Staff Professional Learning and Development, 19th August: Being Tangata Tiriti

Pop quizzes, invisible backpacks, and tackling unconscious bias were all part of our most recent Teacher Only Day. We hosted two PLD facilitators, Gwyn John and Shaz Hathaway, from the Leadership Lab, who presented our teachers and teacher aides with an engaging, and challenging, day of professional learning.

As a kura (school), we’ve been focusing on culturally-responsive teaching practices, so that we can better serve all learners in our classrooms, and Gwyn and Shaz’s work was an excellent continuation of this work. We’re also preparing for the NCEA change package, and this was a great opportunity for us all to increase our understanding of what we need to know more about in order to be ready for these changes.

The day was jam-packed full of thought-provoking and illuminating content, taking us through Aotearoa New Zealand history, critical-consciousness raising, self-reflection, and plenty of discussion around what being a good treaty partner involves. It was of real benefit for us to have a day to get stuck into what can be an uncomfortable, but crucial, space for educators to navigate. We were expertly guided through this work by Gwyn and Shaz, who have been working as Treaty of Waitangi educators for many years.

Since August, our conversations with colleagues have continued, and we’ve added plenty to our kete of resources. In Term 4, a group of teachers plan to establish a Professional Learning Group to ensure that we keep learning and developing our collective knowledge and skill-base in this area.

Our facilitators left us with these words from Dame Whina Cooper, which capture the importance of how we are as teachers, and people, as we work with the young people in our classrooms each day:

“Take care of our children
Take care of what they hear
Take care of what they see
Take care of what they feel
For how the children grow
So will be the shape of Aotearoa.” 

Dame Whina Cooper