hearing loss and the criminal justice system - Australian Indigenous ...

Senate Inquiry March 2010_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________INDIGENOUS EDUCATIONWhen the evidence in the body of research into Indigenous education is examined, thereare themes that emerge. These themes have not been taken into account by Educationsystems. These themes include the critical importance of social relationships andconsideration of how culture shapes social relationships around learning. Indigenousstudents' educational outcomes are formed by the way schools either enable or obstructthe development of positive social relationships. Certain school and classroom structurescan enable suitably skilled teachers to create educational success for Indigenous students.Unfortunately, there is little formal training that equips teachers with these skills and thereis Institutional resistance to schools changing any of their methods of operation to assistIndigenous students to succeed. The existing methods result in many Indigenous childrenwith hearing loss being especially disadvantaged through poor relationships with peers andteachers and the unfamiliar, verbally focused schooling.RELATIONSHIP FOCUSED EDUCATIONSchools and teachers can either enable or obstruct the development of the positive socialrelationships that are the platform upon which Indigenous students’ learning takes place.Malin (1997) described the educational exclusion that could result when cultural differencesundermine Indigenous students’ relationships with their teachers. The culturally basedincompatibilities between the social expectations of the Indigenous child, and their non‐Indigenous teacher, undermined the teacher‐student relationship. The Nunga students,living in urban Adelaide, came to school with sophisticated social skills, but these skills wereseen as a threat rather than an asset. These skills included: Monitoring the whole classroom social context rather than simply focusingon the teacher; Engaging collaboratively with other students rather than being individuallyfocused; Seeing themselves as achieving collectively, even when the class had notbeen organised that way; Sending positive, often non‐verbal messages to fellow students; Acting as interpreters to problem solve misinterpretations involving otherstudents.These social behaviours were not necessarily appreciated by teachers, whose teachercentrednotion of classroom life resulted in an expectation that students would focus theirattention primarily on the teacher. They often censured Indigenous students who were notsufficiently ‘teacher focussed’ because it acted ‘against their planned curriculum’ (Malin,1990).In contrast, middle‐class non‐Indigenous children came to school with expectationsconsonant with their middle class teachers’ teacher‐centred expectations. Malin reportedthat the non‐Indigenous children ‘expect that the teacher will monitor them closely, willdirect, persuade, reprimand and question them constantly. They have learned that in turnthey will have to closely monitor the teacher, and that they will be expected to learnprimarily from her’ (Malin, 1990)._________________________________________________________________________________________________________________28 Phoenix Consulting