Kirn Hans

Standard 1: Know students and how they learn

1.4 Demonstrate broad knowledge and understanding of the impact of culture, cultural identity and linguistic background on the education of students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.

The following is an essay that I wrote for a class I took on Indigenous Education. It discusses strategies for supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners.

My first strategy is enacting high expectations for Indigenous students (Miller & Steele, 2021, p. 128; Sarra, 2018). I think it is effective firstly because it sets students up for success, by teaching them how to do better. While clarifying directions is good classroom management practice in general (Burden, 2016, p. 154), it also forms part of teaching Indigenous students ‘doing school’. Enacting high expectations also avoids stereotyping students based on background, by making fewer assumptions about their intention and ability to obey the rules. This demonstrates faith in them, which forms a basis for a positive student-teacher relationship (Georgiou et al., 2002).

The implication on teaching practice is that we must be aware that disadvantaging factors are not grounds for lower expectations, but they require higher support (Sanford, 1967). Explicit teaching of rules is a way to support students from different backgrounds (Pearson, 2016). Delpit considers this to be a way to help students from socially marginalised groups navigate the "culture of power" (1995, p. 24). A common form of this is code-switching, which is common among many cultural groups who adapt to Anglocentric societies (Morris, 2020). Code-switching is relevant on a literal level to students who speak Aboriginal English, which is often mistakenly seen as ‘bad English’ and impacts teachers’ expectations of the speaking students. Aboriginal English acts as a semiotic mediation tool for Aboriginal students to access their funds of knowledge (Malcolm, 2011) and thus should be accepted in classrooms, but there is a place for students to learn Standard Australian English. Analogously, Indigenous students face unique challenges and we must prepare them accordingly.

I can include this strategy in my practice by explicitly stating my expectations. This takes the form of being direct when giving directions and explaining the reasoning behind them. There are multiple ways to express high expectations: both verbally and by reinforcing them through action and body language. This coincides with a general strategy of projecting a welcoming, positive front, which is recommended for teachers to adopt towards all their students (Breaux, 2015, p. 39). I will explicitly teach the rules and how to follow them, providing reminders periodically. To further facilitate Indigenous students learning to navigate the dominant culture, I will teach Indigenous students how to use Standard Australian English and when each language is the appropriate choice. I will also accept Aboriginal English in classwork, which supports code-switching and improves students’ ability to approach the curriculum. These approaches are intended to prepare students for society as adults.

I can also enact high expectations by communicating with students regarding their behaviour. To be compassionate instead of authoritarian, I will establish mediation strategies in my classroom instead of zero tolerance policies. I will also ask students why they are misbehaving, instead of assuming intent to misbehave. This is part of a broader approach to communicate more with Indigenous students and their carers. The involvement of community is a strong support to academic outcomes, in all cases but particularly so in Indigenous education (Epstein, 2010; Smith et al., 2017; Dillon et al., 2020). Overall, this allows me as a teacher to empower the student and their carers in the educational process by making it more transparent and providing a sense of agency.

My second strategy is adapting the curriculum as a culturally responsive pedagogy (Miller & Steele, 2021, p. 124). I think it is effective because it recognises the students’ backgrounds and represents them in the curriculum they are studying, in contrast to common trends (Matthews et al., 2005). It also makes space for multiple ways of thinking and being, which accommodates divergent thinking and creativity. Most importantly, it makes school seem less "foreign" or divorced from everyday contexts. This separation can make students feel like what they learn doesn’t apply to their real life, which decreases their engagement (Gettinger & Walter, 2012).

The implications on our craft primarily emphasise the importance of recognising student backgrounds. Students cannot be treated as homogenous entities and schools are not neutral spaces. When Australians come from a place of ‘neutrality’, we are actually bringing our own cultural biases, which are generally Eurocentric in nature, given the dominant culture. Therefore, to include other cultures, Eurocentric assumptions should be challenged and replaced. In my past career, I routinely helped organise a puzzle event for a global, diverse cohort of interns. Our committee had the policy of cultural neutrality, so that all puzzles would be accessible. However, after the popularity of a Bollywood-inspired puzzle I wrote, we came to consider that diversity may be more important than ‘neutrality’. Similarly, school curricula can benefit from greater diversities of perspective. Eurocentricity being the status quo, we should challenge it and take opportunities to embed Indigenous perspectives. We also must recognise that students may not care about school, because it might not relate to their lives outside the classroom. As such, curriculum must relate to their lives and lessons should not seem in opposition to other forms of cultural knowledge.

This strategy is also influenced by Stobart’s equity questions (2005, as cited in Miller & Steele, 2021). The choice of whose knowledge is taught and assessed relates directly to the cultural framework of the curriculum. By asking more questions about who is represented in the lesson and who is left out, we can see how different cultures are represented. Frequently, European cultures are "built" while Indigenous cultures are "ruined" (Rudolph et al., 2018, pp. 28-29). These representations form part of the hidden curriculum (Apple, 2012), which inevitably impacts the experience of Indigenous students and may contribute to why Indigenous children leave school at far higher rates than other demographic groups (Helme et al., 2011).

I plan to include this strategy by encouraging diversity of thought in my classroom. This can take the form of explicit teaching of different styles of problem-solving and welcoming multiple solutions. Mathematics, despite popular thought, often has multiple ways of approaching a question. Similarly, I will welcome different ways of participating, a form of differentiation of process (Tomlinson & Imbeau, 2010). I will also encourage the framing of problems in different real world contexts, some of which can involve using Country as pedagogical (Harrison & Skrebneva, 2020). Similarly, I will find and create lesson plans that embed Indigenous perspectives, to counter normalised perspectives of Indigenous people as primitive. Indigenous people were Australia’s first scientists and I will teach as such. I will furthermore invite Elders’ opinions on how to teach material to advance this aim. This should help Indigenous students see themselves in the curriculum.

References

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  • Morris, N. (2020). What is code-switching? And why do minorities have to do it so often? Metro. https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/03/what-is-code-switching-12221478/

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