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| Artist is Leisha Conrad. Source here |
The 3 Baskets of Knowledge Legend
(Source- link)When Tāne decided to climb up to the heavens to seek the baskets of knowledge for mankind, his brother Whiro was angry. Whiro thought he had more right to the baskets than Tāne, because he was the elder brother.
The two brothers struggled for power, but it was Tāne who was favoured by Io, the supreme power, so Tāne was allowed to ascend the twelve heavens. His task was made more difficult by Whiro who sent plagues of insects, reptiles and carrion-eating birds to attack Tāne. But Tāne, with the aid of the winds, was able to proceed until he reached the summit of all the heavens.
Here, at Toi-ō-ngā-rangi, he was welcomed by Io and received the three baskets of knowledge and the two sacred stones.
The baskets, or kete were –
The kete-aronui which held all the knowledge that could help mankind
The kete-tuauri which held the knowledge of ritual, memory and prayer
and the kete-tuatea which contained knowledge of evil or makutu, which was harmful to mankind.
The stones, or whatukura held the power of knowledge and added mana to the teaching of knowledge.
On his return journey, Tāne was again attacked by Whiro and his allies, the birds and insects. Tāne would have been defeated if the winds had not once more, come to his rescue. The winds blew the birds and insects back down to earth where they remain today.
When Tāne finally reached earth again he placed the baskets and stones in a special house of knowledge – whare kura, which he had built before his journey to the heavens.
Whiro was back on earth too, and he demanded that he should be the one to take care of the treasures.
But Tāne and his supporters refused Whiro’s demands and Whiro was eventually banished to the underworld where he still lives, and continually tries to cause trouble for gods and mankind.
Tane-te-wānanga-ā-rangi (Tāne, bringer of knowledge from the sky) was left to maintain order on earth.
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Nothing has disrupted schools and upturned our lives like having to activate emergency remote learning during the Covid19 lockdown in a hurry. Our country, our team of five million, has faced itself like never before. But on a micro-level, so have schools and so have teachers. The cracks have become so very obvious.
Most of us were not ready for this disruption, and to be fair, we can never be ready for the unknown. Uncertainty is so difficult to deal with because our brains are hard-wired to read the here and now and uncertainty is too much unknown information.
What this disruption has made very obvious in NZ education is the huge, glaring types of inequity that persist despite digital technology capability having been a focus for a good decade.
1. The inequity of access to resources (digital tech and more). Schools that had the digital resources to support their communities have fared better. Digital tech will never be the great equaliser unless a series of other factors are added to the mix.
2. The inequity of quality technological pedagogical content knowledge- TPACK. Students of teachers who had the knowledge and experience of how to integrate content with digital tools have fared better. (A bit more on TPACK in the postscript)
3. The inequity of connection between whānau and schools. This disruption has brought our teaching practice into homes and tested the relationships we've built (or not). Schools that have built strong connections with their whānau have fared better.
Education is situational. We could spend a good deal of time examining how these inequities have come about, but the reality is that even if we find general patterns, there will the school, the teacher or the community that will be the exception to the rule.
Each school or teacher can reflect and decide where the gaps are and how they came about. Some schools struggle to feed their whānau and resourcing of digital tools was a very distant priority. Some teachers will have pressures that meant that upskilling digitally was a distant priority.
But examining the gate after the horse has bolted only helps if we go on to build a better gate. To my mind, it doesn't really serve any purpose if we don't use the information that we have right now to move forward and begin to remedy these inequities within our learning communities. What works for my school community may not work for your school community.
So here is what I wish would go into our Kete of Knowledge as we travel on this journey.
Te Kete Aronui
That we connect as a teaching community to support each other and narrow the inequity of TPACK.
Offer help, ask for help. There is a collective spirit in Aotearoa that is untapped. Reach out. Aroha is more than caring, it's what uplifts us as a people.
