Theoretical Frameworks For Working With Indigenous Australian Students Essay.

Pedagogical Practices and reform - critically discuss some theoretical frameworks for critical, reflective, and reflexive approaches as a teacher to work with Indigenous Australian students

Proposed Essay Topic: Pedagogical Practices and reform - critically discuss some theoretical frameworks for critical, reflective, and reflexive approaches as a teacher to work with Indigenous Australian students.

In this assignment, I would be concentrating on the critical assessment of the provided articles for the annotated bibliography. This assignment aims to provide a critical explanation of the various theoretical frameworks and critical receives available in the provided sources to incorporate in the context of managing Australian Indigenous students. Follow the annotations provided below with relevance to the proposed essay topic.

“Evans, C., 2012. Your professional experience and becoming professional in working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and communities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education: An introduction to the teaching profession, pp.52-62.”

Keywords: Aboriginal studies, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, educational environment.

The preface of the chapter presented includes the reflection on experience of Chris Evans who is the author of the article. It contemplates reciting the significant motivations of the author in finding the true meaning of becoming a teacher (Evans, 2012). The article further highlights the various ranges of strategic opportunities and challenges faced in the process of incorporating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies within participative teacher-education programs. The dilemmas which can often be encountered within the Indigenous professional experience have also been highlighted in the article. The chapter also advocates the essential Indigenous Australian education policies that need to be followed while developing significant programs for education-oriented programs (Evans, 2012).

Optimization of learning has been identified as an essential criterion that is followed during the process of developing educational opportunities for the indigenous communities. According to Evans (2012), Through commencement of significant educational programs incorporating the cultural differences and traditional values of the deprived communities, it has been noticed that these programs are often successful in encouraging Aboriginal students. The increasing participation of the students in Aboriginal studies has been highlighted by the author as a result of the critical examination and refinement of the existing mandatory subjects.  The article signifies the successive progress of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) to meet the National Professional Standards for Teachers in creating equal opportunities for the Aboriginal and Torres Islanders. The Queensland education community has been quite effective in constructing progressive education programs for the indigenous Australian communities (Evans, 2012), The Yatha Report can be considered a prominent example in the encapsulation of the experience shared by the Aboriginal and Torres Islander educators within the teaching programs. Further modernization of the educational environment has been a major influence in revamping the standards of teaching for the indigenous communities.

“Nakata, M., 2007. The cultural interface. The Australian journal of Indigenous education, 36(S1), pp.7-14.”

Keywords: Indigenous knowledge, socio-historical and discursive practices, disciplinary practices

The article by Nakata (2007), contemplates the present research and writing presented on the educational issues prevalent within the Australian indigenous communities. The author highlights the renewed interest in transforming Indigenous knowledge to include it in the education systems as a method of practice. The indigenous agendas have been considerably focused on developing a strong approach to providing community services to the Aboriginal and Torres Islanders. The strength of the paper relies upon the emphasis on scholarly sources for providing an empirical approach to the discussion. The author directs to the various elements of educational programs that might be effective in explaining the course of standardised academic learning to the indigenous people. Moreover, the author also highlights importance of higher education for the Indigenous people.

Evans, C., 2012. Your professional experience and becoming professional in working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and communities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education: An introduction to the teaching profession, pp.52-62.

The author explains that the higher education sector needs to focus on being flexible to incorporate essential education programs for both students and teacher communities within the Aboriginal communities. To explore the doctrines of higher education for the indigenous communities, it is essential to understand the various societal sections including Indigenous humour. According to Nakata (2007), it is regarded as a method of incorporating sense in the experience of teaching and learning for the Aboriginal and Torres Islander teaching professionals and students. Moreover, it also signifies the radical ignorance incorporated by the outsiders in dealing with the issue of creating educational opportunities for the indigenous communities. The emphasis on the standpoint theory in the article directs to the importance of following a method of inquiry in the process of creating intelligible knowledge areas. On the other hand, the weakness of the theory implies the lack of singular nature and is a mere addition to the list of associated theories in the Marxist approaches. Besides, the article further points out the several negotiations that have been incorporated into the society to create a safe space for the Indigenous communities (Nakata, 2007). 

