What are some of the key issues’ teachers need to consider for working successfully with Aboriginal

and Torres Strait Islander students?

The role of a teacher is one full of complexities, however with careful consideration for the classroom
environment and wellbeing of students, it can be a rewarding role. It is the teacher’s responsibility that all
students are provided with an adequate education that is built on the foundations of fairness, knowledge
and equity. The Aboriginal culture is known to be the longest living culture in the world, the traditions of
the past are still carried through today by current elders of the community just as their forefathers had
done. They are the original custodians of Australia, however, through the colonisation of Great Britain in
the last 18th century they were disregarded of their knowledge of the land and seen as savages not worthy
of being a part of the new colony. Due to this early discrimination continuing through to modern times, the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community have unfortunately seen a gap between themselves and
non-Aboriginal citizens of Australia. The gap between education is present among many other categories
that ensures a long and prosperous life. In fact, the national attendance rate for Indigenous students was
83.2% in 2017, this is compared with the non-Indigenous rate of 93% (Australian Government, 2017).

Whilst acknowledging the gap that is present amongst Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students, it is crucial
for teachers to recognise their influence on inspiring all students to learn by producing a quality education
with a teaching-learning environment that is safe for everyone. Teachers can achieve this by engaging with
their students and their community; according to the National ‘Close the Gap’ Campaign, these are
‘essential to lifting student outcomes’ (Australian Government, 2017). It is also important to consider the
issues of history, stereotypes, relationships between teacher, students and school, community
involvement and curriculum to work successfully with Aboriginal students, which will be further explored
within this essay.

Aboriginal history is full of rich culture and traditions that are still embedded within the present
communities. Ancestors of today’s generations thrived as they lived off the land and did so with peace
upon the nature among the different communities. However, within school classrooms, students are not
thoroughly taught about the deep spirituality of the Aboriginal people nor their admirable
interconnectedness with the land. Instead of portraying the first Australians as strong, they are
predominately studied to only be the victims of colonisation. This is evident within the content descriptors
of the Year 5 Humanities and Social Science (HASS) curriculum, it only requires teaching about post-
colonised Australia with the only mention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander being how colonisation
effected their daily life (ACARA 2017). The lack of teaching pre-colonisation is a pattern to be seen
throughout most year levels of primary history. There can be many reasons to why the lack of learning has
occurred in the national curriculum, however, I believe it is that we are still telling history with a white
blindfold and disregarding the black armband. The debate is known as the history wars of Australia and
argues how history should be represented and remembered.

Although I believe it is extremely important for students to learn about the injustices and inhumane
treatment that followed after Great Britain’s occupation of Australia, we must not forget that Australia’s
history started long before settlement. We are blessed to live in a country in which the indigenous culture
is still present and active, it should be an opportunity for schools to dive into it and explore their heritage
of the land they currently live on. Therefore, teachers of HASS should conduct their teaching so that
students are intrigued with Australia’s indigenous culture and have a desire to learn more about the long
and insightful history of the first Australians.

Harrison (2011) expresses the power of stereotypes and how some teachers can ‘fall into the trap’ of
assuming certain aspects of their students. Although all stereotypes in all environments can have negative
effects, it is extremely dangerous in a school environment. A teacher’s role is to build on a student’s
strength and help improve on what they find difficult. However, stereotypes create a wall of judgement
that prevents teachers for fulling this role. For instance, Harrison (2011, pg.10) elaborates on how some
Aboriginal students speak different languages. He states that most students speak another language or
dialect, like Aboriginal English, in a home environment with their families and that this language is often
transferred into the school environment. Without addressing the fact that these individuals are actually
EAL/D (English is an Additional Language or Dialect) students and just simply assuming that they don’t
want to learn, can cause communication issues to arise. These can include lack of effective listening and
expressing from student and teacher which then creates a negative learning environment and further
implications will occur from that (Buckskin 2012, pg. 171). Teachers should make it their priority to ensure
that they don’t get frustrated with students that aren’t progressing or meeting the standards compared to
other students in the class, but rather ask themselves ‘why?’. This small question is highly effective for
reflective teachers and can allow for more questions to arise such as, ‘are thy understanding my
instructions?’, ‘Do they feel safe in this learning environment?’ and so on. These questions provide the
opportunity to adjust and change their teaching strategies so that they are effective for the student, as
they allow the teacher to properly analyse and understand their individual learning needs. Furthermore, it
creates the opportunity to build professional relationships between student and teacher, as well as
student and school.

