History (Commentary)

Informed by various aspects of teaching practice, this teaching philosophy has gone through much of its development over the past two years. Informed by practices such as narrative-based learning (Bruner, 1991), gamification (Landers, 2014), educational anthropology (Spindler, 1973; Geertz, 1973), multicultural education (Hooks, 1994; Freire, 1970), various other thought influencers, and personal lived experience. Through a process of research, application, reflection, and adjustment, this philosophy continues to find its grounding. An example of this development would be how in my early stages as a teacher I was inspired by the field of educational psychology, however with time, I came to find certain flaws in these methods, due to common reliance on statistical and western scientific analysis of the individual as a vessel for knowledge, rather than a human who learns holistically from every moment in the environments they are in, this lead to my movement into the field of educational anthropology due to its humanistic, cultural, approach to not only understanding individuals, but also their place in groups, as well as how their environments impact learning, development, and communication. An area of significant interest within educational anthropology has become cultural transmission and its role in education, due to the multi-cultural environments observed within education, as well as in Aotearoa New Zealand as a whole.

It is difficult to nail down which exactly came first within this teaching philosophy, educational anthropology or the application of its beliefs within my classroom. What can be said however, is that as time has gone on I have developed a stronger understanding of the interplay between a students cultural positionality, their position within group dynamics, and their willingness to connect with, or share their culture within an educational context. George Spindler discusses in a reflective article called "Roots Revisited" (1984) the importance of considering the larger cultural context of both students and teachers experience, when looking at improving upon and understanding the holistic and human nature of education . He says "...the focus has been so exclusively on the classroom, or at least on the school, that the cultural contextualisation, as well as the immediate community contextualisation, is not developed in most published works.", and although this was published in 1984, we can still see this challenge being overcome today.

Upon reflecting on how these values impact my teaching practice it has become clear that as a journey facilitator what has been an important application of these cultural context considerations as well as acting upon broader factors outside of the classroom and school environments has been both the application of daily gratitude within my whānau class, as well as the grounding of my vaka project in students connecting to their greater context outside of the classroom, to promote social justice in an area that they connect to. This is expanded further upon under the "Cultural Approach".

The ideas behind this philosophy have also been formed from the "human" focused work of Bell Hooks, as well as Paulo Freire. In her book "Teaching To Transgress", Hooks discusses how bringing ones  whole self into the classroom, body and mind, is essential for an effective pedagogy. She says "Acknowledging that we are all bodies in the classroom has been important to me" (Hooks, 1994). In his book "Pedagogy Of The Oppressed", Freire discusses one of the challenges I mentioned above around students being seen as empty knowledge vessels, when he says "Worse yet, it [banking model] turns them [students] into 'containers' to be 'filled' by the teacher" (Freire, 1970).

Thought influencers, such as Jack Ma, and his ideas around equitable education, and women's leadership, as well as Simon Sinek, and his ideas around the importance of understanding ones "why" have also both been critical in the development of the "journey facilitator" teaching philosophy.