He oranga ngākau, he pikinga wairoa.
Positive feelings in your heart will enhance your sense of self-worth.
(Source, New Zealand Curriculum, NZC)
As I stare at the baby in my arms I am flooded with love. I marvel at how perfect he is. I wonder how anyone could possibly think that this perfect baby could ever be considered worth any less than a baby born into a wealthier family. In fact, how could anyone ever see this baby as worth less because of his gender, the colour of his skin, the culture of his family, the wealth of his family, or anything that makes him, well, him. He is perfect just the way he is, and I realise that is true of all babies, not just mine.
I am a parent, and I became a parent before I started on my journey towards becoming a teacher. Having two children who I love beyond measure, who I wish the best for, and who are both different in what they require in order to thrive drives me as a teacher for all students. I know all learners are different, they come to school from different backgrounds, having had different experiences from each other and from me. Yet we need to work as a whole class, supporting all ākonga to succeed as individuals within the context of a functional classroom. What students have in common is they have a human right to education, and that education needs to be fair and equitable. As a teacher I need to understand how to achieve this and I look into learning theories, my own classroom experiences and training so far and from sources such as New Zealand Curriculum and Tātaiko to guide me.
Abraham Maslow’s Humanistic theory of learning works from a perspective that children’s needs must be met in order for children to thrive. These needs are from a whole person perspective, so children need to be well fed and warm, but also feel they belong, feel listened to and feel safe. This theory is corroborated by results from a Children’s Commissioner report ‘Education Matters to Me’ where insights are shared by children that they want to be seen as a whole person, taught in ways that they learn best and have good helpful teachers. 'Education matters to me' also states that children feel that good teachers, a good home environment and having friends are all important for their learning.
As a teacher, I can have influence over how I behave towards the children and the classroom culture. I can set class social norms to work towards having a supportive classroom environment for all children. The children can encourage each other to take risks, and can contribute to a safe classroom (emotionally and physically) for everyone by the choices they make with their comments and actions. Creating a supportive classroom environment is an effective pedagogical approach tis a key concept in the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). Including the children in setting the social norms will support ākonga by encouraging student voice and agreement on what a safe learning environment looks and feels like. This relates to NZC key competencies of managing self, relating to others and participating and contributing.
The humanistic theory of teaching has a lot to offer that I feel is relevant to my approach as a teacher. I also find that it fits well with feedback I have received from students while I have been on practicum. I have had ākonga tell me that they like me asking about their interests and taking an interest in what they are doing (for example one day I asked about a red substance one of the children had on her head like a unicorn horn which turned out to be melted candle wax. The girls in the group commented that it was nice to have an adult be interested in them).
I have seen that allowing for more of the whole person in lessons enhances engagement with students, for example when I brought drawing into a maths lesson it dramatically improved engagement and made collaborative problem solving seem to occur spontaneously rather than been teacher led. The humanistic theory of teaching, of treating a person as a whole person also fits with the effective pedagogical approach outlined in NZC of making connections to prior learning. By making connections to prior learning students see the value of their learning efforts which can further motivate them to be their best selves.
While humanistic theory helps to explain that a child with unmet needs will struggle to learn, I have experienced in my practicum some limitation with children being motivated in their learning. I am not yet convinced from what I have seen in class on practicum that meeting children’s needs automatically motivates them to want to learn.
I have been pleasantly surprised with how open the ākonga are to learning, even in learning areas that aren’t their first choice of interest students still seem to want to feel capable and successful.
I have also noticed in my practicum that all ākonga, regardless of ability, struggle with engagement when they find work difficult. This has made finding ways to promote engagement in learning a priority for me as a teacher.
I am aware that schools use reward systems to encourage students. Dojo points, filling a jar with pebbles etc. Students behavior earns rewards that lead to a bigger reward. In the past, and perhaps still today, B.F. Skinners behaviorist approach to learning proports that all learning can occur from a reward and punishment perspective. A teacher rewards students to do the “right” thing and punishes them for doing the “wrong” thing.
As a teacher I relate well to the humanist theory, however since engagement is such a high priority for me I wonder if there is a place for external motivation driving behavior?
Albert Bandura (1977) developed a social learning theory (also known as a social cognitive theory) that states that learners think about the relationship between their behavior and the consequences of their behavior. Social cognitive theory also states that environment is the main influence on behavior.
As a teacher I am more interested in what works than in theories, however using effective pedagogical approaches from the NZC such as creating a supportive learning environment does seem to work well with both social learning theory and humanistic theory.
One of the principles of NZC is community engagement. From my experiences as a parent at Playcentre (a nationwide parent managed ECE) I am well aware that what works well in one community isn’t useful for another community. This is useful prior knowledge for teaching as each school is in a different community, and while we are linked by a common curriculum, this curriculum is written in such a way that is can be responsive to the community that I am teaching in.
Another principle of NZC is the Treaty of Waitangi principle. This principle recognizes that New Zealand is a bicultural country.
Abraham Maslow and B.F. Skinner were American, while Albert Bandura was Canadian-American. As psychologists they developed theories that we might draw from in teaching ākonga. However, they were not New Zealanders, their theories don’t directly include the local communities of a school or New Zealand's unique position of having Maori people as tanagata whenua of NZ.
Tātaiko is a resource for outlining cultural competence for teachers to successfully teach Māori learners. One of key messages is that Māori learners need to succeed as Māori. As a teacher, inclusion means making sure that all learners are able to be part of the classroom learning. I find that Tātaiko has approaches that apply to everyone in the classroom, and fit with my approach as a teacher. The practice of Ako, that we all learn from each other, was an extremely useful concept for me at Playcentre as I learnt from all the people that I was involved with, including the other parents, educational experts and from the under 5 year olds.
As a teacher, there are many people I will be learning from. These include other teachers, educational experts and the ākonga themselves. The ākonga will be experts in their areas of interest, and they are willing to share and teach what they know. As a simple example learnt a game from ākonga in the first school I did my practicum that I then taught the ākonga at the second school I did my practicum at. Had I not been willing to learn from the original ākonga I would have missed out on a valuable resource that I used as a reward to keep ākonga focused on their learning.
Whanaungatanga as a competency of Tātaiko is also something I feel fits well with my identity as a teacher. From my own experiences of Playcentre and of parenting I know that relationships and ākonga live one life, not a school like and a home life. As a parent when I understand what my children are learning and experiencing at school I am more able to support them to make sense of their experiences. As a teacher, the more I understand about a student, including their family life and what is important to them, the more meaningful their learning can be made. As a simple concrete example of this, when I was helping a student in my last practicum with maths he tried to explain to me what he had been taught at home. If I had a better relationship with the people who were supporting his learning at home then we could find a way to have cohesive messages about how to approach maths problems.
The challenge as I work towards being a teacher is to combine my past experiences with my current learning to create an equitable environment that supports all learners. Not all children that will be in my classes have the same backgrounds, in fact they are all different. For me, the answer begins with how I see myself as a teacher. In fact I don’t see myself as a teacher, but as a learning facilitator. It will be my role to use best practice pedagogy to work with ākonga to facilitate learning.