Relationships with the School: Listening to the Voices of a Remote Aboriginal Community

Abstract

Whites see us as crows, sitting in the nest with mouths open, waiting for the mother and father crow to come along. Those government fellas pretend to ask, but really tell us. They've had their minds made up all the time (Yanni Lester, cited by H. Penny, 1982).

Effective Teaching Practices for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students: A Review of the Literature

“…Emphasised was the need for approaches that supported teachers in changing practice to reduce students' discontinuity in school transition, especially through provoking experiential community-based cultural teacher training (Bond, 2010;Colman-Dimon, 2000;Harrison & Murray, 2012). In all, the publications in this category called for an improvement in the educational experience provided for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, drawing attention primarily to systemic issues associated with the socio-political influences on education.…”

“…Many authors suggested that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children tended to favour group collaboration rather than individually competitive settings (Bissett, 2012;Bond, 2010;Wemyss, 2003;Yunkaporta & McGinty, 2009). Suggestions were commonly made in the literature that students should negotiate task content, timelines, format, mode and classroom housekeeping (Bissett, 2012;Brogden and Kelly, 2002;Cahill, 1999;Colman-Dimon, 2000;Cresswell, Underwood, Withers & Adams, 2002;Hanlen, 2002). There was a consensus in the literature that explicit teaching is recommended over independent learning.…”

Influence Analysis of Sustainability Perceptions on Sense of Community and Support for Sustainable Community Development in Relocated Communities

“…Our suggestions for the administrators or developers of New Laiyi are as follows. First, as shown in previous research, schools play an important role in improving residents' interpersonal relationships and coherence with the community [91]. Community schools can serve as public open spaces and provide residents with more activities for leisure or social interaction, which, in turn, can enhance their life satisfaction perceptions [92].…”

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“…The literature in this category comprised empirical studies from the Australian context. These studies contained implicit discussions about behaviour while examining pedagogy (Munns, O'Rourke & Bodkin-Andrews, 2013;Rahman, 2010;Yunkaporta & McGinty, 2009), disadvantage (Keddie et al, 2013), curriculum (Munns et al, 2013;Simpson & Clancy, 2012), the hidden curriculum (Rahman, 2010), Indigenous voice (Bond, 2010;Colman-Dimon, 2000), teacher characteristics (Fanshawe, 1989), classroom discourse (Thwaite, 2007), student mobility (Nelson & Hay, 2010) and humour (Hudspith, 1995). As these studies investigated other pedagogical topics, conclusions were made that relate specifically to behaviour management.…”

“…The elders expressed that school gave them no voice in curriculum and they wanted to have input (Bond, 2004). According to Colman-Dimon (2000), who used qualitative methods students enjoyed their schooling and felt optimistic about their futures when parents and community members played an active and decision-making role in the school. "It is vital that education be improved through a process of attentive listening rather than an imposition of inappropriate pedagogy, curriculum and lack of meaningful personal relationships with the community" (Colman-Dimon, 2000, p. 43).…”