Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:06:22.242Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reflective Teaching Practice in a Darug Classroom: How Teachers can Build Relationships With an Aboriginal Community Outside the School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2013

Neil Harrison  and
Belinda Murray
Neil Harrison*
Affiliation:
Department of Education, Macquarie University, New South Wales, 2109, Australia
Belinda Murray
Affiliation:
Auburn West Public School, Chiswick Road, Auburn, New South Wales, 2144, Australia
*
address for correspondence: Neil Harrison, Department of Education, Macquarie University, NSW2109, Australia. Email: neil.harrison@mq.edu.au
Get access

Abstract

This project has been developed on Darug country, Sydney to examine how pre-service and beginning teachers can work with Aboriginal people in their local urban community. These teachers often want to know how to approach an Aboriginal ‘community’, how they can ask Aboriginal people for information in order to include it in their teaching, and how to adopt respectful ways of talking when they contact a community member. While these questions are commonly addressed in the Working with Community documents published by the various state Departments of Education, we found that the actual practice of working with a community is daunting for many. This article therefore attempts to document two examples of this practice, and in so doing it applies the protocols identified by Martin (2008) to the reflective work of both a pre-service teacher and a university educator. It also draws on the extensive literature of reflective practice developed for classrooms, and applies this to pedagogical practice outside schools.

Keywords

communityDarugElderspre-service teachersreflective practicerespect
Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , December 2012 , pp. 139 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. (2010). Guidelines for ethical research in Indigenous studies. Retrieved from http:/www.aiatsis.gov.au/research/ethical.htmlGoogle Scholar
Bagnall, N.F. (2005). Teacher cultural reflection and cultural action learning: Researching a cultural dimension in teacher education. Ethnography and Education European Review, 4, 101–116.Google Scholar
Board of Studies, NSW. (2008). Working with Aboriginal communities: A guide to community consultation and protocols. Sydney, Australia: Board of Studies.Google Scholar
Brooke, J., & Kohen, J.L. (1991). The Parramatta Native Institution and The Black Town: A history. Sydney, Australia: NSW University Press.Google Scholar
Cavanagh, M., & Prescott, A. (2010). The growth of reflective practice among three beginning secondary mathematics teachers. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 38 (2), 147–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cruikshank, D.R. (1985). Uses and benefits of reflective teaching. The Phi Delta Kappan, 66 (10), 704–706.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. Boston, MA: Heath.Google Scholar
Dinkelman, T. (2000). An inquiry into the development of critical reflection in secondary student teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16 (2), 195–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, V. (2008). Leading from the edge: Aboriginal education leaders tell their story. Adelaide, Australia: South Australian Centre for Leaders in Education.Google Scholar
Hammer, M.R., Bennett, M.J., & Wiseman, R. (2003). Measuring intercultural sensitivity: The intercultural development inventory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 27, 421–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, N. (2004). Indigenous education and the adventure of insight: Learning and teaching in Indigenous classrooms. Flaxton, Australia: Post Pressed.Google Scholar
Harrison, N., & Greenfield, M. (2011). Relationship to place: positioning Aboriginal knowledge and perspectives in classroom pedagogies. Critical Studies in Education, 52 (1), 65–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollinsworth, D. (2006). Race and racism in Australia. Melbourne, Australia: Thomson and Social Science PressGoogle Scholar
Kohen, J.L. (2009). Daruganora: Darug Country: The place and the people. Part 1 — Prehistory and history. Blacktown, NSW: Darug Tribal Aboriginal Corporation.Google Scholar
Langton, M. (1993). ‘Well, I heard it on the radio and I saw it on the television. . .’: An essay for the Australian Film Commission on the politics and aesthetics of filmmaking by and about Aboriginal people and things. Sydney, Australia: Australian Film Commission.Google Scholar
Le Cornu, R., & Ewing, R. (2008). Reconceptualising professional experiences in pre-service teacher education . . . reconstructing the past to embrace the future. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 1799–1812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, H.J. (2005). Understanding and assessing preservice teachers’ reflective thinking. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 699–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, K.L. (2008). Please knock before you enter: Aboriginal regulation of outsiders and the implications for researchers. Brisbane, Australia: Post Pressed.Google Scholar
McAllister, G., & Irvine, J.J. (2000). Cross cultural competency and multicultural teacher education. Review of Educational Research, 70 (1), 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mezirow, J. (1981). A critical theory of adult learning and education. Adult Education Quarterly, 32 (1), 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mezirow, J. (1990). Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: A guide to transformative and emancipatory learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Mills, C., & Ballantyne, J. (2010). Pre-service teachers’ dispositions towards diversity: Arguing for a developmental hierarchy of change. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26 (3), 447–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muir, C., Rose, D., & Sullivan, P. (2010). From the other side of the knowledge frontier: Indigenous knowledge, social-ecological relationships and new perspectives. The Rangeland Journal, 32, 259–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). (2003). Values and ethics: Guidelines for ethical conduct in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research. Retrieved from http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/e52syn.htmGoogle Scholar
New South Wales Department of Community Services. (2008). Working with Aboriginal people and communities: A resource guide. Retrieved from http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/for_agencies_that_work_with_us/policies_and_procedures.htmlGoogle Scholar
New South Wales Department of Education and Training and New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Incorporated. (2004). The report of the review of Aboriginal education/yanigurra muya: Ganggurrinyma yaarri guurulaw yirringin.gurray freeing the spirit: Dreaming as equal future. Sydney, Australia: New South Wales Department of Education and Training.Google Scholar
New South Wales Institute of Teachers. (2005). The professional teaching standards. Retrieved from http://www.nswteachers.nsw.edu.au/IgnitionSuite/uploads/docs/Professional%20Teaching%20Standards.pdfGoogle Scholar
Rogers, C. (2002). Defining reflection: Another look at John Dewey and reflective thinking. Teachers College Record, 104 (4), 842–866.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schon, D.A. (1987). Educating the reflective practioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.Google Scholar
Smith, L.T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago Press.Google Scholar
Smith, L.T. (2005). Building a research agenda for Indigenous epistemologies and education. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36 (1), 93–95.Google Scholar
University of Sydney (2010). A history of Aboriginal Sydney. Retrieved from: http://www.historyofaboriginalsydney.edu.au.Google Scholar