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102085 Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies

Task 2: Individual Reflection

Aboriginal education is growing and becoming more recognised in Australian schools today, as this content

becomes more involved and implemented in schools there is a need for teachers to correctly create content

to engage students while having a culturally sound approach. Through the 102085 Aboriginal and Culturally

Responsive Pedagogies unit I have been able to grow in my current knowledge of how to effectively

implement content with the use of 8 ways pedagogy and ATISL standards. I have also become much more

effective in my historical understanding of Aboriginal land sites especially with the Royal Botanical

Gardens visit. This reflection will focus on the ideas and different aspects that I have come to understand

through this unit with links to DiAngelo’s (2011) article on white fragility. In order to highlight my journey

of how I personally as an Aboriginal pre service teacher would change or evolve my lessons to avoid

conflict in my future practice.

This unit of work has provided me with a clear understanding to the quality of teaching that is required to

gain high levels of achievement for not only Aboriginal students but to a wide group of learners. As an

Aboriginal pre service teacher its clear that at times there are gaps in the education system that limit the

growth and opportunities for Aboriginal students. This is due to lack of knowledge or personal view points

from teachers, this inturn could be leading or causing white fragility in the education system (Stronger

Smarter Institute, 2014). White fragility is the term used to describe a push back or defence that comes about

due to racial stress, furthermore it can cause a person to display a range of emotions or actions such as;

anger, argumentation or silence as a result. DiAngelo (2011) shows that there is a need for anti racist

education to be employed to all schooling and white people to embrace coloured individuals in order to

bridge the gap of education and prepare students to a greater degree (Australian Government, 2017).

Throughout this unit this has been a focus that I myself have come to better understand in terms of providing

students with complex and equal opportunities of teaching (DiAngelo, 2015).

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When viewing the Aboriginal Education Policy specifically 1.6.1 “Develop and demonstrate their high

expectations of all Aboriginal students” it becomes clear that these policies are not always met due to

education gaps seen in the NSW Department of Education (2015) especially in literacy and numeracy

(NSW Department of Education, 2017). Linking back to DiAngelo (2011) ideas I feel that education has

many changes that must be altered, this unit has highlighted what can potentially happen if teachers are

lacking in Aboriginal education and in doing so shown its importance to a greater degree in areas such as;

appropriate language and teacher influence.

When teaching Aboriginal students there is a high degree of consideration needed in terms of cultural and

historical understanding not only to accommodate for a respectful and safe learning environment but also to

embrace an education that can provide learning suited to these students needs. Price (2015) also supports

this idea of bridging the gap of education, by providing information that can help students further develop

and grow in their encounters at school. Price (2015) states teachers need to “contextualise the notions within

the boarder setting of teacher education” (p. 37), In other words teachers must look at the whole picture and

move away from stereotypes and pre considered notions to be effective when teaching Aboriginal students.

In my opinion this unit has showed me that we are all different in terms of our personal views, cultural

understanding and religious beliefs, however there is a need to be neutral as a teacher and remove

unnecessary thoughts from the classroom. In order to be a culturally competent teacher Aboriginal

understanding is a necessary for all teachers working in Australia (Blair, 2015).

Education for Aboriginal students does not always provide a high level of learning; this is due to a range of

different factors such as lack of teacher knowledge, lack of school policy and teachers expectation (Deer,

2013). I believe its important for teachers to develop and continue to grow in the understanding of

Aboriginal education, to allow teachers to become culturally competent, this would then reflect in lesson

planning and greater on Aboriginal Students. According to Gorringe and Spillman (2008) cultural

competence is a critical element in providing Aboriginal students with a safe learning environment, as

education is further developed with cultural leadership and removal of teacher expectations. In my

experience I have developed a deep understanding on how to be a culturally competent teacher through

using the Stronger Smarter Approach that has provided me an understanding to the full influence a teacher

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has in the classroom. This allowed me to reflect and further grasp concepts on teacher separation that can

potentially impact negatively on Aboriginal student education (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2014; Hampton &

Toombs, 2013). Furthermore my overall understanding on how to shift unwanted classroom habits have

changed due to my growth in the implementation of AITSL standards and 8 ways pedagogy implementation.

