Only the hood can heal the hood: Co-conspiring for justice in education

 

This essay begins in te reo Mãori, the indigenous language of Aotearoa New Zealand, offering thanks and greetings to the readers, and acknowledging the collection that houses this work.

 

When we consider what justice might mean in education, we commonly conceptualise this as ‘levelling the playing field’ and ensuring that all young people, regardless of (or ‘despite’) their background, have the same opportunities to succeed. Sometimes it is captured in terms of ‘social mobility.’ This leads, understandably, to a focus on increasing measurable things, like access and attainment, often through deeply researched and well-evidenced policies and practices that can move the needle on these key measures within the system as it currently exists. Yet, as teachers and as school or college leaders, our experience often leaves us in no doubt that injustice persists. As Amartya Sen has written:

Much of our understanding of what social justice means, therefore, is informed by our experience of its opposite. ‘Social justice’ can feel vague in contrast to ‘social mobility’. The latter is often taken to be a more clinical and articulable alternative to the former, but we can have social mobility without moving towards social justice. Indeed, these concepts can conflict when our methods for achieving social mobility require those who face injustice to relinquish what is of value to them, to achieve someone else’s definition of success for the sake of increasing their social status – whether that is losing their heritage language, leaving their home or family, or pursuing aspirations that are not their own. That is, despite evidence of social mobility, our sense that there is injustice may persist.

In this short article we argue that we should use our experience as an invaluable route into the fight against the systemic causes of injustice, evidence of which is shown in the gaps in attainment and achievement levels at all phases of education and in areas such as the diversity of the teaching and leadership workforce. We want to share a little about our work in secondary education in Aotearoa New Zealand and how we have drawn on this experiential understanding of justice to challenge the received understanding of what it might take to address this injustice, using the concepts of co-conspiracy and re-indigenisation as guides. The application of these concepts is necessarily context-specific since they require the engagement of those who experience injustice with those who do not in that place. Despite this warning against universalisation, however, we hope that those working in the sixth form education sector in England can see how co-conspiracy and re-indigenisation can at least make us question what it will take to achieve justice in education.

The Aotearoa New Zealand context

Aotearoa New Zealand is a bicultural nation, whose Indigenous people (Mãori) comprise 17% of the population of just over five million. This necessarily means that we are a country accustomed to the connections and the tensions represented in our double-naming. For  the purposes of this essay, the term Aotearoa will henceforth be used. Aotearoa is founded on Te Tiriti o Waitangi (translated into English as ‘the Treaty of Waitangi’), which was signed by the British Crown and a number of iwi (Mãori tribes/extended family groups) in 1840. Te Tiriti outlines the relationship between the two parties around the three fundamental principles of partnership, protection and participation.

This notwithstanding, there is ongoing evidence of significant and persistent unjust inequality for Mãorias well as for other marginalised groups, notably Pacific Peoples/Pasifika, originally from islands in the South Pacific, who constitute an estimated 9% of the population. Pacific Peoples are closely related – culturally, genealogically, socio- economically and geographically – to Mãori, and while not indigenous to Aotearoa, are nonetheless linked by blood ties and diasporic indigeneity. Moreover, the colonial government of Aotearoa frequently connects Mãori nd Pacific Peoples through policies, initiatives, strategies and schemes to address the collective underrepresentation of Mãori and Pacific Peoples in positive outcomes (education, income, home ownership) and overrepresentation in negative outcomes (incarceration, widespread underachievement, ill health).

Inequality in Aotearoa is the result both of explicit actions by the state, such as Mãori land dispossession and the Dawn Raids, and, as in other liberal democratic countries of the West, an increase in income (and other) inequalities in the last several decades. Alongside this, however, there is a growing recognition within Aotearoa that many of the institutions of our society do not well serve or respond to the needs, including the ways of being and knowing, of groups that have become marginalised by that society. Examples of this in education are the questions of what is taught in school (the curriculum), and who teaches it (teacher diversity). As such, these institutions perpetuate injustice in some of their current practices, whilst also inheriting justified historical distrust passed down from earlier generations of these marginalised groups. Thus, increasing the effectiveness of these institutions, however well researched or evidenced the improvements are, cannot fully resolve the underlying ways in which these unjust inequalities come about. Instead, what is required are different ways of approaching injustice, and reforming or redesigning institutions on that basis.

