Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Reflective Essay 50%

17239598 Assessment 1

Assessment 1: Aboriginal
Education
Reflective Essay
Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Reflective Essay 50%
17239598 Assessment 1

Option 1

Unfortunately in Australia, the full benefits of education have yet to be sustained for
Indigenous Australian students (Department of Education, Employment and
Workplace Relations, 2009). At the beginning of the 21st century, educational
disadvantage among Indigenous students has been presented as an urgent national
priority by Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and. Youth
Affairs (MCEETYA). Within Australia’s education system, there remains to be major
disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students educational
achievements (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations,
2009). As a result, there is a widening gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
outcomes, which include literacy, numeracy, retention in secondary education,
completion of the year 12 certificate, student attendance and enrolments to higher
education (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2017). A key strategy in
improving outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students will be to
improve quality teaching, which must start from the beginning such as graduate
teachers. Teachers leaving educational institutions must be culturally competent,
which will enable pre-service teachers to develop skills that engage Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander students to be successful learners (Department of Education,
Employment and Workplace Relations 2009). This essay will examine the causes of
Aboriginal student disengagement and how improvements toward graduate standards
for pre-service teachers will accommodate the disparities between Indigenous and
non-Indigenous students educational outcomes.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are commonly the most misconstrued
students within Australia’s educational system. It is too often that Indigenous student
outcomes are ignored within the everyday classroom, which significantly decrease
their level of engagement and significance to their school, low levels of student
attendance and the completion of the high school certificate (Department of
Education, 2015). Studies by Partington (2003) further elaborates on the issues
surrounding Indigenous Australian students education by indicating that Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander students’ educational outcomes are intensely lower then
those of non-Indigenous backgrounds. Data collected by Partington (2003) indicate
Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Reflective Essay 50%
17239598 Assessment 1

the recent two decades there has been no indication of major improvements to the
educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. In the study
of Harslett, Harrison, Godfrey, Partington and Richer (2000) the authors emphasised
that there may be a number of causes that inhibit Aboriginal students learning,
engagement and success. Harslett et al., (2000) identifies that these issues surrounding
Indigenous students engagement may be caused by a lack of cultural competency by
the teacher-student relationship, lack of cultural sensitivity and English as second
language. This lack of cultural competency can be reflected on disengaging lessons,
which can be a result of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students feeling distant
between the materials being learned and the relation to their lives (Harslett et al.,
2000).

Although there has been a rising concern with identifying issues associated with
disengagement for Indigenous students, there still has been little acknowledgement
into how stigma and discrimination may be contributing to low levels of engagement
for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Bodkin-Andrews, Denson and Bansel,
2012). Bodkin-Andrews et al., (2012) states that this can be a significant issue in
Australia’s educational system, especially if these stigmas a perpetrated by teachers
who are educating these Indigenous students. This highlights the need for teachers
and graduate teachers to become more culturally competent, so they can improve their
ability to teach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Increasing graduate
teachers standards in Aboriginal culture, will allow the opportunity for future
educators to learn vital skills that will improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
competencies and improve their well-being such as self awareness, self management,
social awareness, effective relationships and responsible decision making (Harrison
and Greenfield, 2011). However, this is only possible if educators who are teaching
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have a deeper understanding of their
heritage and the practices that will allow indigenous students to best learn (Harrison
and Greenfield, 2011). Furthermore, Harrison and Greenfield (2011) states that this is
a necessity in Aboriginal education, as the needs for Indigenous students are
significantly different to those of non-Indigenous students. This can be illustrated by
the 2005 Western Australia Aboriginal Child Health Survey, which found that 24 of
Aboriginal students between the ages of 4 and 17 had serious signs of emotional and
behavioural difficulties and a recent report of the Australian Institute of Health and
Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Reflective Essay 50%
17239598 Assessment 1

Welfare in 2011, found that 33% of Aboriginal and Strait Islander young people aged
16-24 reported a high level of psychological stress in comparison to 14% of non-
Indigenous youth (Partington, 2003).

