When I left school as a young teenager I believed that my education had finished. I believed I had failed and that I would never get another opportunity to have an education. This is true in Lebanon and in other countries in the Middle East. Once a student fails school, there is no chance to come back to study as an adult and try again.

New Zealand has a system where adults get a second chance at education. This means an adult who failed at school can do one year of study and if they pass with good grades they can go to university and do a degree. They do this in New Zealand because they think that adults who have a second chance at education will benefit the country’s economy and society. 

I am very thankful to have a second chance. It is very hard work to be at university when I experienced failure at school and it is even harder because I am studying in English and English is my second language. It is hard work but it is a privilege to be able to do it. I hope in the Middle East that governments and universities can start to explore ways to give adult learners a second chance at getting the education they deserve.

This is a brief message to say thank you to everyone who has supported me by liking the website blog and my new Facebook page. I am very excited to be able to share what I am learning about my new home New Zealand, and also what I am learning about education in particular. As my daughter Maia gets closer to starting school at the end of this year, I am finding that I am even more interested in what education is and could be in the 21st century. So thank you again for joining me and welcome to chakif.com

As its Auckland anniversary weekend I thought I might talk about my own story and how it intersects with the wider patterns of society in Auckland.

According to Immigration New Zealand data (2011), in the financial year of 2010/11 the number of Lebanese males between the ages of 20 – 29 who were granted a ‘Returning Resident’s Visa’ from Immigration New Zealand was four.  This was out of a total of 12 Lebanese.  I am one of these four Lebanese males. In contrast, in the same financial year 9,347 people were granted “returning resident’s visas’ from Great Britain, 7,039 people were from China and 3,781 were from South Africa. 

In the 2006 Census, the proportion of Auckland’s population who were born overseas reached 37%.  Statistics New Zealand (2006, 2) states that;

“Auckland was the most ethnically diverse region in New Zealand, with 56.5% of its population identifying with the European ethnic group, 18.9% with the Asian ethnic group, 14.4% with the Pacific peoples ethnic group, and 11.1% with the Māori ethnic group.”

In both colonial and contemporary history, Auckland has been the main entry and exit point for goods and people. Bedggood (2004, 25) argues that ‘without Auckland there would be no New Zealand as we know it’.  Auckland is the gateway for New Zealand. 

Statistics from the Auckland City Council (2002, 2) show that the Auckland population in Auckland Central, where I live, has a large proportion of residents who have lived here for less than 5 years.  Auckland Central has a significant transient population with residents mostly living here for work or study and then moving to more settled parts of Auckland.  Many new residents to New Zealand, like myself, begin their life in New Zealand as a resident of Auckland Central.

As a new resident to New Zealand I have become more aware of my cultural identity and how it is placed in the Auckland context.  The Corban family are an Auckland family that is well known and well respected.  They are the family behind the internationally renowned Corbans wine company. When I first arrived in New Zealand I met a granddaughter of Assid Abraham Corban at the Lebanese bakery on Dominion Road.  I had heard of Corbans wine, a popular wine from New Zealand, before I arrived in the country.  She explained to me that her Grandfather was the founder of the Corban Winery and that the family was Lebanese. 

The ‘History of the Corban Winery’ can be found on the Corban Estate Arts Centre website.  Before buying land out in West Auckland, Assid ran a shop on Queen Street in Auckland’s CBD selling ‘…fabrics, jewellery, drapery and other ‘fancy’ goods’ (CEAC, 2004, 1)   In fact, Assid Corban’s story follows the story of Auckland in the late 1800s.  He began as a trader, serving the miners in Waihi and Thames, earned enough to open a shop in Queen Street in the Auckland CBD and then went on to become a landowner on the fringes of Auckland.  His life really was an authentic ‘Auckland’ biography intersecting with the history of place, albeit a very successful story.

In my research, I also discovered that the Corban family came from a village in Mt Lebanon and Mt Lebanon is where I am from.  The Corban family are an example of Lebanese in New Zealand that assimilated well into New Zealand Society.  The Corban family did this by becoming landowners in Auckland and developing a successful business. The Corban family show why the Lebanese were referred to as ‘…‘the quiet immigrants’ because they were easily assimilated into New Zealand society (Veitch & Tinawi, 2009, 2).’

Yet, even though the Lebanese were seen in such a positive light as immigrants, New Zealand has never been welcoming towards the Lebanese in its immigration policy. It took seven years for Assid to be able to bring his wife to New Zealand.

“In the 1890s there was a move to introduce legislation that would stop Lebanese migration and ban those already resident from peddling goods. It was partially successful. In 1900 Lebanese immigration became more difficult with the introduction of an English language test. Although those who had arrived could be naturalised as British citizens, Lebanese could not draw pensions or family allowances until the 1930s, as they were officially classified as Asiatics.” (Veitch & Tinawi, 2009. 2)

The data on current immigration show that the policies in New Zealand are no more welcoming to Lebanese than they were a hundred years ago.  Although the policies are not specifically directed at Lebanese, very few Lebanese are able to meet the criteria.  A total of 43,810 people were granted a ‘Returning Resident’s Visa’ from Immigration New Zealand in the 2010/11 financial year.  Of these 43,810 people, only 12 people were Lebanese (Immigration New Zealand, 2011).