Mobilise the amazing knowledge that we have in Aotearoa and share it without asking schools who don't have the budget to have to attend a digital conference costing thousands. Like the Volunteer Student Army did after the Christchurch earthquake. If you have the know-how, help to create an ethos of mentorship and pay it forward. What's the point of being Whiro and arguing about 'I told you so'? Help to create micro changes- they can have wide-ranging effects and improvements.
Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi
With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive
Te Kete Tuauri
That we connect to our whānau in more meaningful ways. They have had a window into the life of their tamariki as learners and our teaching. Let's not be afraid to expose our practice and share it authentically. We make mistakes as teachers because we are human. We don't always get it right but we want to try. Support our whānau to be part of the learning journey more. This is best practice and part of our PTCs. Not all will want to be included on all levels but that is not an excuse for us to not try. What have we tried that worked? What else could we try?
He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata! He tangata! He tangata!
What is the most important thing in the world? It is people! It is people! It is people!
Te Kete Tuatea
That we face the impact of privilege in education. The intergenerational pain of inequity that exists in our society is the elephant in the room of NZ education. The solution has to be collective and driven by those who don't have to carry this burden on a daily basis.
We cannot expect schools who are already struggling for resources or existing in areas of high poverty to also have to advocate for equity on their own. We have areas of serious deprivation in our country and the kura who are there have enough on their plate and they need all of us to stand with them to create change.
Those in positions of privilege and leadership need to step up and become allies and advocates for those busy having to support their communities. There needs to be less finger-pointing and more of hand - offering. It needs to be our collective responsibility - as an educational community- to advocate for all schools to be given access to digital capability, even after this crisis is over, and not tolerate inequity of access to continue.
Waiho i te toipoto, kaua i te toiroa
Let us keep close together, not wide apart
What will be telling in the months to come is how we come together to create the change we need.
I'm reminded of Kitsukuroi. Our system is somewhat broken; this moment is our opportunity to mend it with gold.
POSTSCRIPT:
About TPACK. This diagram explains TPACK as the Goldilocks space where digital technology becomes the most effective for learning. I much prefer TPACK to SAMR because SAMR only looks at the Technological Knowledge when all other factors are important in learning design with digital tech.
This blog has a good, easy to understand explanation of how it works and why it matters so much.
One silver lining of this disruption for my team was that we had to not only consider how to enable our learners to use the tech remotely but also the parents. Most of our little people would need support to use it so we had to think of learning tasks that would develop content knowledge but also upskill the kids with minimal whānau support. Each task is carefully crafted to help the kids learn a new feature while engaging with the curriculum.
As teachers, those who knew more led the way while modeling the 'how to' transfer direct teaching to an online platform. Again, each time we added a new increment of challenge for ourselves and supported each other- PLD through shared screens! Micro changes have paid off big time.
During this emergency remote learning, we've used a grand total of 6 apps to deliver our programme. Each app was used only because it made the delivery of learning easier and added value both short and long term- the TPACK filter. And also because we teach very young kids and we didn't want to overload our parents asking them to learn how to use tricky apps. TK has to be the best fit for all users so we planned with our kids and their whānau in mind. All our modeling videos were designed so that parents could also learn the 'how to.'
The apps used:
- Google Docs to collate our tasks, links, prompts, and communicate the weekly plan with our parents. We have a tic-tac-toe option plus a second page with a proposed timetable for those who need something more structured. Lots of non-tech tasks and easy to follow links.
- Google Slides to create tasks and models for lessons and instructions- very easy to model with.
- Screencast to record ourselves giving instructions and modeling tasks on Google Slides.
- Seesaw to send and complete tasks, and give teacher feedback - we maxed our TK of this app! The kids now have a folder in Seesaw with their app passwords for ease of access for now and later.
- Sumdog for kids to do some independent maths practice - new app but we can use it in class.
- Epic Readers for reading tasks and independent reading- - new app but we can use it in class.
TPACK encapsulates all the facets that make digital learning valuable. The tech itself can't do the job if the other two filters are not considered. It's never been more obvious to me than now.
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