Outline the key areas required for a culturally appropriate and successful education for an Indigenous student in your teaching area.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Cultural Awareness
- Learning Styles
- Relationships
- Real Life Problems, Real Life Challenges
- Room to Succeed
- Attendance, Behaviour Management, Drug & Alcohol Awareness
- Conclusion
- Recommendations
- Related Links
Introduction
One of my areas of teaching is middle school mathematics – Year 7 and Year 8 in particular.
The course where I work is currently tied up with the NSW Board of Studies curriculum, and a set of text books that were chosen some years ago (New Century Mathematics).
The challenge is to make mathematics exciting and interesting to the wide range of students and their associated diverse learning styles. At the very least my goal is to build confidence and help students feel at home with mathematical ideas.
I currently have an indigenous student in one class, and he is struggling.
Mind you there are also about another 10 of the 25 Anglo students are also struggling.
I don’t know what the indigenous student’s history is – how his reading, writing, comprehension are, I don’t know if he suffered from Otitis Media, I don’t know anything about his family and their connections to the land. I am just another typical Anglo teacher who is unknowingly promoting the old assimilation policy.
“Aborigines receive an education designed consciously and unconsciously … to assimilate them into the wider society; an education which is not congruent with their own cultural values”
Coombs in Craven, 1999 p 200
How can this sadly typical scenario be transformed? How can I make it culturally appropriate? How can I make it work better?
From my reading in the Aboriginal Studies course through Notre Dame University I have the strong impressions that there is hope for a win-win situation. The things that will help make this course culturally relevant, exciting and interesting will benefit both the indigenous student, the Anglo students and myself as well.
Cultural Awareness
“…perhaps the mathematics could be better
learned if it were wrapped in familiar
numeracies, contexts, language and
activity and if people could unpack their
fears and anxieties and re-learn in new
contexts. This is nothing really new…”Numeracies in Indigenous communities by Caty Morris, DECS SA: morris.caty@saugov.sa.gov.au
Draft paper developed for conference panel
As a teacher my goal is to make the learning relevant and interesting for my students. This means understanding their culture, and something of what they are interested in. This affects many aspects: the way that I would teach, what content I would teach, and how I would structure the lessons.
Cultural awareness for the indigenous student means:
1) Being aware that at 12 years old he is possibly on the verge of being initiated and becoming a man.
2) Being aware that I cannot expect that I can have eye contact, and that I must be very careful about not bringing ’shame’ on him.
3) Allow that there is an indigenous perspective on all that I teach, and that I must acknowledge that and give it equal value with the Anglo perspective.
4) Taking the time to talk to the local elders and put some effort into understanding the local issues and perspective (a time challenge given how busy we are already… but one that should be tackled given the potential benefits)
5) Making connections to the local indigenous language, games, and activities with some of the content of lessons.
Learning Styles
There have been attempts to define an indigenous learning style, but the consensus is that in fact there is huge diversity of learning styles amongst indigenous students, just as there are amongst Anglo students.
“One should be somewhat wary about specifying learning style for a particular cultural group because of the diversity that is sure to exist within those groups”
Gibson in Craven, 1999, p205
Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences states that our old assumption that intelligence is solely about linguistic and logic/mathematics skills is wrong. Instead, within plain old Anglo culture, Gardner states that we have at least 9 easily recognisable and diverse intelligences including: Kinesthetic/movement intelligence, Visual/Artistic intelligence, Musical intelligence, Interpersonal intelligence, Emotional/Intrapersonal intelligence, Spiritual intelligence, Environmental/biological systems intelligence, and Linguistic and Logical/mathematical intelligences.
There has been a tendency to assume that the special intelligence and hence preferred learning style of indigenous students are kinaesthetic/spatial, Collaborative/Interpersonal and visual/artistic/musical. This, I think, is a generalisation just as bad as the old assumption that Anglo intelligence was entirely linguistic/logical/mathematical.
Joining these ideas together I reach a conclusion that it is best to address the indigenous student with the same best practice that should apply to any Anglo student: Provide educational experiences that are accessible by all the different learning styles, and tailor some part of each lesson to ‘hit the spot’ for each student.
In the classroom this means including physical spatial lessons as well as linguistic mathematical ones. It means including visual/artistic activities, using music, movement, pictures, movies, and games. It means touching on the spiritual, the land and environment and ultimately on our identity and culture.
Relationships
The key to working with students is to develop and maintain good relationships with them. This means giving them the respect that they deserve, and taking the time to talk to them and understand their worlds.
“Teachers who take a personal interest in their students and their life outside school will establish a positive rapport with their students and foster a favourable learning environment”
Halse & Robinison in Craven 1999
This is another case of what is good for the indigenous student is good for all students.
The relationship issue extends to valuing and including the parents and family of students in the life of the school. Indigenous parents may have had terrible experiences with their own schooling, and so it is essential to build new bridges with them, and demonstrate that the school is an inviting, safe and friendly place that genuinely has their child’s best interests at heart. When parents connect and value the school they will be more likely to encourage their children to participate and to make the most of their education.
Real life problems, real challenges.