The Australian government has recognised that attendance of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander students continues to be a major issue issue in Australian education and
have targeted this issue in the ‘Closing the Gap’ report (Department of the Prime
Minister and Cabinet, 2017). However, the major strategy the government has used to
increase the attendance for Indigenous students is a consequence-driven model, which
according to Partington (2003) is not the greatest approach. Instead, the focus should
be on the educators who are teaching these students, because students who feel as
though their teacher is connected with their culture and community are significantly
more inclined to return to their classes (Harrison and Greenfield, 2011). In saying
this, Harrison and Greenfield (2011) state that there are only a minority of teachers
who are maintaining this sense of ‘connectedness’ with Aboriginal students and this
may be due to a lack of Indigenous teachers and training aided to non-Indigenous
teachers. The qualities of Indigenous teachers are immediately felt within the
classroom, which include socio-cultural connection, levels of high expectations,
improving cultural pride and cultural sensitivity (Yunkaporta and McGinty, 2009).
However, there has been a continuing issue with the lack of Indigenous teachers, due
to some taking more rewarding positions elsewhere. This is a level of major concern
stated in Partington’s (2003) research, by exploring the number of Indigenous
teachers. In 2002 there were only 79 Indigenous teachers in Western Australian
schools, meaning the majority educators teaching Indigenous students were Anglo-
Australian teachers without the same skill set as Indigenous teachers (Partington,
2003). The reasons why this is concerning is because not only did non-Indigenous
educators lack the skill set Indigenous teachers but there was a significant lack of
training to develop these skills for current educators and pre-service teachers
(Partington, 2003).
Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Reflective Essay 50%
17239598 Assessment 1

The lack of training to develop necessary skills to teach Indigenous students can be
correlated to teacher education programs in Australian universities, as most of these
programs devote most of their time to prepare teachers to teach Anglo-Australian
society (Partington, 2003). As there are significant differences between Indigenous
students and Anglo Australian students there are increased chances that some teachers
are underprepared and lack sufficient skills that will allow them to establish respected
relationships. Further research by Partington (2003) found that 42% of Indigenous
students expressed a view where they disliked their teachers and 39% of students
stated that they think their teachers do not care about them. These results indicate that
this may be influenced due to Anglo-Australian teachers bringing their attitudes and
beliefs of the dominant Anglo community into the classroom, with limited knowledge
of the Indigenous culture. Therefore, Anglo-Australian teachers are at high risk of
unknowingly implementing this approach and fail to identify that this approach is not
suitable for Indigenous students (Bodkin-Andrews et al., 2012). Furthermore, if
educators and forthcoming teachers are ignorant of Indigenous history, culture and
expectations, it will likely lead teachers to adopt strategies that enhance the
disadvantages Indigenous students experience and accelerate their early departure
from secondary school (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2017). These
problematic issues further enrich the importance for graduate teachers to be well
educated on Indigenous culture before they graduate from higher education. Without
this prior knowledge, forthcoming teachers will continue to undertake the incorrect
pedagogical approaches to teach Indigenous students and a severe problem within
Australia’s educational system.

The ability to learn about the richness of Indigenous history, culture and its people in
higher education will be essential to reduce the stigmas and prejudices that
Indigenous students face (Yunkaporta, and McGinty, 2009). Increasing the number of
units pre-service students have to complete before attaining their degrees is another
strategy that should be considered. This is argued because commonly in most
secondary teaching courses in Australia, there is only one compulsory unit of
Indigenous education if it is implicated in the degree. Even still, this program will
only run for 10 weeks, which is near impossible to learn about the extent of
Aboriginal culture and the best practices that should be used to teach Indigenous
students within this timeframe. However, the inclusion of mandatory Aboriginal
Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Reflective Essay 50%
17239598 Assessment 1

studies itself is a positive attribute for pre-service teachers, as the ‘What Works’
report clarifies that pre-service teachers who have undertaken mandatory Aboriginal
studies units feel as though they are significantly more capable of teaching Aboriginal
students compared to pre-service students who have not undertake Aboriginal studies
in their courses (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations,
2009).

As a future educator, it will be essential for my future practices to adopt specific

strategies that will enable me to build on essential professional relationships with
Indigenous students. According to Harrison, and Murray (2012) how Indigenous
students interact with their teachers will be crucial to how students work to reach
desired outcomes. Indigenous students who have established a good rapport with their
teachers are much more likely to achieve desired outcomes, life skills and increase
their retention rates (Harrison, and Murray, 2012). To enable this, it will be
fundamental to develop strategies that do not abuse the use of power. Rather then
trying to oppress Indigenous students for issues surrounding difficult behaviour,
Indigenous students respond better when fair boundaries are established. Dominant
teaching styles was one of the main issues found in the studies by Partington (2003)
where a lot of Anglo-Australian teachers adopted this approach, resulting in an
increase to problematic behaviour. To apprehend this common problem,
understanding the emotional-learning difficulties Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander students may have faced over the years of oppression will be a key
responsibility to my future practices as an educator.

