DFI Journey - Day 8

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Learning about the Empowered part of the Manaiakalani kaupapa was really great today. It was interesting to hear how the word Agency was changed to Empowered due to the word association around agencies and how many families have had negative experiences with these services.

It was certainly thought-provoking when Dorothy spoke about it being hard for children to feel empowered when not many opportunities are available to them due to financial restrictions. When adults are becoming 'working poor' due to their annual income and how they have to be creative with how they need to pay for their weekly bills etc. How can families be empowered when they want to buy their own homes and not have a home owned by 'the state'?

We can see by the statistics of the effects of disempowerment for a five-year-old child that attends a decile one school as their MEAN performance level is of a three-year-old. How we as kaiako can help change the possibilities for these children is by implementing a 5+ a day oral language programme that encourages 5 verbal interactions between each pair.

One of the quotes that Dorothy shared really resonated with me "The greatest joy comes from empowering students to discover the treasure that lies within them." - Marie Mitchell. This quote got me thinking of my newly formed kaiāwhina group (Miro) and how the children's behaviour is certainly evident and challenging but I need to see what treasures lie within them.

I feel that this is starting to show as we have a 'water downed' curriculum and we are going back to the basics of self-help skills, fine motor skills, and working alongside or with others. With my ECE background, I feel that I am using my prior knowledge and expertise with this group. Some children that weren't having the opportunities for academic success are now 'in the right place at the right time' and achieving success in other ways such as in the ECE curriculum and dispositions of Taking and interest, Persisiting with difficulty, Being Involved, Expressing an idea or feeling, and Taking responsibility.

Here are some photos to show some children's engagement since they have been in Miro.

(need help to insert the photo correctly from using Goggle Draw as at the moment it's just a screenshot).

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

After a very tough week (yes, I am only finishing off my blog post early Tuesday morning) I was starting to wonder why I do this job and why did I put my hand up to take on this new kaiāwhina group? The behaviour from one child was just overwhelming and we had to evacuate the room twice in two days and once again yesterday. On one occasion the room was absolutely 'trashed' and it was heartbreaking to watch after all the hard work I had put into it. However, when I see these photos I have to remember that this is why I do it and behaviour is just behaviour and seeing 'the treasure that lies within' is the most important thing.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?

As I've mentioned above I feel that I am on the 'right track' of providing a curriculum that fosters engagement, collaborative thinking, and resilience. I would like to start to introduce the medium of technology into our room in the future but at the moment I'm happy with the progress of this 'little group' and can't wait to explore what we can do next.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

Well as mentioned above, last week was a tough week. I spent the majority of the weekend reflecting on how can I continue in this environment. I finally decided that I can't change what I can't change especially when it comes to adults reactions, support or consequences. The behaviour will be forever ongoing and if I just view it as just behaviour rather than taking it personally, it might just get me through.

What did I enjoy the most?

I really enjoyed doing the coding work with Liv (?). I didn't think I would be able to do it, as it's something I've never done before but once I got the hang of it, it was cool. I started making a 'quiz' about shapes and I thought this could be a way to test children's knowledge in a fun way. Obviously, someone would need to read the questions to them but it's an idea of how I can bring Computational Thinking into 'my classroom'.

My ponderings

It was interesting to hear the discussion around the room about how some children will spend hours creating something on Mindcraft and then others take great delight in destroying/deconstructing it. This made me think I wonder if this goes back to visceral urges and how some people love to construct where others love to deconstruct. There are so many urges that could be incorporated into Computational Thinking and technology in general. I would really like to look into this further at another time to see if my ponderings could be correct :).