As a Lebanese immigrant, I am following the patterns of the Lebanese immigrants to New Zealand before me, by finding the best way to assimilate into my new home and using the opportunities available to me in the local environment to do this. In doing this, I have discovered that I am also following the demographic trends and patterns of Auckland Central in general. 

References

Auckland City Council, 2002. Auckland Central CBD: Resident Population. Available at: http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/projects/cbdproject/docs/aucklandcbdresident.pdf [accessed 22 September 2012]

Bedggood, David. 2004. Auckland – Antipodean Portal of Empire. In Almighty Auckland? eds. Ian Carter, David Craig and Steve Matthewman. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press.

Carter, Ian. 2004. JAFFA/JAFA: A Personal Introduction. In Almighty Auckland? eds. Ian Carter, David Craig and Steve Matthewman. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press.

CEAC, 2004. A Brief History of the Corban Winery. Available at: http://www.ceac.org.nz/about_ceac/a_brief_history_of_the_corban_winery.aspx [accessed 21 September 2012]

Immigration New Zealand, 2010. RRV1 - Returning Residence Apps Decided by FY - 10-Sep-2012. Available at: http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/general/generalinformation/statistics/ [accessed 22 September 2012]

Leigh, Jack. 1984, What will happen to our loved ones? New Zealand Women’s Weekly, (27 February): 4-6

Statistics New Zealand, 2006. QuickStats About Culture and Identity – 2006 Census. Available at: http://www.stats.govt.nz/~/media/Statistics/Census/2006-reports/quickstats-subject/Culture-Identity/qstats-about-culture-and-identity-2006-census.pdf [accessed 22 September 2012]

Veitch, James and Tinawi, Dalia. 2009. Middle Eastern peoples - Assimilation and recent arrivals. In Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Available at: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/middle-eastern-peoples/2 [accessed 22 September 2012]

As someone who did all my schooling in Lebanon in the Middle East, how teaching happens in a New Zealand school was a complete mystery to me. As part of an educational psychology paper I got to observe teaching in action in an Auckland primary school that is based in a low socio-economic community.  I have to admit that I went to the school with some preconceived ideas about how education would be in a poor, predominantly Pasifika area.  I imagined I would see students who were experiencing a dumbed down education, where they were ‘under-served’ by the teachers. 

In reality, this school was completely the opposite.  When I arrived at the school, some senior students came to the office to greet me and invited me to take a tour of the school with them because their teacher was not ready to see me.  The first class we went into was a junior class. The students were ‘doing’ science. This meant they were doing experiments with balancing weights and drawing pictures in their school books of what they saw.  The students were in groups and talking about what they were doing.  Everyone was very excited and engaged in their experiments. I asked a pair of little boys what they were doing and they enthusiastically explained their task and why they thought they were getting the results they were.  It turned out that this was not just a junior class, but it was the new entrant reception class.  None of the students had been at school for more than a week and for several of the students, the day of my visit was their first day of school ever!  I have to add that this was just before their morning break, so these little students had been in class for 90mins and even after all that time in class they were still so excited and involved in what they were learning.

The teachers I talked with and observed explained that it was the philosophy of the school to provide activities that develop critical thinking, even with the very little children and that this was done by setting up meaningful activities and encouraging learning conversations.

In a humanist approach to learning it is very important for students to be treated with dignity.  It is important to build a safe learning environment where students feel accepted and confident to take risks. These little students, even on their first day of school entered a safe environment where they were encouraged to experiment and take risks in their learning.  They also entered a classroom where the teacher expected them to be bright and capable and able to succeed and they enjoyed living up to their teacher’s expectations. I wish I had had this kind of experience of education when I started school.

Charter schools are being promoted as a form of affirmative action. According to the Ministry of Education charter schools, called partnership schools in New Zealand, bring together the business sector and the community with the education sector with the intention of providing a “new opportunity for students to achieve educational success” (MoE, 2013). These schools are state funded and privately managed. The Ministry of Education describes the purpose of partnership schools as follows:

     Currently four out of five New Zealand students achieve educational success, but one in five do not. These                schools will have greater freedom and flexibility to innovate and engage with their students in return for stronger        accountability for improving educational outcomes. These schools will focus on the Government’s priority groups:      Māori, Pasifika, learners from low socio-economic backgrounds and learners with special education needs -                helping all New Zealand students reach their potential (MoE, 2013).