In addition, it will be imperative to be constant in reflecting how my cultural position

affects the learning of Indigenous students. As a graduate student, it will be my
responsibility to challenge stigmas and stereotyping of Indigenous students and
acknowledge that racism has been evident toward Indigenous communities. I aim to
support the importance for change not only in this present time but continue to do so
in future practices. Strategies to challenge these stigmas will be to ensure that cultural
pride is embedded in school policies and classroom practices, so students feel proud
about their cultural heritage. This will also include promoting cultural responsiveness
with Indigenous students by collaborating with the local Aboriginal community, so
students can increase their knowledge on their heritage and enhance their sense of
Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Reflective Essay 50%
17239598 Assessment 1

cultural pride (Harrison and Murray, 2012). Working with the Indigenous community
such as elders and parents will also allow the opportunity to identify what the current
needs are associated with local Indigenous students. This will ensure that I not only
have high expectations on their academic achievements but also value their safety and
the importance promoting resilience and social-emotional learning skills for any
issues outside of the school setting.

Lastly, a major practice in my teaching will be to increase the number of relatable

content in the curriculum. I will do this by implementing strategies within my key
learning area of PDHPE by incorporating Aboriginal games and dance into my
practical lessons. This will increase student engagement and incorporate a student-
centred approach where the students are more in control in running the lesson. This
has been seen as an issue within the Australian curriculum as Partington (2003)
argues that there is not enough relatable content for Indigenous students imbedded in
the curriculum, resulting in a decrease of student engagement.

In conclusion, it is clearly evident that educational disadvantaged continues to disrupt

Indigenous students among Australia’s education system. The continuation of
disparities between Indigenous students and non-Indigenous students needs to be
addressed as an urgent priority. It is clear that the gap remains to widen between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous students among their literacy and numeracy skills,
school retention rates and the completion of the year 12 certificate. To adhere to these
problems, quality teaching should be embedded from graduate level, so pre-service
teachers appropriately learn how develop skills that engage Indigenous students how
to be successful learners. The idea that graduate students should increase their cultural
competency among Indigenous education should be without question. This will make
a dramatic difference in reducing the disparities between Indigenous and non-
Indigenous education outcomes.
Aboriginal and Culturally Responsive Pedagogies Reflective Essay 50%
17239598 Assessment 1

References
Australian Government, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (2009). What Works.
The Work Program. Stepping up: What works in pre-service teacher education.. National Curriculum Services,
pp.1-28.

Bodkin-Andrews, G., Denson, N. and Bansel, P. (2012). Teacher Racism, Academic Self-Concept, and
Multiculturation: Investigating Adaptive and Maladaptive Relations With Academic Disengagement and Self-
Sabotage for Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australian Students. Australian Psychologist, 48(3), pp.226-237.

Commonwealth of Australia (2017). Closing the Gap Prime Minister’s Report 2017. Department of the Prime
Minister and Cabinet, pp.4-94.

New South Wales Government (2015). Aboriginal Students in NSW Public Schools Annual Report. New South
Wales: NSW Department of Education, pp.1-25.

Harrison, N. and Murray, B. (2012). Reflective Teaching Practice in a Darug Classroom: How Teachers can Build
Relationships With an Aboriginal Community Outside the School. The Australian Journal of Indigenous
Education, 41(02), pp.139-145.

Harrison, N. and Greenfield, M. (2011). Relationship to place: positioning Aboriginal knowledge and perspectives
in classroom pedagogies. Critical Studies in Education, 52(1), pp.65-76.

Harslett, M., Harrison, B., Godfrey, J., Partington, G. and Richer, K. (2000). Teacher Perceptions of the
Characteristics of Effective Teachers of Aboriginal Middle School Students. Australian Journal of Teacher
Education, 25(2), pp.24-39.

Partington, G. (2003). Why Indigenous Issues are an Essential Component of Teacher Education Programs.
Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 27(2), pp.2-11.

Yunkaporta, T. and McGinty, S. (2009). Reclaiming aboriginal knowledge at the cultural interface. The Australian
Educational Researcher, 36(2), pp.55-72.