Indigenous primary school teachers’ reflections of cultural pedagogy - developing positive social skills and increased student self-awareness in the modern day classroom

ABSTRACT

School classrooms worldwide consist of a diversity of cultures. Teachers in these classrooms play key roles in the preparation of students not only in terms of their academic and career readiness, but also in their understanding of how to socially navigate communities. In remote areas where communities rely on their culture and social norms to guide behaviours to sustain a flourishing culture and community, non-academic life skills become part of the focus of teaching. This paper shares a portion of research investigating cultural self-perceptions of both Canadian Indigenous primary school students and their teachers. These Indigenous educators in remote communities reveal culture’s important role in teaching that impacts children’s social development. The data provides a perspective rarely investigated that shares the practices of these Indigenous teachers. Their cultural and societal expectations lead to encouraging other teachers in various global contexts to reflect on their own teaching practices, cultural identities, and non-academic life skill pedagogies.

KEYWORDS:

• Culture
• authentic
• Indigenous
• communities
• teachers
• drawings

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michelle J. Eady

Michelle J. Eady is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She is a HERDSA and ISSOTL fellow, a senior fellow of the HEA and holds a national teaching citation for her work in quality teacher preparation. Her research interests include the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), Work integrated learning (WIL), Distance Learning/Synchronous Technology, Aboriginal Studies and other current issues in Education. Associate Professor Eady has had the pleasure of speaking at conferences worldwide and looks forward to collaborations with colleagues who have a passion for teaching and learning.

Tracey J Woolrych

Tracey Woolrych is an early career academic in the School of Psychology at the University of Wollongong. Her research interests include empathy, emotion recognition and criminal behaviour.  Tracey co-ordinates psychology subjects in Wollongong, Singapore and China. Focusing on empathy, she researches  a range of areas from cultural to cognitive psychology looking at the impact of culture on the development of empathy in children, and the relationship between empathy and other factors such as loneliness, and our expectations of others.

Corinne A. Green

Corinne A. Green is an early career academic in the School of Education at the University of Wollongong. She has been involved in developing and teaching a number of the pedagogy subjects within the Bachelor of Primary Education degree. She is passionate about teacher education that meaningfully integrates theory with practice, which has informed both her PhD studies and her teaching style. Corinne has relished opportunities to collaborate with local and international colleagues on projects related to teacher education, learning analytics and learning design, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.