Encouraging effective use of the school library

by Pasifika students

SLANZA Conference 2011Rob Finlay & Gail Cochrane

Talofa lava

Malo e lelei

Kia orana

Fakaalofa lahi atu

Ni sa

bula

Malo niNamaste

Kia ora

Welcom

e

In groups…What do these look like?

• A. A library effectively-

used by Pasifika students

• B. A library not effectively-

used by Pasifika students

Think of:

•Activities- what is not happening?

•- what is happening?

•Attitudes to:

•Being in the library/ library staff

•Resources

•Reading and learning

Reflection on our discussion

• What makes a difference, in your experience or

observation?

• In what ways do Pasifika students respond like or

unlike others?

• Why?

• Do Pasifika students require a different approach

from other students?

• If so what needs to be different?

A library effectively used by Pasifika students is one that is…

Pasifika advice, inspiration and support

• Schools services website

• Online community on Schools website

Please join

• Adviser Pasifika: rob.finlay@dia.govt.nz :

(09) 365 8814

• Local networking where there are several

schools with high Pasifika rolls- common interest

• Your local Pasifika staff, parents, churches,

community and public library (Pasifika librarians)

Outline

• Knowing your students

• Knowing the education goals and issues for Pasifika

students

• Print and digital resources

• Strategies that will engage Pasifika students and their

families with the library, and with literacy and learning

• The Library environment

1. Knowing your students

• Know your students as individuals

• Meet members of their families and communities

• Involve Pasifika staff

• Learn about the cultures, language and histories:– Tagata Pasifika

– Cultural events

– Literature

– Magazines

Heritage strands

“Oceania”

A sea of islands

Samoa Tokelau Cook Is Tonga Niue Fiji Tuvalu Other

Colonial experience

Colonising powers- variable/ Missionaries/ Traders/ Languages/ Settlers/ Travel/

Migration

Island born -- NZ born

2/3/4 generations/ intermarriage

New Zealand social, economic, educational experience

Melanesia

Micronesia

Polynesia Britain

France

Germany

USA

European

Chinese

Indian

afakasi

Traders Beachcombers Labourers

Missionaries Settlers Sailors

Administrators Soldiers Slavers

Lapita High islands

Atolls vaka/va’a

Kanaks

Islanders

PI

Influenza “Black Saturday” Dawn raids

Pacific War Polynesian Panthers

Treaty of Friendship Remittences

Sione’s Wedding Fresh off the boat

Churches, gangs and role models

palagi

Tagata

Maori

vanua

moana

Moby Dick

Tusitala- RLS

Noble savage

Sons for the return home

Tupaea

Vikings of the sunrise

Girl in the moon circle

Niu Sila

Australia

Varying strengths of cultural identity

Fluent language and “island” culture

(Island born, strong church/ family identity)

Pasifika culture

Identity and identification as Pasifika

Assimilation

(New Zealand born, Mixed-parentage, Isolation)

2. Knowing the education goals and issues for Pasifika students

“Pasifika children often underachieve in literacy and exhibit disengagement and alienation at school. National and international reports on literacy performance continue to reveal low levels of achievement in reading among Pasifika students, to the extent that raising the levels of achievement in this area has become a focus for targeted funding in MOE initiatives.”

(Motivating Pasifika students in literacy learning)

• What approaches can we take to this issue?

• What is ‘Deficit thinking’?

Compass for Pasifika success and the Pasifika Education Plan

Compulsory sector goals

• Ensure improved progress in literacy and numeracy

• Increasing responsiveness to Pasifika learners and

families

• Increase effective engagement between Pasifika parents,

families and teachers and schools focussed on learning

• Where do school libraries contribute to these goals?

• How do school libraries contribute?

How much attention is given to Pasifika students at your school?

Consider

• Number/ proportion of Pasifika students

• Number/ proportion of Pasifika staff

• Access from Pasifika families and other adults

• Policy

• Special occasions

• Library

3. Print and digital resources

For students

• In Pacific languages

• About Pacific heritage in the Islands

• About the Pasifika experience in New Zealand

• Other resources that Pasifika students will identify with

• For Pasifika- resources that appeal

• Engaging with the world

Two further questions

• How can we bring Pacific Islands/ Pasifika worlds and

works into the classroom?

– for Pasifika students

– for non-Pasifika students

• How can we bring mainstream worlds and works to our

Pasifika learners in a relevant and meaningful way?

PNP

About Pacific heritage:a question of approach

Siteine and Samu: three perspectives used in Social Science units

• Oceanic - holistic, “draws attention to ancient Pacific people’s ways of seeing their world and to their actions in the present”

• Small island - looks at individual “island states in terms of the geographic and economic features of the island state”

• Tourist - has the effect of putting students with Pacific backgrounds “on show”, and “can serve to perpetuate the stereotypes, misrepresent cultural realities, and undermine a sense of belonging and identity.”

