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While “Aboriginal students are the children of the oldest living culture on this earth, this is not yet recognised, respected and celebrated” (Western Australian Aboriginal Education and Training Council [WAAETC] (WAAETC, 2011, p. 1) in all schools. Schools should be places of learning that enhance the cultural identity and self-esteem of Aboriginal students and be a conduit to affirm cultural identity, and provide positive educational experiences (WAAETC, 2011). The literature review highlighted the importance of teachers having or developing the requisite knowledge of the cultural identity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people as also discussed in Chapter 4. Participants in the current study consistently evidence fragility of confidence in this matter.

P3: Even our knowledge of Aboriginal student’s backgrounds, that’s something I’m not sure of.

P9: But I’m even thinking the graduate level in this Standard that’s a lot they are asking there. Especially for someone that’s had no experience or no background, nothing in Aboriginal education.

P29: Where many people fall down, myself included is this whole area because we haven’t had the training or we haven’t had the experience. So you can be actually in the system for years and years and years, decades and still not really come across anything in 1.4 unless you in-service yourself.

P30: Never anything about how to teach Aboriginal kids as far as 1.4, strategies in teaching. No, it was never heard of that I know.

In School A when the group discussion was with reference to teachers implementing effective strategies that are responsive to the cultural background of Aboriginal children. The following question was raised:

P3: You know how we are talking about the learning styles of Aboriginal students. Being that a lot of our Aboriginal students aren’t immersed in Aboriginal culture. Have you found that they generally still apply to students that have not had that upbringing?

Meaning and understandings are shaped through the everyday (Nakata, 2008). It is within cultural and social contexts that children and young people’s understanding of their world 95

develops and learning grows (What Works, 2015). “Enculturation is a life-long process of teaching and learning whereby individuals can become accepted members of community and culture by accepting norms, values and roles within the family, group and society” (Kickett- Tucker & Coffin, 2011, p.155). If the educational system or class teacher does not understand that, then it promotes a tension for the child or young person whose culture is considered other and perhaps, inferior. This may not be visible to the teacher but ways of learning are well embedded by the time children come to school. “What we call great quality teaching strategies for all children are what we call great quality teaching strategies for Indigenous children” (Sarra, 2011, p. 114). Or put another way if you teach Aboriginal children and young people well you teach all students well.

In the following exchange there is also the identification of the confusion between the knowledge of and the actual teaching of Aboriginal children.

P24: I think there are kind of two prongs there is for the way we build respect and knowledge for Aboriginal culture with our whole community. Then there’s the way that we educate our Indigenous students. And, I think sometimes we are really good at doing, well not really good, but getting better at building respect in the whole community but for individual students about them and what we do to help them, our Indigenous students that’s what I am not sure about. P25: When you don’t know necessarily your Indigenous beyond a label. How do

you view that? How do you view my role then in terms of proficiency? They don’t know they’re Aboriginal possibly. I don’t know. So how can I be proficient? When they don’t know and I don’t know what they know or don’t know. See that’s a challenge.

P26: Standard 1.4 is a little harder but they are powerful experiences not necessarily that happen in the classroom. I think in the classroom it’s more difficult for us because we don’t know enough about them and they don’t know enough about themselves.

P25: It’s not to say you don’t do it. It’s the how do you do that? What are their actual needs then?

The ignorance of teachers in terms of their background knowledge of Aboriginal students needs urgent attention (WAAETC, 2011). Teachers in the group interviews identified their lack of knowledge of students’ backgrounds as well as an uncertainty around where they go to obtain this information:

P2: If we did want to have that background where do we go for that kind of information?

This begs the question, if teachers are unsure of their students’ cultural background how are they expected to design and implement effective strategies that are responsive to cultural setting of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

One cause of concern for teachers in the Eastern Region of Sydney is that the majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are not originally from Eora country where the schools are situated. Additionally, “[t]here are about 29 clan groups of the Sydney metropolitan area, referred to collectively as the Eora Nation" (Heiss & Gibson, nd.) Their ancestral connections are from a Country outside of Sydney.

P1: From the students’ background, if they were to say they belong to this particular mob. Then where do we research about that particular mob’s culture, practices, beliefs and linguistic background, where do we go with all that?

One of the strengths of Aboriginal communities in the region is a sense of place and a sense of belonging as Aboriginal peoples. Like many other city-based communities, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are ancestrally connected to different nations. Nevertheless, Aboriginal families are ancestrally connected, historically connected, or have lived connection (Fredericks, 2004) to the Sydney Region.

Participants noted that professional development opportunities for classroom teachers in the teaching of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students is extremely limited, almost non- existent at the time of this study. This mirrors the findings of Moreton-Robinson et al. (2012) and Ma Rhea, Anderson and Atkinson (2012). The majority of teachers interviewed expressed their limited knowledge of how Aboriginal children and young people learn and Aboriginal pedagogies.

P6: I don’t think they’d realise and I didn’t until I came here. How Aboriginal children do learn in a different way. They do learn in a different way. And, you only know that when you are teaching them. If you’ve worked in a school that has no ESL children, you’d be looking at these children going, well I don’t know why they are not learning everything the way I am teaching it. But everyone else has always. I think people just don’t know.

P5: To me we are focusing on what their needs are as a person, not what their needs are as an Aboriginal student. That’s where we fall down because we haven’t got that capacity to be culturally sensitive, because we do not have the knowledge.

P28: Well I think teaching Aboriginal children, actual teaching strategies is what we need so we can be more explicit in our teaching for them.

After the first two interviews it became clear that there is some confusion amongst teachers with regards to the difference between the study of Aboriginal culture on the one hand and Aboriginal knowledges and ways of seeing on the other. Principals, teachers and students all have a way of seeing and knowing that they bring to school every day. It is important to acknowledge and value each other’s perspectives – ways of seeing. One challenge is to find common ground, the cultural interface of Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing and Western ways of knowing, being and doing (Martin, 2009).