Due to assumptions based on vague information regarding Aboriginal communities and education, some
teachers have created stereotypes specifically for Aboriginal students. Harrison (2011) includes such
stereotypes in his article and labels them as extreme generalisations. The stereotypes include that
Aboriginal students prefer learning in group settings and as individuals, they never want to ask questions.
Such stereotypes should be disregarded completely as it isn’t fair to create a broad generalisation for a
group of individual learners. Each student has their learning preferences and it’s through the teacher’s
dedication in which these strengths can flourish in the classroom and be enhanced for life outside of
school. Ultimately it is crucial to avoid stereotypes and to assume information about an individual or group
of students as these judgements can affect the way teachers perceive students, and how students feel
towards their learning abilities and what their association with school.

A teacher’s pedagogy represents their principles that they wish to take in to their practices within the
classroom. One of the key aspects of any teacher’s personal pedagogy is to build positive relationships with
their students with hope that it aids their learning experience and the association they have with school.
Just like all their students, teacher’s wish to create a professional relationship between their Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander students. This is highlighted in Buckskin’s (2012) article as he stresses the importance
of advocating cultural competency in the sense that educators need to be informed and skilled into how to
relate to the students, families of the students and community. This allows the teacher to embrace the
identity of their student’s culture and allows them to reflect elements of each culture into their classroom
learning. This affects relationships for when the students have a culture in the classroom that is similar to
one that they are familiar with, they will feel comfortable in the learning environment and start associating
the classroom with the ideas of being safe and welcomed. With Aboriginal culture being more recognised
in their classroom, students can feel included and proud of their heritage as their culture is being valued in
the school environment (Buckskins 2012, pg. 170). The Commonwealth Department of Education, Training
and Youth Affairs (DETYA) have indicated that whilst recognition and acknowledgement of the culture has
been embraced in most schools, some have yet to imply Aboriginal culture within their learning.

Through implying Aboriginal culture into classroom and whole school environment, it is not only effective
for students of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander decent, but it involves the whole community. It
provides the opportunity for Aboriginal students to share the knowledge they have of their culture and for
the non-Aboriginal students, they can strengthen their understanding of Australia’s indigenous culture and
their traditions. Once there is a strong understanding, the school community will develop more empathy
which minimises the effects of stereotypes and discrimination. Promoting the students’ wellbeing is
another key aspect of a teacher’s pedagogy and by embracing the culture of all students, the teacher can
achieve this. Discrimination affects the victim’s emotional security and their willingness to be involved in
the classroom due to the reasons of feeling that they don’t belong. In addition, it also affects the
tormentor’s wellbeing as they are creating a closed mindset for themselves that’s not prepared to adapt
with knowledge from their peers. This affects their learning as it disturbs the relationships they have with
the students and the school, being unhappy with who you are surrounded with creates a negative
association and increases the risk of those students not being involved with the school.

It’s the teacher’s responsibility to reduce the problems of discrimination by empowering all cultures that
represent the students and other ethnic groups around the world. The teacher is the leader of the class, so
it is important for them to role model the behaviours they wish to see in their students. As previously
stated, this is achieved by promoting cultures and being respectful to everyone’s unique identity.

