The time has come to turn my six weeks of travel through Hawai'i and New Zealand into a digestible project for consumption by other educators. I find the task almost impossible as I am still trying to make sense of the experiences I had this summer. What did I learn about the New Zealand education system? About Pacific Migrations? About the struggle of indigenous people to be acknowledged, respected, and treated with decency in their own country? About successful bicultural and multicultural education? What did I learn about my own country and our struggles educating marginalized people? What did I learn about myself? And, most importantly for this project, how can I turn that learning into a project that will help other teachers who have not been privileged with the experience I had to teach their students about New Zealand and further international understanding?

Some lessons I learned:

• We are more alike than we are different.
  

• I know precious little about my own country, particularly as it pertains to the anne /* Posts ----------------------------------------------- */ .date-header { margin:1.5em 0 .5em; } .post { margin:.5em 0 1.5em; border-bottom:1px dotted #ccc; padding-bottom:1.5em; } .post-title { margin:.25em 0 0; padding:0 0 4px; font-size:140%; font-weight:normal; line-height:1.4em; color:#c60; } .post-title a, .post-title a:visited, .post-title strong { display:block; text-decoration:none; color:#c60; font-weight:normal; } .post-title strong, .post-title a:hover { color:#333; } .post div { margin:0 0 .75em; line-height:1.6em; } p.post-footer { margin:-.25em 0 0; color:#ccc; } .post-footer em, .comment-link { font:78%/1.4em "Trebuchet MS",Trebuchet,Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:uppercase; letter-spacing:.1em; } .post-footer em { font-style:normal; color:#999; margin-right:.6em; } .comment-link { margin-left:.6em; } .post img { padding:4px; border:1px solid #ddd; } .post blockquote { margin:1em 20px; } .post blockquote p { margin:.75em 0; } /* Comments ----------------------------------------------- */ #comments h4 { margin:1em 0; font:bold 78%/1.6em "Trebuchet MS",Trebuchet,Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:uppercase; letter-spacing:.2em; color:#999; } #comments h4 strong { font-size:130%; } #comments-block { margin:1em 0 1.5em; line-height:1.6em; } #comments-block dt { margin:.5em 0; } #comments-block dd { margin:.25em 0 0; } #comments-block dd.comment-timestamp { margin:-.25em 0 2em; font:78%/1.4em "Trebuchet MS",Trebuchet,Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:uppercase; letter-spacing:.1em; } #comments-block dd p { margin:0 0 .75em; } .deleted-comment { font-style:italic; color:gray; } /* Sidebar Content ----------------------------------------------- */ #sidebar ul { margin:0 0 1.5em; padding:0 0 1.5em; border-bottom:1px dotted #ccc; list-style:none; } #sidebar li { margin:0; padding:0 0 .25em 15px; text-indent:-15px; line-height:1.5em; } #sidebar p { color:#666; line-height:1.5em; } /* Profile ----------------------------------------------- */ #profile-container { margin:0 0 1.5em; border-bottom:1px dotted #ccc; padding-bottom:1.5em; } .profile-datablock { margin:.5em 0 .5em; } .profile-img { display:inline; } .profile-img img { float:left; padding:4px; border:1px solid #ddd; margin:0 8px 3px 0; } .profile-data { margin:0; font:bold 78%/1.6em "Trebuchet MS",Trebuchet,Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:uppercase; letter-spacing:.1em; } .profile-data strong { display:none; } .profile-textblock { margin:0 0 .5em; } .profile-link { margin:0; font:78%/1.4em "Trebuchet MS",Trebuchet,Arial,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:uppercase; letter-spacing:.1em; } /* Footer ----------------------------------------------- */ #footer { width:660px; clear:both; margin:0 auto; } #footer hr { display:none; } #footer p { margin:0; padding-top:15px; font:78%/1.6em "Trebuchet MS",Trebuchet,Verdana,Sans-serif; text-transform:uppercase; letter-spacing:.1em; }

  Antipodean Adventures

  One teacher's reflections and experiences as she travels through New Zealand/Aotearoa as part of the Fulbright-Hays Summer Seminar, Migrations; a journey to new understanding.