“Daniels-Mayes, S., 2020. A courageous conversation with racism: revealing the racialised stories of Aboriginal deficit for pre-service teachers. The Australian Educational Researcher, 47(4), pp.537-554.”

Keywords: Aboriginal education, Critical race theory, Counterstory telling, Pre-Service education

The article by Daniels-Mayes (2020), highlights the prevailing debates between the various teacher educators over the effectiveness of the various strategies that often assist the teachers to transform into confident educators. It has been noticed that recently the process within the pre-service teaching profession had gradually transformed to become culture responsive with the Aboriginal content and student perspectives. The author uses a therapy narrative technique to present the conversations over racism as the identified problem. The paper reflects a strong sense of presence of the facts through a Counterstory telling approach based on the development of a successive script. However, the paper lacks an empirical approach to meet the conditions of data presentation in a systematic approach.  

The research conducted by the author has been successively directed toward the significant arguments presented behind the development of Culturally Responsive Pedagogies of Success within the doctrines of the Colonial Critical Race Theory (Daniels-Mayes, 2020). The conditions of the research are vehemently focused on evaluating the impact of modernistic teaching and education programs which have been essential in increasing the participation of Aboriginal students in schools and universities. As suggested by Daniels-Mayes (2020), furthermore, the article highlights the working of the families, community members and Aboriginal students in the schools as a result of the “make or break element” of the teaching mindset of the educational leaders. In the context of racism and racial discrimination against the Aboriginal people, it has been noticed that scholars have subsequently described the significant cultural gaps as a major obstacle behind the success of the Aboriginal students.

“Harrison, N., Stanton, S., Manning, R. and Penetito, W., 2021. Teaching in the name of justice: empathy and vulnerability as a basis for understanding difficult histories. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, pp.1-16.”

Keywords: Justice, Empathy, representation, frontier conflict, vulnerability

The article by Harrison, Stanton, Manning and Penetito (2021), contemplates the two autoethnography from New Zealand and Australia that have been discussed to inculcate meaning to the purpose of difficult historical events in the colonial nations. The author describes the knowledge base to explain the various concepts related to empathy and vulnerabilities experienced by the indigenous communities in the colonial period. The paper argues over the designing process of the teaching materials related to the act of teaching the unlawful and devastating events that occurred within the communities. The methodologies concerning the teaching of these events are suggested to be empathetic in the course of the paper. The writing process of the scripts has also been discussed. These inclusive topic has been the strengths of the paper whereas, the presentation is rather subjective which lowers the opportunities of it being a qualitative empirical source.

The concept of autoethnography has been incorporated within the course of the paper to highlight the need of redesigning the writing style of the historical events whole dealing with different cultures and communities. According to Harrison, Stanton, Manning and Penetito (2021), the teaching methods must be revised to encourage cultural inclusivity within the teaching process. The most important should be placed in planning o the activities to enhance the confidence level of the teachers is dealing with the various learning needs of the Aboriginal Australians and other indigenous communities. It has been highlighted in the paper that the trainee teachers have significantly been put into annual two-day Treaty of Waitangi Education Programme workshops to increase confidence and encourage them to initiate the self-identification process. The ancestry of the teachers has also been incorporated into the elements of planning the course of the educational programs to increase the abilities of the professionals.

Daniels-Mayes, S., 2020. A courageous conversation with racism: revealing the racialised stories of Aboriginal deficit for pre-service teachers. The Australian Educational Researcher, 47(4), pp.537-554.

Evans, C., 2012. Your professional experience and becoming professional about working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and communities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education: An introduction to the teaching profession, pp.52-62.

Harrison, N., Stanton, S., Manning, R. and Penetito, W., 2021. Teaching in the name of justice: empathy and vulnerability as a basis for understanding difficult histories. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, pp.1-16.

Nakata, M., 2007. The cultural interface. The Australian journal of Indigenous education, 36(S1), pp.7-14.