Expecting more for Māori from our teachers

 Let’s talk about teachers when we talk about tackling poor education stats for Māori and Pasifika kids, argues Anton Blank.

 

A new report from the Ministry of Education tells us what we already know. Māori students are less likely than Pākehā to achieve University Entrance. Other recent data also shows that more than 70 percent of Māori and Pasifika are failing NCEA numeracy standards, which equates to every third student overall.

I find these numbers absolutely terrifying and a shocking indictment of our education system. Forty-one percent of New Zealand’s under 18-year-olds are Māori and Pasifika. Our populations are youthful — bottom-heavy compared to the ageing Pāhehā cohort — so they will continue to grow and fill our schools.

In this new report, the Ministry of Education makes statistical adjustments for a range of variables, including factors like early contact with Oranga Tamariki, socio-economics and sole parenthood. Māori have higher rates of leaving school without NCEA than Pākehā students (18 percent versus 7 percent). However, after including the socio-economic factors into the model, the ministry found there was no difference in the odds ratios between these two groups. Māori and Pākehā are capable of the same levels of achievement.

Middle-class Māori students achieve at the same level as middle-class Pākehā, which makes sense, right? The problem is that two-thirds of Māori students live in the poorest parts of the country. The real challenge then is how to accelerate achievement for Māori students from these regions and suburbs and grow the Māori middle class.

The ministry’s analysis acts unwittingly as a sleight of hand that distorts the system’s progress with Māori. It locates the responsibility for Māori and Pasifika achievement outside the school, where the formal process of learning takes place.

Having pondered these issues for a few decades now, I sense a reluctance from educators and bureaucrats to explore the impact of teacher quality, as a primary determinant of achievement for Māori learners.

Any discussion about racism and teaching tends to focus on structural racism, as if the system is a force in and of itself, rather than an apparatus administered by humans, making discretionary decisions about Māori students daily.

We can’t change the system and lift Māori achievement without changing the people who run it.

Research from the US shows that the quality of teacher engagement is really important in underprivileged areas, and upgrading teachers’ skills has the most effect on achievement in those schools. That’s because teachers’ own beliefs, and latent biases about what these students are capable of, are critical in student achievement.

The quality of teacher engagement is also much more important for students in poor suburbs.

When teacher expectations are high, we see achievement. When they are low, we see failure. The syndrome is called the Pygmalion Effect. In Aotearoa, of all student groups, teachers have the lowest expectations of Māori students. Consequently, we see them trailing behind other groups of learners. They are also excluded from school, by way of expulsion, more than any other group.

A few years ago, I worked with Māori and Pasifika students in Auckland. When we reviewed the homework I’d set them, their application to the task had been outstanding. It wasn’t until I drove away from the school that I realised I’d presumed the students wouldn’t do the homework. I was shocked by these latent presumptions that ran counter to my explicit expectations of the students. Like everyone else, I’ve absorbed a litany of biases from our shared understanding of the world, and need to be vigilant if I am to ameliorate their impact on my behaviour.

I love the latent potential of the Pygmalion Effect, where students rise to the expectations of skilled, empathetic teachers. Māori medium education has an intrinsic understanding of these interconnected dynamics: the expectations and related wellbeing. These schools support student wellbeing by affirming their identity as Māori. As a result, students in Māori medium settings achieve on par with national averages.

There’s a reimagining required, a reshaping of our expectations of teachers and students. My father Pius taught in New Zealand schools for 30 years and one of his obsessions was the concept of “in loco parentis”, which means “in the place of the parent”. Schools assume the responsibilities of a parent for the time the child is at school. Pius took this aspect of his role very seriously in a slightly rigid, authoritarian way.

Teachers who assume the responsibilities of parenting want the best for every child, and want every Māori child to excel and flourish. When Māori students feel these aspirations in their teachers, they rise to the challenge and all things are possible.

 

Anton Blank (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu) has a background in social work, communications, Māori development, public health and literature. He was the principal investigator of the 2016 report “Unconscious bias and education — a comparative study of Māori and African American students.” Anton now works across justice, health and education, developing strategies to mitigate unconscious bias and its impact on Māori. This includes his ongoing work at Kidz First Children’s Hospital in South Auckland. Anton is also the editor and founder of the Māori literary journal Ora Nui.

E-Tangata, 2024