This PowerPoint helps students to consider the concept of infinity.
Cultural Resilience: A Framework for Indigenous Educators
1. Cultural Resilience:
A Framework for Indigenous
Educators
Kellianne Anderson
Principal Project Officer
(Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives into Schools)
Queensland Department of Education and Training, Darling Downs South West Region
Twitter: @Kellianne521
#OurMobTeach
2. Who Am I?
Indigenous Teachers Forum
Cultural Resilience
Cultural Resilience Tool
Connecting Documents
Where to next?
Introduction
3. Indigenous Teachers Forums
The idea of the forums were to:
Provide the opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander teachers and pre-service teachers
Provided educators with a safe cultural space
Establish, maintain and sustain culturally supportive
networks
Promote leadership opportunities and pathways
They forums brought together almost 40 Indigenous
educators and regional staff
Three DET regions represented
Increased networking
4. Acknowledgements
Elizabeth Tailby
Daryl Docherty
Davina Kelly
Kiah Bobongie
Amee Bailey
Randall Coolwell
Mayrah Dreise
Jason Driese
Tricia Himstedt
Rebeccca Flick
Jeff Chesters
Liz Connors
Karen Gower-Buckley
Sandy Robinson
Paul Carmody
Karly-Jade Fisher
Kath Kelly
Tania Leach
Carly Cummings
Toni Henschell
Joe Sambono
Roger Cavanagh
Kim Alexander
Valerie Heinemann
Kellianne Anderson
Information collated from the Indigenous
Teachers Forum May 2014 by the following
participants:
Main Contributor
Karen Gower-Buckley
Principal Project Officer
(EATSIPS)
Developing the original idea
of identifying the gap to
create the tool
Collating and analysing
information, research and
compilation of the
document
Providing community
consultation opportunity
with forum participants.
5. Successes
Networking opportunities
Variety of cultural and educational
backgrounds and years of experience
Established an Indigenous Teachers Network
Building culturally supportive relationships
Culturally Responsive Teaching: A pedagogical framework
Cultural Resilience: A tool for educators
DDSW Indigenous Curriculum Reference Group
Assistant Regional Director as Champion
6. Challenges
Relying on word of mouth
Release from school
Communication
Community engagement
Time of year - conflicted with NAPLAN
Lower attendance of Principals
Location
7. Cultural Resilience – the document
“At the heart of resilience is a
belief in oneself—yet also a
belief in something larger
than oneself.”
Hara Estroff Marano, 2003
Indigenous Education: It’s Everybody’s Business
8. Why Cultural Resilience?
Participants believed that it is essential to:
Develop and maintain cultural identity and cultural pride
Provide an understanding of the individuals’ culture
Developing and maintaining a sense of belonging
Promote successful achievement within education
and the workplace
Maintain wellbeing and remain resilient
This can be done by drawing upon:
Positive experiences of the traditional culture
Support from the community to which they belong
9. What is Cultural Resilience?
In the context of the Indigenous Teachers
Forum, cultural resilience:
Refers to a culture's capacity to maintain and
develop cultural identity and critical cultural
knowledge and practices. Despite challenges and
difficulties, a resilient culture is capable of maintaining and
developing itself.
Explores the relationship between traditional culture, education and
the workplace in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Australians
http://www.wilderdom.com/psychology/resilience/
10. Development of the tool
Teachers identified a belief that developing and maintaining cultural identity, pride
and an understanding of individuals culture is essential in instilling and nurturing a
sense of belonging.
Historically, resilience has been developed as a whole.
‘When the colonists arrived, Aboriginal societies suddenly had to
accommodate a group with a very different world view, economy and social
structure. European society, on the other hand did not have to adapt to
traditional Aboriginal Australia; it simply took over. Consequently, the onus
fell on the traditional owners, the subjugated, to ‘fit in’, to find a new niche in
their own country. This niche was, and still is, largely defined by the more
powerful non-Aboriginal majority.’ (Eckermann et al., 2008, p 5)
http://sharingculture.info/my-resilience.html
11. Policy Connections
Queensland Department of Education and Training
Strategic plan 2014-2018
Queensland State Schools Strategy
Every Student Succeeding
Solid Partners Solid Futures
EATSIPS – Embedding Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Perspectives into School
12.
13. Self
Culture relates to the meaning of life of a group of people, it relates to how they live and work
(skills), what they hold as right and important for them (values) and it also goes with faith and
religion. Culture is a vital part of the identity. Identity is a central part of our personality; it may be
seen as the core.
From the perspective of resilience, it can be seen that if you take the culture from a people, you
take their identity, and hence their strength – the resilience factors. If people are stripped of what
gives them strength, they become vulnerable, because they do not automatically gain those
cultural strengths that the majority culture has acquired over generations.
http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr11/gunnestad.htm
14. Self
The forum identified the following statements:
Resilience for the individual is the capability to withstand stress and disaster and adapt to
overcome risk and adversity
True resilience for the individual is the ability to rebuild their lives even after devastating
tragedies
It needs to be a process that encourages the development and maintenance of resilience
attributes
It is important to understand resilience is not something you are born with, it develops
through thinking, knowledge and self-management skills
It is demonstrated in behaviours, thoughts and actions that are taught through generation
The path to becoming resilient is founded in working through the emotional and physical
effects of stress as well as the painful events of the past that have created and maintained
these emotions.