The indigenous student, and his/her Anglo peers will be willing to commit their time and effort to work at school if they perceive that what they are learning is useful and relevant to them – either directly or for their future.
“One important point that came from community members was that Mathematics needs to be linked to the experiences of students out of school.”
http://ab-ed.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/go/mathematics-and-numeracy/maths-6-8/what-is-the-project-about/challenges/relevance-of-the-curriculum
How can I improve the connections in my lessons?
At a simple level games like Bingo and other traditional maths activities can be modified to use local indigenous names for numbers. At a more involved level activities like orienteering can be introduced that use skills in both geometry and also knowledge of the land, awareness of space and relationships. Estimating populations of animals in their ecosystems and calculating rates of growth and cycles that occur involves both Anglo mathematics and intimate local knowledge. Working with probabilities and measuring outcomes could be linked to goal scoring or other physical activities.
Where indigenous students have more adult responsibilities in their households, lessons involving budgeting, cooking, and managing bills and household expenses could be introduced with some good multi-disciplinary links.
Much more time and effort needs to be expended on developing life connected content. What few examples I could find on the net were not detailed, even those of the Aboriginal section of the NSW Board of Studies.
Room to succeed
Glasser, with ‘Choice Therapy’ indicates that people are always behaving in ways that increase the possibilities of survival, belonging, power, freedom and fun.
With respect to power, students have a need for learning, achievement, and success. With freedom students are looking for Independence and autonomy
These needs can be partly met in the classroom, students need the space to exercise their abilities, to get feedback on how they are going, and to succeed. These things are life affirming and apply equally to the indigenous student as to the Anglo student.
The gifts and talents of each individual need to be recognised and celebrated.
Perhaps most importantly, it should also be fun!
Attendance, Behavior Management, Drug & Alcohol
Awareness, Health and Fitness
Attendance is related to the indigenous student’s family commitments, and also the student’s perception of the value and interest of the subject.
I must be prepared to make my teaching modular so that when students are away for family commitments they will not be adversely affected. Interestingly, teaching in the Northern Rivers of NSW, many of the Anglo children also have extended periods of absence to visit their families elsewhere!
Behaviour management is the responsibility of myself as the teacher, and also the college of teachers so the whole school can provide pro-active programs about anger management and assertiveness. Rough and tumble can easily spill over into bullying and needs to be carefully monitored and managed.
Similarly drug and alcohol awareness is a whole school activity and concern. Regular guest lecturers from the medical and legal world help to clarify the message of restraint and moderation. This is combined with some specific lessons scheduled for different year levels to explicitly deal with these issues.
From the indigenous student’s perspective, we need to be sure that the normal issues of growing up are not compounded by a history of bad experiences, bad relationships, medical issues and cultural misunderstanding.
The school promotes health by having only good quality healthy food which is made locally for sale at the tuck shop. No chips or lollies are available. Subsidised food is available discretely to students who are unable to bring their own food, or cannot afford to buy it at school.
Health and fitness are promoted through the schools compulsory PDHPE program, along with regular sport and sports carnivals to celebrate the achievements of the students who excel at sport. Hearing and eyesight tests are available discretely to students that teachers suspect may be struggling in these areas.
The school that I work for is in a wealthy part of Australia, and many of the poverty related issues facing more remote schools are not evident. This means that more focus can go into the education because the need for pastoral care, multi-service integration, and financial assistance is less.
Conclusion
Creating culturally appropriate and successful education requires a significant and ongoing commitment by individual teachers, and the school as a whole.
There is much work to be done to give the local indigenous culture the place and space that it should have within the school, however on the positive side some bridges have been steadily built in the last few years by some of the staff.
Indigenous parents need to be specifically made more welcome, and have some influence and power offered to them, so that they can fully own and encourage their children’s participation in the school.
The needs of students are diverse, and should be met in a diverse and tailored manner – this requires attention to detail and commitment by the teachers and the school as a whole.
The end result is very good indeed, and well worth the effort. Students, teachers and a local community that are more culturally aware and more fully alive.
If the sense of rightness and relief following the apology to the stolen generation by the new government is anything to go by, we are all in for better times ahead!
Recommendations
- Welcome and involve the local indigenous community into the school
- Facilitate the dialogue between teachers and the indigenous community so that culturally relevant content can be more easily incorporated.
- Invite local elders to participate in significant school events. (This is already starting to happen – some of the local indigenous people have a significant role in the upcoming whole school event which is our winter festival – the spiritual highlight of the school year)
- Ensure that the national goal of Aboriginal education for all is genuinely achieved in the school in an ongoing way, with the understanding that only through mutual understanding can racism be defeated.
- Promote diverse teaching styles to match the needs of diverse learners including indigenous learners in all classrooms.
- Celebrate the indigenous culture so it can take its full place as a valid world view, and a critical part of our Australian identity.
Some related Links:
morrow on math
http://www.whatworks.edu.au/4_3_1.htm
whats going on in your head
http://www.whatworks.edu.au/4_3_2.htm
cd on maths in everyday life
http://www.whatworks.edu.au/4_3_5.htm
Aboriginal education section of the NSW BOS
http://ab-ed.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/go/mathematics-and-numeracy
