Have you been watching ‘First Contact’ on SBS this week where six non-Indigenous Australians are immersed into Aboriginal Australia for the first time? The series has shown that it takes significant cognitive conflict to remove misperceptions and incorrect beliefs. As a teacher, how do you model and enact ‘Cultural Competence’ in your classroom where students can develop empathy and understanding for Aboriginal Perspectives so that the Australian community can develop positively in a spirit of mutual respect and reconciliation? A teacher can provide a culturally inclusive classroom by: • Maintaining high expectations for students from all cultures • Providing a variety of resources which are not stereotypical and reflect modern thinking and ideas • Developing empathy with your students about how people of all cultures might perceive, think, interact, behave and make judgements about their world • Providing opportunities for positive interactions amongst and between Aboriginal people and other Australians in educational sites and else here, in person and by other means • Including Aboriginal Perspectives into lessons and being sensitive to different perspectives of national holidays • Actively supporting and implementing a range of strategies that value human rights and that counter institutional and personal racism across all cultures and nationalities. As our performance expectations, the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers are clear that all teachers must; • Respond to students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds (Focus Area 1.3) • Have strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students (Focus Area 1.4) • Understand and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to promote reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians (Focus Area 2.4). How do you get these focus areas to permeate through your teaching and learning program? To catch up on any episodes go to: sbs.au/programs/first-contact And for more information about the DECD Reconciliation Action Plan: aboriginaleducation.sa.edu.au/files/links/RAP__final_copy.pdf
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 06:54:01 +0000
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