Respect comes through understanding and empathy, therefore, introducing Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander studies in a classroom will achieve this for learners. Price (2012) emphasises the significance of
learning about Australia’s culture before Great Britain’s settlement. As discussed throughout the essay,
the culture is still apparent in today’s Aboriginal communities and their traditions of spirituality should be
more represented in modern Australia. The Australian Curriculum supports this with guiding principles that
all educators can use to ensure that they are promoting the culture in their school and classroom. It
provides examples as simple as flying the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags to ‘promote a sense of
partnership, reconciliation and commitment to closing the gap’ to encouraging community members
coming into the school and talking with the students (ACARA, 2016 pg. 5). Involving Aboriginal families and
elders into the school is a great way to encourage community involvement and provides more resources
for teachers to utilise when discussing the culture of the Aboriginal people. Similarly, it will promote other
students to perhaps seek out information regarding their own culture and family history to present in front
of the class as well, creating an inclusive classroom environment that is accepting of all cultures. Extending
from the principle, the Australian Curriculum also ensures that Aboriginal education is embedded across all
learning areas within the curriculum. The Curriculum overview for cross-curriculum priorities regarding
Aboriginal studies sets out to inform students of ‘reconciliation, respect and recognition of the world’s
oldest continuous living cultures’ (ACARA 2017). Consequently, the ideas of country, culture and people
have to be represented in the classroom to ensure teachers are meeting the standards of the curriculum.
To ensure this, teachers will need to conduct lesson planning with this curriculum priority in mind and have
aspects of teaching Aboriginal studies across all learning areas.

The dignity and wellbeing of the individual must be upheld at all times whilst in the care of the teacher and
the school. This includes respecting the student as an individual learner and a child. Therefore, the teacher
must take the time and consideration to learn more about their students. There are numerous strategies
to achieve this knowledge is often found through orientation activities such as a ‘who am I?’ activity in
which students share details about themselves, family situations, hobbies, favourite subjects and other
information that allows the teacher to start learning about their students without invading their privacy.
Particularly in a primary school setting, it is crucial for teachers to build strong and professional
relationships with the student’s families. There are many benefits for the students learning experience if
the teacher and parents or caregivers of the student communicate on a regular basis. By doing these extra
practices it not only helps the teacher plan effective strategies that suit the needs of their students, but it
creates a safe and positive learning environment where students will feel comfortable and not intimidated
to come to class.

Teaching in schools within rural areas and remote communities may seem challenging to many teachers,
which is evident through the ‘high turnover in schools with significant Indigenous student populations’
(Santoro 2011, pg. 70-71). The constant turnover of teachers is said to be a result of educators not
properly prepared to work with Aboriginal students. Former teachers who continued majority of the
careers in rural communities’ state that the difficulties teachers experience is due to the poor relationship
between home and school. This partnership between teacher and the community is a relationship of trust
that is developed through community involvement (Santoro 2011, pg. 70). Therefore, if a teacher is
working in a remote school, then they have to embrace the lifestyle that comes with it. This means that
they cannot run back to the city on every opportunity possible – weekends and school holidays – but
instead throw themselves into being a part of community and establishing relationships with students and
their families.

Throughout the essay it is evident that there are many issues a teacher needs to consider for working
successfully with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. However, if a teacher persists at trying to
understand the history and culture of the Aboriginal community, then their students will reciprocate to
those efforts positively and continue to thrive in their learning. The essay has also discussed the
importance of involving the school community with teaching the culture as it has true significance on
reconciliation and creating a new generation of Australians that can make a true difference in closing the
gap.

Reference list

ACARA, 2016, Guiding principles for promoting and implementing the Australian Curriculum cross-
curriculum priority, viewed March 5th, 2018 at
https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/media/1536/guiding-principles.pdf

ACARA, 2017, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures, viewed March 6th, 2018 at
https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/cross-curriculum-priorities/aboriginal-and-
torres-strait-islander-histories-and-cultures/

Australian Government 2017, Chapter three: Education, closing the gap campaign, viewed March 3rd, 2018
at https://closingthegap.pmc.gov.au/education

Buckskin, P 2012, Engaging Indigenous students: The important relationship between Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander students and their teachers, Cambridge University Press, Ch. 11.

Neil, H 2011, Teaching and learning in Aboriginal Education, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, South
Melbourne, Victoria. Ch. 1, pg. 1-16.

Price, K 2012, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in the classroom, Cambridge University Press,
Ch. 10.

Santoro, N 2011, Teaching Indigenous Children: Listening to And Learning from Indigenous Teachers, Vol.
36, Charles Sturt University, viewed March 6th, 2018 at
http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1556&context=ajte