Tapasā: An Invitation to Decolonize Literacy Teacher Education in Aotearoa New Zealand

• In Event: Decolonizing Literacy Methods: Exploring the Interconnectedness of Practices for Deepening Teacher Knowledge

Abstract

The NZ Teaching Council recently released Tapasā, a touchstone document to support non-Pasifika teachers in considering how their practices might be more culturally sustaining for Pasifika students. We used this as an invitation to critically examine the content of our initial teacher education literacy classes, and also to look critically at methods of instruction and assessment. Despite Aotearoa New Zealand’s official foundation in biculturalism, Indigenous ways of knowing have been historically marginalised in official schooling spaces, so there is a continuing need for rigorous interrogation of curriculum and practices. Using diffractive text analysis and talanoa vā, we explore the processes and first wave of insights to arise through a collaborative effort to decolonize some aspects of literacy teacher education curriculum.

Authors

• Jessica Cira Rubin, University of Waikato

• David Taufui Mikato Fa'avae, The University of Auckland