Through our group site visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens there has been certain aspects of the AITSL

standards that has allowed me to develop the skills necessary to cater for Aboriginal students. Specifically

standard 1.4 and 2.4 that have been the main areas of focus during our site visit. Standard 1.4 “Strategies for

teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students” allowed our group to think and integrate activities

that focused directly on the wellbeing of Aboriginal students, furthermore we were able to breakdown

terminology and languages from background history found on our group walks that allowed a deeper

understanding of the content. Personally I felt that the history and terminology skills developed due to the

integration of standard 1.4 allowed our group to understand the importance of Aboriginal identity. This

brought up the deeper meanings of culture. Personally I felt confident in this area after having done the

Stronger Smarter Approach certificate as I was aware of how to implement content to allow for a safe and

respectful learning environment (Hampton & Toombs, 2013).

Standard 2.4 “Understand and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to promote reconciliation

between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians” was a much harder standard to introduce and fully

meet in our lessons. Due to the fact that I have an Aboriginal background the group further pushed ideas of

my personal culture and understanding during our planning phase. Personally I shared ideas of respect,

cultural importance and connection to land, to help others from a non-Indigenous background embrace and

grasps the concepts of Aboriginal Identity. Using these methods as a group on our site visit I feel we

reflected and integrated many ideas that developed into our individual key learning areas (AITSL, 2017).

Overall I felt that the implementation of the standards was a struggle at times to fully understand, even

though I have a background in Aboriginal culture it did require further background research and discussion

among the group in order to correctly add alterations to our lessons.

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Through this unit one main skill that I have developed is the understanding of cross- curricular learning

through using the 8-way pedagogy in different lesson plans. According to Savage (2010) cross-curricular

learning is a strong principle to understand in order to implement a skilful pedagogy; with the use of the 8

ways pedagogy there was a large range of different teaching areas and unique lesson links, for example

Aboriginal studies linking with history. Blair (2015) states that it’s important to understand the different

ways of viewing education to implement effective content. Although it was difficult to understand such a

large range of teaching areas linking different areas of study together has allowed me to grow in my

understanding of Aboriginal learning. Not only have I grown in my personal understanding of other learning

areas but also my knowledge of the 8 ways pedagogy has expanded. This was due to the ideas of other

students in the group and how they implemented different activities using methods of story telling and no

verbal activities.

In conclusion I feel the 102085 Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies unit has provided me with

a large range of life skills that I can take with me as I embark on my teaching career. I have learnt a great

deal in terms of the current education of Aboriginal students, but more importantly I have developed my

understanding on how to change and improve the education for these groups. In the future I hope to take this

knowledge and put it into practice to improve the learning environment of schools, and one-day implement

my own strategies. Through using the core fundamentals of the 8 ways pedagogy and stronger smarter

approach to build and grow the education for all Aboriginal students.

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i References:

AITSL. (2017). Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Retrieved 17 December 2017, from

https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards

Australian Government. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. (2017). Closing the gap: Prime

Minister's report 2017.

Blair, N. (2015). Aboriginal education: More than adding different perspectives. Learning to teach in the

secondary school, 189-208.

Deer, F. (2013). Integrating Aboriginal perspectives in education: Perceptions of pre-service

teachers. Canadian Journal of Education, 36(2), 175.

DiAngelo, R. (2011) White Fragility in International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, Vol 3 (3) (2011) pp 54-

70Harrison and Greenfield Relationship to place: positioning Aboriginal knowledge and perspectives

in classroom pedagogies

DiAngelo, R. (2015). White fragility: Why it’s so hard to talk to white people about racism. The Good Men

Project.

Gorringe, S., & Spillman, D. (2008). Creating stronger smarter learning communities: The role of culturally

competent leadership. In World Indigenous Peoples Conference-Education, Melbourne, Australia.

Hampton, R., & Toombs, M. (2013). Culture, identity and indigenous Australian people.

NSW Department of Education (2015). Aboriginal students in public schools: Annual report 2015

NSW Department of Education (2017). Aboriginal Education Policy, Retrieved December 12, 2017, from

https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/aboriginal-education-and-training-policy

Price, K. (2015). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education: An introduction for the teaching

profession. Cambridge University Press.

Savage, J. (2010). Cross-curricular teaching and learning in secondary education. Routledge.

Stronger Smarter Institute (2014). High-Expectations Relationships. A Foundation for Quality Learning

Environments in all Australian Schools. Stronger Smarter Institute Limited Position Paper

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Western NSW. (2012). 8 Ways: Aboriginal pedagogy. Dubbo, NSW: RAET, Dept. of Education and

Communities