Concerns about partnership schools are many and varied, including concerns about experiments in education on the poor through to the impact that the business model and its drive for profits will have on the quality of education the students ultimately receive (Snook, 2012). Little has been done to address the concerns of critics. However some Māori leaders are finding themselves conflicted in the face of this initiative. Member of Parliament, Hone Harawira (18 September, 2013) posted on the Mana party blog:

    I’ve got mixed emotions about government announcing the funding of the first five charter schools...here’s the             government throwing money at charter schools which don’t have to use the national curriculum, or be held up to         national standards, or have to put qualified teachers in front of the kids, or be accountable for their decisions             under the Official Information Act. On the other hand, I know the people involved in the two Tai Tokerau projects         and they are genuinely good people, dedicated to doing the best for Māori kids...the reality is that 90% of Māori         kids are in the mainstream, but instead of a helping those schools to develop a stronger, more robust learning and     support network for Māori kids, government has instead scrapped the proven Te Kotahitanga programme.

The concern expressed by Harawira here, is a concern I think I agree with. Although partnership schools step outside of education as it is defined in the curriculum and as such could offer advantages that targeted educational opportunities can give specific groups in society, partnership schools move the focus away from the place where the majority of Māori and Pasifika students attend school. Charter schools, by whatever name, divert our attention from the real socio-economic issues that detrimentally effect learning so these can continue to go on unchallenged.

(Based on some research I did for a debate I participated in as part of an education paper at Auckland Uni 2013.)

References
Harawira, H. (18 September 2013). New charter schools for Māori in the North. Retrieved                                                  from: http://mana.net.nz/2013/09/harawira-new-charter-schools-for-Māori-in-the-north-2/

Ministry of Education (2013). Partnership Schools: Kura Hourua. Retrieved from                                                                 http://www.minedu.govt.nz/theMinistry/EducationInitiatives/PartnershipSchools.aspx

Snook, I. (2012). Charter schools for New Zealand: an investigation designed to further the debate in New Zealand         on education policy in general and on charter schooling in particular. New Zealand: Massey University. Retrieved       from: http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1204/EPRG_Charter_Schools_for_New_Zealand_report.pdf

When I first moved to New Zealand at the age of 27 I intensively studied Academic English. I was surprised to find that I progressed very quickly and enjoyed rapid success.  The key to this success was the methodology of the teachers.  The teachers used what they called a ‘communicative’ approach to teaching English language.  The classroom was set up to encourage interaction and discussion between students and with the teacher.  We worked in pairs or in small groups to discuss our learning and also to help and correct one another.  Learning through mistakes was encouraged so this meant I was more willing to take risks.  Assessment was more formative than summative, with the teacher supporting me to understand what I was learning and informing me of my next steps in learning.  The outcome of this experience was that I achieved the level of Academic English that was required for me to enter university in only 16 months.  This has been the greatest success I have experienced in my learning journey.

Piaget’s formal-operations period, or stage 4 is where as a young adult I should be operating.  The way the teachers talked to me about my learning and discussed the next steps for me in my learning meant that I was able to use my executive function to think about and monitor what I was learning (Duchesne, 2013, p.69).  This process of ‘thinking about thinking’ is called metacognition (Duchesne et al, 2013, p.199).  Being encouraged to be metacognitive about my learning in Academic English enabled me to have strategies that supported my rapid success in this type of learning.

Another aspect of the methodology used by my teachers that supported my success was their expectation that for students to learn well, students needed to have the courage to take risks and make mistakes.  This reflects Piaget’s idea of disequilibrium, where learning happens when an inconsistency arises that forces the student to make an adaptation of what they know (Duchesne et al, 2013, p. 73; Woolfolk & Margetts, 2013, p.83). This adaptation involves either adjusting an existing mental scheme to incorporate the new information, or using the new information to form a new mental scheme.  The first process is called assimilation and the second is called accommodation (Duchesne et al, 2013, p.73).

Vygotsky’s theory of human development would identify two features of my story of success that would indicate why I felt successful in this scenario.  Firstly, the curriculum, methodology and environment encouraged students to co-construct their understanding.  This included talking with one another and also talking with the teacher.  Secondly, the teacher used formative assessment to help me to identify my next steps in learning.  This supported me to be working in what Vygotsky referred to as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Duchesne et al, 2013, p.87). I was able to achieve more than what I could by myself because the teacher’s greater knowledge on the topic of Academic English meant that they could see what my next steps were and guide me in my learning.

I feel that the impact of this experience of success on my learning journey is that it has given me strategies for thinking.  I am metacognitive about my learning as described by Piaget.  Failing is not a hopeless problem that I am stuck in.  I know now that I learn best when I take risks and am open to making mistakes.  I also enjoy discussing my learning with other people so that I can clarify and develop my own understanding of a topic.  The opportunity to co-construct my understanding, as Vygotsky identified, has meant that I am able to learn more than I could alone, but also that I now have the strategies to learn more alone than I could in the past.


References
Duchesne, S., McMaugh, A., Bochner, S., & Krause, K. (2013). Educational psychology for learning and teaching              (4th ed.). South Melbourne, Australia: Cengage Learning.

Piaget, J. (1964). Development and learning. Readings on the development of children. Gauvain, M. & Cole, M.                (eds), (1997), (2nd ed.). New York : W.H. Freeman

Woolfolk, A, & Margetts, K. (2013). Educational psychology (3rd ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson                 Education Australia