Inequality in Education: Dr Pedro Noguera

Dr. Pedro Noguera was the keynote speaker at a workshop run by the Pacific Research Symposium on January 28th. His presentation highlighted the barriers to education faced by males of colour (African-American and Latino) in the US and provided parallels to a similar plight being experienced by young Maori and Pasifika men in Aotearoa/NZ.

He urged us to acknowledge that the current solutions/education institutions are 'not working' for them and argued that the system, that encourages inequity in education, needs to change. He offered up examples in NZ (Kia Aroha School) and the US (Eagle Academy) of new learning models where a student's culture/heritage is an asset and provides the platform for building success at school and sets them up to access improve life circumstances/opportunities.

I found his talk very thought provoking - what kind of role models do our children have to look up to - professionals? sports stars? entertainers? what expectations do we as teachers have for our students?how can we as teachers keep our kids engaged and motivated in their learning?