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Ruatoki, New Zealand, 2007. In Aotearoa-New Zealand, Maori High School students have a "failure" rate almost twice that on non-Maori. This pattern is common in the education of previouisly colonised Indigenous peoples and has been attributed significantly to the deficit thinking of teachers. The Te Kotahitanga programme is a professional development programme for teachers which aims to conscientise them to an awareness of how their negative expectations of Maori students impacts upon their achievement levels. Conservative critics have attacked the programme, suggesting that it is "ideological" in nature. This paper looks at the programme and at the criticism levelled at it. The analysis centres around teacher and student attitudes in one particular High School located close to the small Maori village of Ruatoki. It was here that recently, polce cordoned off the village and arrested two members of the community in "anti-terrorist" raids.
The police "anti-terrorism" raids in Ruatoki, in which heavily armed "anti-terrorism" squads boarded and searched a preschool bus, has sparked disquiet among all New Zealanders and outrage among Maori. To the latter it is seen as an extension of State repression and assimilationist policies that have existed from the first days of colonisation. The history of Maori educational experiences suggests that Maori student failure is an act of ongoing resistance to State oppression and State-sponsored policies of assimilation which persist into the present and appear to be escalating - hidden behind an ideological mask of multiculturalism and misplaced Nationalism that borders on the Fascist. Maori (Tuhoe) residents of Ruatoki are currently seeking apologies and compensation from the police for the trauma cause by the raids. Tuhoe say that their yound and impressionable teenagers will probably never be able to trust the police, the justice system or State authority again.
To download the High School Confidential PDF click here . To link to the Te Kotahitanga site at the University of Waikato click here A corroborative article from the United States: A Desire To Learn:African American Childrens' Positive Attitude Towards Learning Within School Cultures of Low Expectations is available here. The article was written by Jeffrey L. Lewis and Eunhee Kim and records the identical impact of deficit thinking amongst young African Americans. It was first published in the Teachers College Record. To download the PDF click here. In addition to the above, a further article is available as a PDF which also corroborates the work of Bishop, Berryman et al. This study, Miseducating Teachers about the Poor: A Critical Analysis of Ruby Payne's Claims about Poverty was conducted by Randy Bomer, Joel E. Dworin, Laura May & Peggy Semingson. It appeared first in the Teachers College Record. The passing of George Bushʻs much touted legislation No Child Left Behind (2002) estabished a new social category of students - economically disadvantaged - that is required by the new law to have its test scores monitored by the Department of Education of the Federal Government. The purpose of the law is to ensure that poor children do not get academically "left behind". The passing of the law has resulted in the development of a plethora of teacher development programmes. One of the most popular of these programmes has been Ruby Payne's professional development programme A Framework for Understanding Poverty. This PDF article contains a critical analysis of Payneʻs programme and finds it to be a classic example of deficit theorising. It finds that her truth claims, offered without any supporting evidence, are contradicted by anthropological, sociological and other research on poverty. The authors demonstrate that teachers may be misinformed by Payne's claims. As a consequence of low teacher expectations, poor students are more likely to be in lower tracks or lower ability groups and their educational experience is more often dominated by rote drill and practice. To download the PDF click here. In the San Francisco Bay Area there is currently running a successful programme that partners tertiary students with High School students who are currently achieving below their potential. Established in 2001, PEP is a service-learning collaborative teaching pipelines of SFSU's Asian American Studies Department in the College of Ethnic Studies. PEP partners with San Francisco public schools and the Filipino Community Center located in San Francisco's Excelsior neighborhood. PEP's main partnerships are between San Francisco State upper division undergraduates and graduate students interested in pursuing careers in the field of education, and high school, middle school, and elemantary schools students primarily from low-income backgrounds. One of the PEP Pipeline's main objectives is to reach out to students who are peforming below their potential. PEP's teaching philosophies include epistemological pedagogy, visual arts/media literacy, barangay/bayanihan/community building pedagogy, critical performance pedagogy, social justice pedagogy, counterstorytelling, and decolonizing pedagogy. These are implemented though a fun yet critical cultural curriculum that focuses on Filipina/o American studies (including introducing the students to Filipina/o literature, dancing and the arts), one-on-one mentoring, college counseling, and leadership/self-determination training. As a community service-learning program, PEP also provides training for college students who are interested in teaching and research. To link to the PEP programme site click here.
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