Re-indigenisation and co-conspiracy

Whilst we are both ‘non-Mãori' (one of us is Pasifika, the other a white European immigrant to this country), both of us approach the question of  educational justice in Aotearoa with care and humility, but also recognising that we cannot be disinterested. This, for us, is the foundation of the idea of ‘co-conspiracy’ – a concept we have adopted from our Native Alliance brothers and sisters in the United States, who have created a framework outlining principles for working by and with Indigenous peoples in ‘battling, building and bridging with critical hope’. This approach argues that change is created not by the guilt, anger or compassion of the perpetrators of injustice on behalf of those perpetrated against, nor by the dispassionate amplifying and advocacy suggested by the idea of ‘allyship’. Rather, co-conspiracy insists on an active engagement on the part of both parties in the process of challenging and dismantling injustice. Change, on this approach, is by and for all of us, not ‘by some for others’, nor ‘by others for others’. As co-conspirators, we must recognise the ways that we perpetuate injustice, whilst also seeing that we have agency to make change alongside those who experience it.

We have sought to bring this co-conspiracy to life through the projects that we have worked on together, notably as the former and current kaitiaki (CEOs) of the education charity Ako Mãtãtapu: Teach First NZ and as co-directors of the Mãia Centre for Social Justice and Education. Through our work in employment-based teacher education, we have sought to co-conspire with communities in Aotearoa to redevelop our programmes to be rooted in mana tangata (‘the inherent dignity and prestige of our people’), and to reform our organisation to reflect the communities we serve. Tangible changes we made in how our organisation operated included: increasingly using our indigenous name first, despite the dissonance this creates for some; growing our staff team to understand and be reflective of those we serve; and making our teacher recruitment practices responsive in order to attract and retain the people with the greatest alignment to this. The outcome has been a major diversification of the teachers we recruit, with 60% now being Mãori or Pasifika compared to 17% for the education workforce nationally.

In particular, our experience taught us that supporting Mãori and Pasifika teachers to enter and remain in teaching required us to understand the specific experiences they have, including the unique demands on their time and their priorities, and how these sometimes conflict with our own, ‘Western’, assumptions about how teacher education and teaching work. Amending the programme application process to reduce the focus on candidates having to articulate their own achievements, a culturally awkward process for Mãori and Pasifika, and adjusting pre-service learning to enable greater involvement of family, including dependent children, were central. Once our teachers were in employment and working towards teacher registration, we made assessment practices more responsive, including allowing submission in te reo Mãori and instigating non-punitive hand-in deadlines, and we worked more closely with schools to ensure there was ongoing support and guidance for our teachers, especially where Mãori and Pasifika were employed in English-medium environments.

Within our teacher education programme, we aspire to be Indigenous-led and world-class. This means that our curriculum and pedagogy  are embedded in te ao Mãori(Mãori worldviews), and we have created assessments based in talanoa (a Pasifika word for deep, semi- structured conversations), wãnanga (deep and open deliberation) and ako (the reciprocal process of teaching and learning). Alongside this, we embedded failsafes in the governance models of our organisations through changes to our constitutions, to ensure the voices of our communities are considered first and centrally in the work that we do.

Aligned to this we have sought to reindigenise the projects we work on. We understand reindigenisation as being led by Indigenous people, communities and worldviews. We are also committed to ‘leaning into’ the different ways of knowing and being that exist for many of the communities we serve. This often means choosing what seems to be the harder, longer way to get things done. Sometimes this process requires us to get out of the way and make space for others to guide us, whilst accepting that we are still accountable, as co-conspirators, for making change happen – especially where, because of who we are and the positions we hold, we retain the power to do so. In the context of Aotearoa, for us this process means positioning te reo Mãori (Mãori anguage) and te ao Mãori (Mãori worldviews) at the forefront of our work, such as in the meaningful use of language and proactive learning on our part, as well as prioritising Mãori and Pacific knowledges, customs and values. That’s neither easy nor always comfortable. We understand the process of reindigenisation to differ from decolonisation by shifting our thinking towards alternative ways of making sense of and experiencing the world, rather than a process of negating a dominant worldview. For those of us who are non-indigenous, this means we must strive to understand both worlds, not reject or be ashamed of our own history and identity.