  Tuesday, November 16, 2004

  The time has come to turn my six weeks of travel through Hawai'i and New Zealand into a digestible project for consumption by other educators. I find the task almost impossible as I am still trying to make sense of the experiences I had this summer. What did I learn about the New Zealand education system? About Pacific Migrations? About the struggle of indigenous people to be acknowledged, respected, and treated with decency in their own country? About successful bicultural and multicultural education? What did I learn about my own country and our struggles educating marginalized people? What did I learn about myself? And, most importantly for this project, how can I turn that learning into a project that will help other teachers who have not been privileged with the experience I had to teach their students about New Zealand and further international understanding?

  Some lessons I learned:
  

  • We are more alike than we are different.
    

  • I know precious little about my own country, particularly as it pertains to the annexation of Hawai'i.

  • A country can control and ultimately destroy a people group by taking away their language. Consequently, language reclamation is a powerful and important task.

  • The task of making a curriculum culturally responsive requires more than the addition of bicultural (or multicultural) materials; it requires a radical redefinition of what it means to teach and learn grounded in the culture of the teacher and the students. Often this redefinition will involve compromise on both sides, but the current model of adding multicultural information into a European style classroom does nothing to empower marginalized students nor does it teach students from the dominant cultural group how to interact in a multicultural world.

  • The cross-cultural exchange made possible by Fulbright Hays summer seminars enriches the teacher's classroom not only through curricular material, but also by expanding the teacher's sphere of reference and putting a teacher in contact with other energetic and excellent teachers.

  None of these lessons easily translates into a lesson plan that can be applied in the classroom--however, all of them have ramifications for the classroom.

  This project is an online, annotated travelogue. The basic text of the project was written while I was traveling in Hawai'i and New Zealan--it was part of a blog (web blog--or online, public journal) that I kept for my students, colleagues, and friends. While I traveled I wrote honestly about the daily experiences I was having, what I was learning, and the questions that were raised by those experiences. These comments and observations were the occasion for many interesting email exchanges with people back home about the issues I raised. Since returning to the U.S., I have added links to more authoritative sources, links to video clips, more photos, and suggested readings whenever possible. I have also kept the comment function enabled on the blog. My hope is that students and teachers will find this travelogue to be a useful resource on a number of cultural topics and larger educational issues facing classrooms in the U.S. and in New Zealand. Perhaps it will inspire others to enter the conversation about what meaningful multicultural curriculum and classrooms look like.

  Previous Posts

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  • This weekend involved a lot of time together on th...
  • Today we spent the day at the Auckland College of ...

  Links

  • Fulbright Hays Itinerary
  • Uni High

  

  ---

   

  xation of Hawai'i.

• A country can control and ultimately destroy a people group by taking away their language. Consequently, language reclamation is a powerful and important task.

• The task of making a curriculum culturally responsive requires more than the addition of bicultural (or multicultural) materials; it requires a radical redefinition of what it means to teach and learn grounded in the culture of the teacher and the students. Often this redefinition will involve compromise on both sides, but the current model of adding multicultural information into a European style classroom does nothing to empower marginalized students nor does it teach students from the dominant cultural group how to interact in a multicultural world.

• The cross-cultural exchange made possible by Fulbright Hays summer seminars enriches the teacher's classroom not only through curricular material, but also by expanding the teacher's sphere of reference and putting a teacher in contact with other energetic and excellent teachers.

None of these lessons easily translates into a lesson plan that can be applied in the classroom--however, all of them have ramifications for the classroom.

This project is an online, annotated travelogue. The basic text of the project was written while I was traveling in Hawai'i and New Zealan--it was part of a blog (web blog--or online, public journal) that I kept for my students, colleagues, and friends. While I traveled I wrote honestly about the daily experiences I was having, what I was learning, and the questions that were raised by those experiences. These comments and observations were the occasion for many interesting email exchanges with people back home about the issues I raised. Since returning to the U.S., I have added links to more authoritative sources, links to video clips, more photos, and suggested readings whenever possible. I have also kept the comment function enabled on the blog. My hope is that students and teachers will find this travelogue to be a useful resource on a number of cultural topics and larger educational issues facing classrooms in the U.S. and in New Zealand. Perhaps it will inspire others to enter the conversation about what meaningful multicultural curriculum and classrooms look like.