Transcript
Anne Brokenshire
I think there is a realisation now that one of the reasons why working in a high school is so exciting and so fulfilling, is that young people are developing, really strongly, their own identity as they go through these years – you know, between 12 and 18. And it’s not about being either Māori or Pakeha. For a lot of our students, they want to be able to celebrate the different parts of who they are. And I sometimes feel that you end up with people thinking that it’s ‘either/or’, rather than ‘both/and’.
Kylie Coulbeck
I personally feel we are heading in the right direction. I think through Te Kouhua and the action research that we have undergone, teachers are a great deal more reflective on their practice. They are a great deal more, I feel, empowered or included in leading their own professional development.
Anne Brokenshire
When you are working at that cross-curricular level, the focus is on young people, not on subjects. You are starting to get teachers talking about young people as ‘people’, not about subjects. So to me, that’s fantastic. And I think that people are becoming more conscious of the choices that they make. And you have to keep making those choices. Trying to look at things through other people's eyes. You know to walk in other people's shoes. It’s not an easy thing to do because so much of what we do everyday in our lives, and as teachers, is of habit and almost unconscious. And it’s trying to bring those sorts of decisions into, you know, conscious thought. And so to me, that is what this is actually about. You know, developing that understanding, developing that consciousness, so that you can make good choices.