by Catherine Delahunty
Last week I went to Otara to hear some inspirational korero from educators who believe in social justice. It was such a relief to listen to the wisdom of Professor Jeff Duncan Andrade and Professor David Stovall who are also high school teachers from the mean streets of urban Oakland and Chicago.
They have a strong connection to a fantastic Kura in Otara once known as Clover Park but reborn as Te Whare o Te Whanau o Tupuranga. The exchanges that take place between these schools in Otara and the USA are all about social justice in education for marginalised youth.
Matua Jeff and Matua David (as the rangatahi call them) are unequivocal about the role of the teacher. A teacher cannot hide behind fake neutrality. A teacher needs to declare their philosophical base and be accountable to the community that hosts them. A teacher has a duty to save lives of urban ghettoised youth by challenging racism and other oppressions and by providing real educational leadership.
These men talk about the need to inspire young people who are born into an oppressive system to be warrior scholars. They have high academic expectations but these are based on a strong sense of cultural and political realities. They reject the Charter Schools which are part of the elitism in the US education system and they challenged us to think deeply.
National Standards were not the issue. They said that meaningful standards have a place but are not the problem or the solution. The issue is teachers and communities being real about the conditions young people face and standing with them to become agents of change through education.
Matua Jeff talks about sports coaches inspiring dedication from youth and suggests teachers could learn from some of their methods. He believes in teachers clarifying their practice and being honest. We ask young people to cope with racism and inequality when we haven’t addressed those issues ourselves and we all need to engage.
Matua David teachers at SOJO (a social justice high school) in the heart of the divided city of Chicago. Their school is a contested space which has to fight the fiefdom of Mayor Daley to survive with their social justice vision for education.
They inspired me to re-commit to a critical analysis of education. And to look more closely at the Otara School where they are members of the extended family. Something is cooking at Te Whanau o Tupuranga and it looks really healthy. Everyone paid tribute to school Principal Anne Milne and her team who have created a centre of cultural pride and international solidarity in high school education. We badly need this kind of educational renaissance and exchange.
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Health & Wellbeing | Society & Culture by Catherine Delahunty on Sun, September 12th, 2010
Tags: alternative education, Education, Otara
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Some great posts, Catherine! It would be great if we can have a real culture shift and focus on evidence based initiatives that really work rather than forcing through ideologically and politically based nonsense.
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In order to achieve a level of social justice in education, we need to make it a ‘level playing field’.. all student given an equal opportunity to achieve their best..
Of course there is going to be private schools were only the wealthest students & highest paid teacher are, but this should be discouraged as much as possible.. NOT PROMOTED, as some would do !! Kia-ora
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Thanks, we have a huge challenge in eduaction under this Government and I worry about all the time wasting on National Standards when the real issues get glossed over.
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