How people are represented is important

Patricia Grace (Pihama p 239):

• “If books do not… reinforce values, actions, customs, culture and identity, then they are dangerous… If there are not books that tell us about ourselves but only tell us about others, then they are saying ‘you do not exist’ and that is dangerous… However, if there are books that are about you and they are untrue, that is very dangerous… If there are books about you but they are negative and insensitive so that they are saying ‘you are not good’, that is dangerous.”

Print resources

Discuss:

• The challenge: What are the issues?

• The providers: Where do you go for resources?

• The resources: What do you look for in resources for

Pasifika students?

• The alternatives: Where do you go when there aren’t print

resources?

Pasifika languages

• Which languages? and why?

• Samoan Tongan Cook Is Maori Niuean Tokelauan

Hindi Fijian Tuvaluan Kiribati Tok Pisin

• Bilingual

• Resources available

• Collect and preserve Tupu and Folauga material (MOE)

• Sources: – Ethnic Word: www.ethnicword.co.nz

– The Book Hut: http://www.thebookhut.co.nz/

– Wheelers: http://www.wheelers.co.nz/spb/category/

– Native Council: http://www.nativecouncil.co.nz/

Easy language materials

for junior students- single language

Bilingual resources

• Support literacy in both languages

• Bilingual approach helps students with basic literacy

• Bilingual resources, eg Bibles in Samoan/English, etc

• Bilingual pages

• Parallel translations in separate books, eg Tupu

SamoanNiuean

Easy language materials

for junior students- bilingual

Series in English

and either Tongan,

Samoan or Maori /

Kahukura, Ahurewa

New, from

Native Council

for PEC

Also Tongan,

more to

come

Reference

For children, by Betty

Dunford, Bess Press,

$204.30 Wheelers price

These are available, but

many Pacific language

dictionaries are out of print or in

limited supply

Digitisation may be a solution, eg Maori: http://www.lexilogos.com/english/maori_dictionary.htm

Myths and legends – bilingual/ English

Tongan-English

myths seriesSamoan-English

TKI: Pasifika - Digital Legends

English

Tagata tangata series:

Oceanic perspectives

Pearson/

Longman/

Secondary

Note: these are textbooks, but we need the

useful information. Useful case studies

Pasifika: Study of Island

Communities in the Southwest Pacific

Small island perspectives

Not currently

available

Souvenirs of

the South

Pacific- out of

stock and out

of print

Tourist perspectives:

Travel brochures

Travel guides

History

South Pacific History in Suite 101

Exploring the Pacific

Pacific Voyaging Society

http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/

Vaka moana exhibitions

http://

www.aucklandmuseum.com/

vakamoana/default.asp

Pacific vaka voyage: request a

Google Alert for this current

voyage. See also:

http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/

2011/04/20112012-pacific-vaka-

voyage/

Tue 26/04/2011

out of print

Science

Tuvalu, rising sea levels

About Pasifika experience in New Zealand

The sad story of

an island-born

boy, Fa’amoana

John Luafutu- from

Macmillan Brown

Short stories and collections

Not currently available

Picture books

TonganSamoan

Bilingual

Also by Catherine

Hannken:

Selafina , Fiapule

Sole! books

by Fata and

Paula

Letoa- OP

Picture booksInternational Children's

Digital Library

New Zealand Picture

Book Collection;

Living Heritage

Pacific writing - general

Pasifika poetry

• Selina Tusitala Marsh and Pasifika poetry

http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/pasifika/index.asp

• Voices of the Pacific: a poetry resource, Diana O’Meara-

includes Pasifika poets and writing about Pacific themes

• -South Auckland Poets Collective

Pasifika drama

• Sensitive use required

• http://www.blackfriarscompany.blogspot.com/

Pasifika fiction – primary and intermediate

Very little

Joy Cowley

Eve Sutton

Pasifika fiction – secondary/ adult level

Usually written for adults, may appeal to serious seniors

Pasifika fiction – by non-Pasifika writers

Art and Music

Cooking and food

Me’a Kai won New Zealand Best Book of the Year in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, Dec 2010, and Gourmand World Cookbook Awards June 2011

Using other resources that reflect analogous experience

Discussion:

From your observation, what resources appeal to Pasifika students?

What are the features in these resources that appeal?

What strategies have you used successfully to draw Pasifika students to ‘mainstream worlds and works’?

