What REALLY makes a CoL a Kahui Ako?

Teacher Only Day - Whiriatetangata Kahui Ako Day #1

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Challenging.
Disruptive.
Mental Assent.

Words to describe my experience of today's teacher only day - the first for the Whiriatetangata Kahui Ako.

I say every child deserves an equal opportunity.
I say success looks different for everyone.
I can give mental assent to cultural sustainability and to equity; to having a different version of success for everyone - but do I really mean it? I had a great couple of colleagues press me on this today - and found that as much as I espouse these ideas, my underlying prejudice says otherwise. I say these things, but what I really mean is:

You can have equal opportunity - but only if you agree with what I think is important and valuable.
You can have your version of success - and I can look down on you and celebrate your success from a position of superiority because my children have true success.

I was challenged: What does success for my children look like to me?
Competent and capable to do what it is they want to do.
But what about kindness? Happiness?
Kind people can get used as doormats, I'd rather they were assertive.
Happiness comes from being competent and capable.
But does it really?
Well, I certainly feel happier now that I don't feel incompetent and incapable every day of the week.
What does success for your children look like for you?
My #1 is academically very capable and aspires to be an innovative and inventive scientist. My #2 was given a 1% chance of life, and now he's beaten the odds and progressing. #3 is flying along enjoying learning and enjoying people, while #4 is happy cruising, exploring, and just being in the world.

If I'm truly honest - I struggle daily with the fact that my #4 just doesn't seem as motivated to learn as the others, and worry that she's not as smart as the others.

So what's my measure of success for my children? I can't say it's academic success, because I don't expect #2 to reach any lofty academic goals. He aspires to be a nurse, and I feel that a health care assistant might be a more appropriate goal for him. Yet, academic success is what I expect from my girls and worry when my #4 aspires to be a frog and a bulldozer and barbie, and Hulksmash...

What I can say is that I have a different measure for success for each child. I can say that I have never pushed my kids into being something or doing something - I've just supported in the best way that I can. When that has meant bringing home friends who are cleverer in Maths than I am to play maths games with my 3-4 year old because that was what she was loving, and I have no idea how to do that, that's what's happened. When that's meant searching high and low to find reading material that is suitable for my bookwormy children who have a higher reading age than what emotionally their minds can handle, that's what's happened.

Perhaps it's easier in my family because we're all the same culture, colour, ethnicity, background. I'm sharing with my kids my values and beliefs because that's my job as a parent.

So what's my job as a teacher?

To be culturally responsive?
But that doesn't just mean stick Maori labels on things and tick the box. I was heading more in the culturally sustainable way when I had my te Reo learning goals up on my whiteboard and my Maori ako gave me feedback on my learning.
It also doesn't mean chuck in some Maori authors.
I've never agreed with the idea of focusing on Maori (or anyone) as targeted, priority learners, because I've always fought for treating every student as an individual, and finding ways for the student to succeed. My late high school principal said "if the student isn't learning then the teacher isn't teaching" and I took that to heart. So if my students are not achieving the success they deserve, then what is it that's missing?

When everyone can achieve success in a way that is meaningful for them - is that when a Community of Learning can authentically call itself a Kahui Ako?