Colouring in the White Spaces: Reclaiming Cultural Identity in Whitestream Schools

If we look at a child’s colouring book, before it has any colour added to it, we think of the page as blank. It’s actually not blank, it’s white. That white background is just “there” and we don’t think much about it. Not only is the background uniformly white, the lines are already in place and they dictate where the colour is allowed to go. When children are young, they don’t care where they put the colours, but as they get older they colour in more and more cautiously. They learn about the place of colour and the importance of staying within the pre-determined boundaries and expectations.

This thesis argues that this is the setting for our mainstream, or what I have called, whitestream New Zealand schools — that white background is the norm. When we talk about multiculturalism and diversity what we are really referring to is the colour of the children, or their difference from that white norm, and how they don’t fit perfectly inside our lines. If the colour of the space doesn’t change schools are still in the business of assimilation, relegating non-white children to the margins, no matter how many school reform initiatives, new curricula, strategic plans, or mandated standards we implement. What the schools in this study have tried to do is change the colour of the space – so that the space fits the children and they don’t have to constantly adjust to fit in.

New Zealand’s education system has been largely silent on the topic of whiteness and the Eurocentric nature of our schooling policy and practice. However, when I talk to senior Māori and Pasifika ‘warrior-scholars” in Te Whānau o Tupuranga and Clover Park Middle School about “white spaces” they have encountered in their schooling experience they can identify them all too easily. “White spaces,” they explain, are anything you accept as “normal” for Māori – when it’s really not, any situation that prevents, or works against you “being Māori” or who you are, and that requires you to “be” someone else and leave your beliefs behind. White spaces are spaces that allow you to require less of yourself and that reinforce stereotypes and negative ideas about Māori. Most telling of all was the comment from a Māori student that goes straight to the root of the problem, “White spaces are everywhere,” she said, “even in your head.”

This thesis describes the 25 year journey of two schools and their community’s determination to resist and reject alienating school environments in favour of a relevant culturally-located, bilingual learning model based in a secure cultural identity, stable positive relationships, and aroha (authentic caring and love). While the research design is a case study, in terms of western, “white space” academic tradition, it is also a story in terms of kaupapa Māori and critical race methodology. More importantly, it is a counter-story that chronicles the efforts of these two schools to step outside education’s “white spaces” to create new space. This counter-story is juxtaposed against pervasive, deficit-driven whitestream explanations of “achievement gaps” and the “long tail” of Māori and Pasifika “under-achievement” in New Zealand schools. In the process of this research the focus shifted from how could Māori and Pasifika learners develop secure cultural identities in mainstream schools, to examining what barriers exist in schools that prevent this from happening already? As these issues became clear the language of the thesis shifted accordingly; “developing” a cultural identity was reframed as a reclamation of educational sovereignty — the absolute right to “be Māori” or “be Pasifika” in school — and “mainstream” schooling became better understood as the “whitestream.”

The study hopes to contribute to the journey other schools might take to identify and name their own white spaces, and to make learning equitable for indigenous and minoritised learners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EMr8OOs97Q

A bit of honesty here - when I first heard Ann speak I cringed for my Pakeha collegues who sat and listened to her thesis about how many white spaces there were in mainstream education. I cringed because I felt uncomfortable for them, I cringed because I didn't want them to feel uncomfortable in the space that we sat in, I cringed until one of those collegues lent over and whispered in my ear "now I know how you feel every time a negative Maori stat comes up in educational forums".

When I went home I analysed what was ACTUALLY presented and if I experienced any of these situations in my own education and found that I had fallen into a great deal of white spaces and assimilated to these also.

Here are a few pearls of wisdom that awakened me to my white spaces:

1. Educators need to stop trying to get better at doing the same things - we always tell our students to take risks in their learning so why won't we take our own advice, why don't we give future thinking a chance to prove us right.

2. Name the elephant in the classroom, show students how they can identify it and teach them how they can constructively change the colour of the elephant to suit their learning so that they can lead their future learning.

3. Identify the white spaces that I create and stop creating them - put student voice in them, colour over the lines because that's what creative people do, change the picture as you create it and make a masterpiece every time you start with a blank canvas. If you start to mess the canvas up, then paint the base and start again.

4. We need to authentically value other knowledges and broaden our narrow technical definition of “achievement”, achievement is not reaching a benchmark that qualifies for 'at' or 'above' standard. Achievement is being successful in life skills - it's growing up to be a global citizen and play your part in the World. Achievement is more than a grade, a mark or a level. Achievement happens everyday in life when goals are set and achieved in all areas of life.

5. Differentiate "achievement" and stop trying to make a model where one size fits all. I remember Mere Berryman speaking about how rangatahi are now saying "Maori as Ngati Porou....as Tuhoe....as Ngati Whatua" and now I understand why that statement is so essential. Teach the individual, not the all!

6. Be purposeful when you word your documentation. Words have influence and power so use them as a strength. Make your words mean something.