Elements that are likely to appeal

Humour

Sport

Health

Injustice, oppression, succeeding

against the odds

Biographies: famous men and

women

Heroes

Poetry

Horror

War books

Adventure books

Graphic novels but response- varies between schools

Shakespeare

Bible stories

Maori myths and legends

Magazines

Romances

Usually no difference from anyone else

Needs to be cool

‘High interest, not just because it has Pasifika language or setting’

Digital resources- a survey

NZETC- N Z Electronic Text Centrehttp://www.nzetc.org/

• Contemporary Maori and Pacific Islands

• Historic Maori and Pacific Islands

Visual resources

• Matapihi: http://www.matapihi.org.nz/

• Timeframes:

http://find.natlib.govt.nz/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=TF&fromLogin=true

• PictureAustralia: http://www.pictureaustralia.org/

• Material culture: Virtual Museum of the Pacific: http://

epoc.cs.uow.edu.au/vmp/#

General search

• Digital New Zealand: http://www.digitalnz.org/ .

Pacific Island cultures

• Siapo.com: http://www.siapo.com

• Living Heritage: http://www.livingheritage.org.nz/

• National Library Website high interest topics: http://

schools.natlib.govt.nz/high-interest-topics

History

• NZ History online: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz

• PapersPast:

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast

• Suite101.com online magazine– http://www.suite101.com/oceanic-history- historic and recent

– http://www.suite101.com/polynesian-indigenous-people

• Topics from Oceania: units for junior secondary history

http://www.aaaps.edu.au/?q+node/135

Resources for parents

• To attract them to the Library

– Pasifika newspapers, magazines and news websites

– Taro Pages website (Auckland)

• To (also) help them with parenting

– SKIP (Strategies for Kids/ Information for Parents), Ministry of Social Development (Samoan, Tongan and Hindi)

– Feed the mind resources in five Pacific languages and English

– Borrowing rights for pre-school siblings

4. Strategies that will engage Pasifika students and their families with the Library, with literacy and learning

Principles for Pasifika student learning

• Common cultural and identity characteristics

• Each individual/ family/ community is different

• Schools are different– Multicultural schools

– Mainly Pasifika schools

– Smaller Pasifika numbers

• Providing for diversity

• Providing for Pasifika “as Pasifika”

• Providing for excellence

Providing for diversity

• Most Pasifika students are in multicultural schools

• Preferred learning style varies– communal and cooperative

– individual

• Know your students

Providing “for Pasifika as Pasifika”

• Colouring in the white spaces, Ann Milne, APPA, 2009– “white spaces” = schools sharing in the “background set of rules”, the

risk of hegemony

• Ka Hikitia

• Research indicates that Pasifika students do better when taught under Te Kotahitanga principles

• "Pasifika students at (Te Kotahitanga) schools had a 15.4 increase (in NCEA) over the same period compared to a 6.1 general increase for Pasifika"

Timperley, H., Wilson, A., Barrar, H., Fung, I., & Auckland, U. o. (2007 ) p.261

• Kotahitanga- an overview

Providing for excellence- Teachers (and librarians) can improve outcomes

for Pasifika learners when they:• Know the learner

• Use home language(s), knowledge and experiences of

Pasifika students… in the classroom

• Ensure that students’ prior knowledge and experiences

are activated and used to build a bridge between what

they already know and new knowledge

• Provide a range of culturally relevant texts, topics,

contexts and perspectives

Draft Pasifika principles-

Team Solutions Talanoa Akoako, 2008

Teachers and librarians can improve outcomes for Pasifika learners when they: (2)

• Provide deliberate and explicit, transparent instruction

about language as well as learning content

• Provide high challenge with appropriate level of support

• Provide multiple learning opportunities with a focus on

learners using academic language

• Make productive links with family and community

Draft Pasifika principles-

Team Solutions Talanoa Akoako, 2008

Strategies for Literacy

• Home-school partnerships

• Reading to

• Reading choice – Free and Voluntary Reading- and responses

• Seeing adults and seniors read

• Encouraging reading at school

• Peer reading

• Books at home

• Letting students borrow books- scaffolding borrowing process

• Reading together- Jeanne Biddulph

• Summer reading

4. The Library environment

• Social

• Opportunity for involvement

• Culture and language

• Involvement with the wider community

• Aesthetic and accoustic

• Limits

Social

• Library as fono- meeting place

• A place becomes home when you can relax there

• Homework centre

• Special occasions for Pasifika hosted in the Library

• Parent involvement

• How do you create an atmosphere that draws Pasifika

students?