With the concepts of ‘co-conspiracy’ and ‘reindigenisation’ in mind, perhaps we can assess afresh what is necessary to provide all young people with just education, and thereby address the inequality gaps which are evidence of the ongoing injustice that, as teachers and school leaders, moves us.

What does this mean for the future?

As with all sharing of best practice and learning across the world, there is an issue of relevance and comparability between contexts which prevents the wholesale adoption of policy from one place to another – and that is not what we propose. Despite the deep historical and contemporary links between Aotearoa and the UK, the two countries differ markedly, and perhaps in no way more so than in the issues described in this article. Nonetheless, what we hope we have provided here is food for thought about the ways in which we can go about addressing injustice in education, regardless of context.

Here are some ideas about what this might mean:

First, our experience as teachers and leaders, especially those working in low-income and diverse communities, that injustice is persistent despite our best efforts is a legitimate starting point for debate about how we can address this. This is the case even if we are unable to articulate what the ideal of social justice in education might be, or what might not be captured in the ideals of equality of opportunity, ‘levelling the playing field’ or social mobility. For instance, regardless of whether or not greater numbers of young people from low-income or minority backgrounds have the opportunity to attend university, we know from experience that the real opportunities they face are not equal – that needs to be addressed.

Second, understanding ourselves as co-conspirators in the fight against social injustice offers far greater potential for making change as something that is by and for all of us, not on behalf of someone else. Thus, we are all legitimate participants in the act of challenging and championing policies and practices. For some of us, making room for other, lesser-heard voices to set the agenda is a vital part of this, but it sits alongside our own ongoing accountability for effecting the change we all agree is necessary. For instance, having greater numbers of people from marginalised groups teaching in and leading our schools and colleges is necessary, but won’t happen without changing recruitment and retention practices to reflect the aspirations, expectations and needs of these groups.

Third, recognising and operating in line with different ways of being in the world is vital if we are to dismantle the systemic causes of social injustice – to allow people to see themselves and their family in their learning. This does not need to mean rejecting or negating our own identity or history, nor that we cannot challenge other worldviews, as long as we accept the legitimacy of both and the ways in which one might dominate another, creating injustice.

By way of conclusion, we offer a Samoan proverb – ‘e fofã e le alamea, le alamea’ – which refers to the crown of thorns starfish. If an unwary beach wanderer accidentally stands on this starfish, the sharp spikes will inject poison into the foot. However, the cure lies in flipping the starfish over to access the antidote. In an academic expression of the same concept, Tongan scholar, Karlo Mila-Schaaf argues that ‘solutions to problems already exist within communities, and the aim is to identify potentially transferable behaviours and enabling factors that are useful’ (Mila-Schaaf, 2013). In the vernacular of some of our communities this might be better expressed as ‘only the hood can heal the hood’. As educators who, by definition, have survived and succeeded within school systems fraught with injustice, we have a responsibility to listen deeply to the young people and families who comprise our communities and to be led by their hopes for the future. In our experience, the work of co- conspiracy and re-indigenisation offer strength-based ways of creating social change in and with the communities in which we live, laugh, love and learn.

Michelle Johansson is a Tongan educator from South Auckland where she works with Polynesian Theatre Company the Black Friars and is the current CEO of Ako Mãtãtupu: Teach First NZ. Jay Allnutt is a former teacher and current PhD candidate at the University of Auckland with a focus on equality in education. Together, they are founding directors of Mãia Centre for Social Justice and Education.

References

Mila-Schaaf, K. (2013). Not another New Zealand-born identity crisis: Well-being and the politics of belonging. Pacific identities and well-being: Cross-cultural perspectives, 49-83.

Sen, A. (2009). The idea of justice. Allen Lane.