School sells off property for development?
Mangere Bridge School in south Auckland recently cordoned off a part of the property and told students that a building would be constructed there.
The brainchild of Deputy Principal Emma Ala’alatoa-Dale, she says this was the ‘‘tuning in’’ experience for its student inquiry titled Progress vs Preservation.
Every term a student inquiry is held.
This term’s question is ‘How can we preserve the past to protect the future?’.
‘‘The tensions of progress vs preservation are playing out across wider Auckland including at Ihumatao and Point England Reserve currently.
‘‘We need to ensure that our students have the tools and the knowledge to be able to join the debate because it is their future,’’ she says.
At the end of each term, the students share what they have learned with their whanau, and this term there are hosting a spoken word poetry slam.
Having been a school teacher for over eight years, Ala’alatoaDale says the best kind of learning happens when you ‘‘draw in the whole community, when everyone can join the conversation and when everyone’s opinions are valued’’.
In order to prepare the students for the future, she is helping them develop their ability to become problem solvers who know how to ask questions, seek out information, make decisions and take action for change.
Last year, in term three there was an inquiry into homelessness.
‘‘All of our students now understand we are in need of reasonably priced, liveable housing in Auckland.
‘‘Our job as a school is not to impart a political stance but it is to educate our future problem solvers so that the world we live in in the future will not repeat the mistakes of the past,’’ she notes.
So when it comes down to progress or preservation she says the both ‘‘must go hand in hand for us to be able to move into a better future’’.
‘‘Tensions of progress vs preservation are playing out across Auckland including Ihumatao...[they] must go hand in hand for us to be able to move into a better future.’’