Opportunity for involvement

• As Student Librarians

• Responsibility for Pasifika collection, displays

• Pasifika teacher involvement with the Library team,

student librarians

• Targeted activities

Culture and language

• Knowing the students and their cultures

• Resources in Pasifika languages, about Pasifika themes

• Appropriate use of language in labelling

• Sensitivity, eg pronunciation

• Visibility

Involvement with the wider community

• Pasifika teachers

• Pasifika public librarians

• Links with Pasifika community leaders

• Pasifika parents

• Pasifika events advertised (see Pasifika Online

Community)

Aesthetic and acoustic• Appearance- what does a Pasifika home look like?

• Architectural features

• Layout and design

• Art and displays

• Labelling

• Sound- voices and musicRobertson Rd

Mangere

Koru

Mangere

Viscount, Mangere

Limits

• Being at home includes a sense of appropriateness-

boundaries

• Being responsible as well as comfortable

In your small groups

• What steps could you take to encourage Pasifika students

to respond positively to the school library? (attitudes)

• What other people/groups within/outside the school could

you draw on to help make a difference?

• What learning activities would you facilitate both in and

beyond the school library that will enhance Pasifika

student literacy and learning?

• Draw up one priority action for each of Term 3 and 4, and

another 2 for 2012

Tofa soifua

Nofo aAere ra

Ni sa moce

Olo la ni ‘Bye

Koe kia

Haere Ra

National Administration Guidelines (NAGs)

NAG1(c) on the basis of good quality assessment information, identify students and groups of students:

• who are not achieving;

• who are at risk of not achieving;

• who have special needs (including gifted and talented students); and

• aspects of the curriculum which require particular attention;

NAG2A (c) report in the board’s annual report on:

• the numbers and proportions of students at, above, below or well below the standards, including by Māori, Pasifika and by gender (where this does not breach an individual’s privacy); and

• how students are progressing against the standards as well as how they are achieving.

The National Education Goals (NEGs)

NEG 1

• The highest standards of achievement, through programmes which enable all students to realise their full potential as individuals, and to develop the values needed to become full members of New Zealand's society.

NEG 2

• Equality of educational opportunity for all New Zealanders, by identifying and removing barriers to achievement.

NEG 10

• Respect for the diverse ethnic and cultural heritage of New Zealand people, with acknowledgment of the unique place of Māori, and New Zealand's role in the Pacific and as a member of the international community of nations.

 

3. Strategies to encourage engagement with resources

• Literacy

• Information literacy

• Discussion

21st century literacies and learning

• Inquiry approach- questions

• The advantages of an inquiry approach

• Topics and themes

4. Interactive session:

• An example- Sorry Samoa (Level 1 NCEA/ Level 5)

• Working for your school

• Locate resources for a unit you/ your school have planned

Sorry SamoaThe background to Helen Clark’s apology,

June 2002

Using Digital Resources to put Pacific Islands Culture and Heritage into the curriculum

Interactive session

• Take a unit of work envisaged for your school:Suggestions:

– Picture books/ Poetry/

– Myths and legends

– A Social Studies theme in the Pacific Islands or immigration

– A historical event, eg Nuclear testing, War in the Pacific

• Locate resources- print and digital- to support the unit

• Explore- think about access issues on school computers

and how they could be used to develop interest.

Information for educators

• Team Solutions Pasifika advisers:

http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/about/pasifika-at-the-faculty/pasifika-staff

Providing for excellenceQuality teaching and school structures are vital: a good

teacher (or librarian) is a good teacher (or librarian) for Pasifika students as long as there is:

• Empathy, understanding, good relationships and involvement

• Understanding of the cultures

• High expectations and firm boundaries

• Positive reinforcement and support

• Appropriate learning environments conducive to learning

• Encouragement and support for students to understand learning processes and use effective learning tools in order to become independent learners

NZETC- N Z Electronic Text Centrehttp://www.nzetc.org/

• Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands

• Collected songs and legends from the southern Cook Islands

• Old Samoa by John B. Stair

• The Material Culture of the Cook Islands (Aitutaki) by Te Rangi Hiroa

• The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom by Basil Thomson

• Polynesian Researches by Ellis, William

• An Introduction to Polynesian Anthropology by Te Rangi Hiroa

• Vikings of the Sunrise by Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Henry Buck)

• An Account of Samoan History up to 1918 by Te'o Tuvale

Engagement with Publisher and Supplier

• Mary Hooker, South Pacific Books, now part of Wheelers

Books

• Evotia Tamua, Little Island Press, at Wheelers Books

• Rachael Crowhen, The Book Hut

• Our questions

• Answers

• Discussion

• Follow up

Pasifika Students’ Resource Needs, Interests and Attitudes

• Focus- on Pasifika students’ learning

• Are their learning needs different from those of others? If

so, what are they?

• Do they have interests and attitudes that are unique and

distinct? If so, what are they?

• What principles do we need to take into account when we

provide for their learning– and other- needs?