Who gets to define education?

Last night I watched an incredible news item about South Auckland Te Kura Māori o Ngā Tapuwae principal Arihia Stirling sharing the story of Ngā Tapuwae, (a Māori immersion school for those outside NZ- link here). Two things struck me the most: Arihia Stirling's incredible determination to serve her students and community using learning as a tool for empowerment, and how the school has adapted the curriculum to fit the voice of her students and the economic needs of their indigenous Māori communities.

The effects of education to perpetuate economic, social or cultural hegemony cannot be underestimated in the present day, no matter how much we like to spouse how education is becoming the great equalizer. An example being this report on Kia Aroha, another South Auckland school who has been able to reinvent the curriculum to expose and overcome cultural marginalisation. Kia Aroha is a mainstream school that has adapted the curriculum to serve the educational needs of the local community as well.

Both schools are examples of agentic teaching creating agentic learners, and both born of resilience and love for their students. Kia kaha!

For those of us who trace learning back to the loftier Platonic ideals of education as human enrichment, it is easy to forget that the original purpose of schools in the 1800's was to create an industrial workforce. Industrialisation became another way to replicate imperial ideology through financial supremacy. I have written about how the sociocultural aspects of this hegemony have been translated into standardised assessment here.

The neoliberal education agenda is another recreation of the imperial ideals of a western patriarchal system wanting to create worker drones for their factories (that are now turning digital- learn to code, kids!). On the opposing side is the fight for the more platonic epistemology of individualistic self-realisation- or the learner as the sole agent- enacted in egalitarian, albeit homogenous, education such as Finland's system. Benjamin Doxtdator has eloquently explained this power struggle dichotomy here (another excellent education blog space to follow).

Step outside of the dual coin of imperialist or homogenous western educational models and Ngā Tapuwae presents a new model: education as empowerment for local communities. Albert Bandura would be proud, I think. This is very exciting for me because for the longest time one ideological system has determined how we perceive education, and how we see success for our communities and societies as a whole in New Zealand. (The prospect will possibly send palpitations to those in education who adore standardisation, and education as a product, not a process. "There are no meta-studies of positive effect size in this methodology!" they'll cry. When a system creates underserved or underprivileged it often finds ways to avoid looking at the obvious: it's not the product that's flawed, it's that a flawed system created the flaw in the first place.)

The western imperialist ideology threatens to create an environment that we'll only get to enjoy through virtual reality as the Anthropocene age reality begins to bite; ecological oblivion (sixth mass extinction or not), possibly irreversible pollution issues. When consumption to extinction begins knocking on our door; is that how we measure success?

We cannot find solutions if we continue to recreate what we've always done or how we've always thought, and education is the way we transmit what is of value to us, our communities and our society.

Whoever gets to define what is of value gets to define education. Who will that be?

To end, a couple of visual thoughts on resilience and agency. Just because.