Echos in a chamber

Kia ora Tātou, Trickey thoughts is back!

Firstly apologies for the delay in my writing, I did want to write this a couple of weeks ago yet due to the events in New Zealand at the time felt I should hold off for a while. Obviously, it has been a very difficult time for all of us in Aotearoa and on a personal and professional perspective a challenging time for me. Being in a Girls High school in Ōtepoti our community has a significant Muslim population. I will talk about some of my thoughts around things that are happening in our community though I am not going to be actively talking about the atrocity that befell our community. I will do this in my own way and welcome any thoughts on this.

So in this blog, I will first address some matters I have been pondering, then look at my practice and reflect on the term, I will then focus on the future and possible changes in my practice and finally, I will do some shout outs.

I wasn't very well through the last week of school and spent around 24 hours sleeping, it wasn't great but in between the perpetual snooze I finally watched behind the curve. If you haven't seen it watch it! It is about the flat earth movement. It is truly terrifying. Last year a group of students debated this idea in class as a self-chosen debate topic. The girls who were debating the Flat earth model had remembered almost word for word a youbtubers speech on this. With our youth, it is often difficult to actually know if they are just parodying what they see or hold believes. As a religious studies teacher (in a former life) and a staunch agnostic, I have often engaged in different beliefs in the community. The most difficult for me was always the predeterminism that went hand in hand with an omnipotent God. I would always engage in these debates though and somewhat be frustrated with the outcomes but feel that they are free to hold that belief.

The Flat earth was never one I would engage with and I would actually say "Arguing against someone who believes in a flat earth is pointless as just like a racist you can not change their mind!" The flat earther you may possibly think there is little harm in holding these ideas and I would have tended to agree and laugh off the concept. Watching beyond the curve though it is clear that we need to engage with these communities as many people find belonging in these groups. I myself have questioned authority, believe it or not, I remember the Guardian running a big thing about why the moon landings may have been fake and found it quite convincing at the time. When we deny something as fundamental as the shape of the earth though allows people to start to hold other things into doubt, for example, climate change denial, the fact that man doesn't have some kind of Godly right to semi-automatic weapons and holocaust denial.

Increasingly we look for belonging in our society, I find great solace in my communities both online and around me. We can unite over common goals, hobbies or political beliefs, but how can I further interact with those who hold radically different views than myself in a constructive way? This is a true challenge.

This does bring me neatly back to my classroom community or does in my mind. This term understandably has been challenging and long. Many highs though and what I did enjoy the most was looking a bit more in-depth the Pacific migration to New Zealand with a reduction in timetabled time for Social Studies in year 9 it is harder to get through content (I will bring this up later), so I concentrated on what brought the most value to my class and what they really enjoyed was looking at the Pacific islands. We pawed our maps played games and spent time pretending to be explorers visiting the different islands studied. It was great. The only homework given was the core assessment on their own migration and the repeated ask to talk to their whānau about their family history. It was some of the best homework I have ever handed out! I had girls bringing entire family history books researching specific areas looking back at their clans in Scotland and it was nothing I had truly intended. The culture in the class was one of respect and sharing and it still is.

In year 10 we have been looking at Human rights the class culture is different and a focus this next term will be on how to change this culture. I am planning to look at attempting the agile methods I attempted with my year 10's last year. The idea is to try and build more critical analysis within the class and one where students will be comfortable sharing and building on ideas.

It seems though that so much has changed so rapidly around us we are still slow in our changes within the classroom, or maybe I am. The students we have in our classes today are vastly different from those before. Often we seem to focus on content still rather than working with information. The students we have are drowning in info how can we continue to develop critical analysis and allow the students to follow their passions within the curriculum. Is this too much of a pie in the sky idea?

A couple of ideas I have next term is possible video analysis of a current politician screen casting offering feedback on a contemporary issue they are talking about. They could also try and explain the importance of voting in their opinion while analysing different political systems. Standardly the students make political parties, they could develop New Zealand Policy around the UN sustainable goals. In year 10 we will be looking at the treaty of Waitangi and the New Zealand wars. I plan to focus on Tikanga as we prepare for our visit to the marae. The focus will be to ensure we build confidence, respect and understanding as we look into this exciting part of the history of Aoteroa. The approach will have to be developed with the learners in mind. An interesting challenge.

Finally, my shout out is to any NZ educators out there who have a chance to get to accelerator it is an exciting professional development opportunity and I would strongly recommend teams going to enjoy this. It expands your thinking gives you a chance to connect with like-minded educators and experience hands on the design thinking process. Also a big shout out to my Professional learning group at school the Social studies team and my critical friend Tracy Munro (sorry gave you heaps to read here).

Thank you, people, for reading this and again I welcome comments as without them I am just wandering around in my own echo chamber. Have a lovely Easter break.