
• Within the context of our team social and cultural environment we should understand both the intrapersonal (heads and hearts) and the interpersonal (between each other) -                                                         Q: do we listen beyond the words and respond to the person, and not just our assumptions of who they might be?
• Shift the focus from being responsive to the culture of others to developing and being part of cultural relationships with others -                                       Q: what is underneath the surface of our individual icebergs:  (expectations, thought processes, perceptions, notions of self and values)?
• 'Creating spaces' is essential to open the opportunity to share, aspire, identify, connect, engage' -                                                                           Q: what does our space look like and sound like?                                         Q: do we have enough trust and respect in order to do develop a relational dialogic space?                                                                           Q: what might need to change in order for this space to be created?             Q: how do we make the time and commit?

Relational Pedagogy

• This is a pedagogy that emerges from within a relational dialogic space (see above). It all starts with 'listening'. The listeners are as actively engaged as the speaker in seeking to make sense of whats being said -                             Q: how do we start the korero as a team - what question needs to be asked first?
• Respecting diversity is important and understanding the potential for learning and growth through exploration of these differences -                                     Q: how to do we become more open to 'being open' -                                 Q: do we set the rules of engagement: take risks, its ok to 'not know', all knowledge is valued, care and connectedness is key, engage all, use a wide range of evidence, we are all learners, challenge established practice, critical reflection, iterative processes.
• Learning and achieveing for the future whilst being strong and secure in cultural identity (suggested state of mauri ora).  Sir Mason Duries suggests Mauri Ora is: engaging in positive relationships with others, sense of belonging, spiritually and emotionally strong, positive and energetic.                  Q: do we understand and value each others cultural identity?

If we were able to bring a mana orite perspective to everything we do at our kura, could we be transformative?  Can we transform current dominate thinking through our structures, processes, and practices?  Are we ready to develop meaningful cutlural relationships as a team? Can we be Epic Leaders?