DFI - Keeping our learners and families empowered!

At todays workshop Dorothy talked about another one of our four Manaiakalani kaupapa words: 'Empowered'. We use the word 'empowered’ now instead of the word ‘agency’ because our community tends to associate the word 'agency' with negative experiences.

As educators we tend to take this word 'empowered' for granted. We have access to information at our fingertips. We have a variety of choices and have the resources available to us to select if needed. However many families in our decile one community do not.

Empowerment is about choice and about having the ability to choose. Unfortunately far too many of our families are disempowered because they have little choice over what they can do in many areas of their lives.

The fact that we can now help our learners to become more empowered is huge. Our students now have much greater choice over how they access and share information to improve their learning. Each child who has access to a device and is connected online, can have access to unlimited information and resources like never before. The visible nature of our class sites and blogs ensures that families know what their children are learning about too. Hopefully this shift in enabling our communities to become more 'empowered' will result in more positive outcomes for the families in our communities.