16. Others
Understanding from the broader community
Appreciation of the pride Indigenous peoples have in their culture
Encouragement of the broader community to celebrate culture
Understanding of historical events and their impact
Understanding of the deep sense of grief, loss and trauma within Indigenous
communities
Developing and understanding cultural connection
17. Others
The forum identified the following statements:
To ensure cultural safety and to maintain individual
resilience, strategies for resilience need to be deployed
within schools as a cultural change
Resilience comes from supportive relationships, cultural
beliefs and traditions
Resilience is built and maintained through relationships
with community, family and friends
Consulting the questions checklist
18. Connected documents
Culturally Responsive Teaching
When responsive pedagogy occurs, the teacher identifies and works with the student world
views and ways of knowing, working and learning. For some students this will include
connections to country, for others it will not.
The Indigenous Education Support Services is promoting a variety of strategies, professional
development and support programs to improve the concept and understanding of embedding
Indigenous perspectives into the school curriculum and whole school culture. This paper
helps to inform teachers, and provides a foundation to consider and assess future activities to
advance the concept and practice of Culturally Responsive Teaching through learning
statements.
• Ability to ask Questions
• Language/verbal/body
• Relationships
• Behaviour
• Contextual Learning
• Learning Styles
• Knowledge
• Expectations
24. Where to from here?
The Darling Downs South West Region is committed to
developing and maintain resilience strategies to improve the
concept and understanding of resilience through:
Developing resilience supporters
Development of resilience strategies
Developing tools and resources
Delivering cultural competence professional development
Notes de l'éditeur
I respectfully acknowledge the past and present traditional owners of this land, the Kaurna nation, on which we are meeting. It is a privilege to be standing on their traditional country.
I also acknowledge the contributions of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander Australians and non-Indigenous Australians to the education of all children and people in this country we all live in and share together – Australia.
Indigenous Teachers Network
As Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers there is an isolation working within such a large region. The premise of this forum was to connect teachers and leaders to ensure that an effective, collaborative network could be established so teachers could feel they are culturally supported within their school and as leaders.
Part of this success is the establishment of the OnePortal website. This website is for internal use within the Department of Education, Training and Employment and allows for teachers to share resources, success stories, challenges and any relevant announcements .
A success of this forum allowed for an Indigenous teacher to be approached to develop and deliver one of the regional online programs to students at very short notice.
Indigenous Curriculum Reference Group
The Indigenous Curriculum Reference Group was established as a result of discussions arising after the forum. Within the Darling Downs South West Region Indigenous Education Services portfolio there are two online programs delivered by teachers and the EATSIPS officers provide professional development opportunities to staff, students and school community.
The purpose of the group is to:
Review Online programs for curriculum content, relevance and cultural competency.
Provide feedback of Online programs and PD across region and identify appropriate target groups.
Identify opportunities for Principals and Regional staff to engage in developmental programs.
Develop “audit” process for Assistant Regional Director (ARD’s) to measure school capability and progress in CTG targets and EATSIPs implementation.
Provide feedback and direction to the DDSW Regional Director and DDSW Regional Yarning Circle.
Membership consists of: ARD, 2 EATSIPs Officers, 2 Online Teachers, 3 Indigenous Teachers’ Forum Representatives, ISSU Representative, DDSW Indigenous Services Coordinator and a Community Representative representing a diverse cross-section of the educational community across the region and a partnership with a separate work unit.
Meetings are scheduled for once per term and all members are able to place items on the agenda and facilitate conversation.
Assistant Regional Director as Champion
Through a recommendation of the forum, one of the ARD has someone in the regional leadership team has been identified to take carriage of Indigenous Education initiatives, issues and programs across the region as a whole, particularly around principal capacity and regional accountability.
Indigenous Teachers Pedagogical Framework
This is a reflective pedagogical framework that provides a scaffold for reflection about culturally reflective pedagogy and includes reflective questioning, classroom behaviours and setting expectations to assist teachers to build these relationships so that all students learning is maximised.
The framework has been compiled from information freely shared by Indigenous teachers at the DDSW Indigenous Teachers Forum in partnership with members of the DDSW regional Indigenous support services and DDSW portfolio partners.
This framework and resources associated are currently in draft and will be finalised for release during Term 1 2015.
Indigenous Teachers Resilience Framework
The teachers resilience framework is also currently being developed based on information freely shared by Indigenous teachers at the DDSW Indigenous Teachers Forum in partnership with members of the DDSW regional Indigenous support services and DDSW portfolio partners.
This document is currently in draft and will be finalised for release during Term 1 2015 with professional development opportunities being developed for delivery as well.
Release from Schools – teachers busy schedules, TRS