Localised and Authentic Learning

April 01, 2019
Wherever I'm teaching I always try to 'keep things local' when using examples and throughout discussions. I've never had such a positive response to this as I have here. Being a small school the children truly live locally. Even when it comes to maths and science I'm finding the understanding coming through quicker and that children add their own experiences to the examples and discussions. 

Whilst this is great, I can't help wondering if the children should also be introduced to the wider world, geographically. One child in my class has not been out of the south island. He's not been on a ferry or a plane. When he told me this, he seemed quite down about it. I told him he's the luckiest boy in the classroom. I told him that I had travelled the world and I haven't seen any place more beautiful than the south island of New Zealand. Now I'm wondering that my keeping my teaching local, he's not getting the experience of anything else. Children should know the New Zealand city names, famous landmarks around New Zealand and internationally. They should be able to join in conversations about history around the world when they're older, especially the rich tikanga and Māori history throughout New Zealand.

Since returning to New Zealand I'm more aware of this. My own four children were brought up in the middle east. Now that we're back, there's so much New Zealand culture they don't know about eg. Te Tiriti o Waitangi, 1080 poison, endangered species, not to mention the geography of New Zealand.

As we approach term 2, I will be keeping this in mind during our 'fix it' topic. Whilst localised and authentic context is extremely important to learning situations, I believe there's a need for children in my class to have to the opportunity to expand their local area to have an understanding of others.

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