Aboriginal Literacy Research Project

Cor blimey! - I have been doing the Week 10 courseware for Primary Literacy, and that 'Aboriginal Literacy Research Project' (Munns, G., Lawson, J and Mootz, D., Report to the NSW Board of Studies) was some seriously heavy reading!

I notice that that the coordinator of the Literacy subject is one of the co-authors. I feel very lucky that she is involved in the GDLT course.

I can see how the effort in gaining meaning from texts that are culturally irrelevant, or for which they have limited 'cultural capital' (MCEETYA 2000) can result in students becoming disengaged from texts and feeling little confidence in their abilities if proper scaffolded support is not offered.

Lynch's 8 Learning Management Questions, which include such things as profiling the student, determining where the student is currently and where they need to be and then to decide the best pedagogy and learning experiences to achieve these outcomes, provide the same foundations as what the Aboriginal Literacy Research Project suggests, but there are specific ways of teaching that must be employed in teaching students where English (or Standard Australian English) is a second language that must be addressed when teaching bilinguals and indigenous learners. And it is vital that we address this need, especially in matters of literacy, because as Freire's dictum states, "To read the word is to read the world." (Freire and Macedo 1987, cited in 'Aboriginal Literacy Research Project').

Learning needs to be relevant and authentic; we need to have 'contextualised learning' (Malin 1998). We know this, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the same is true for indigenous students as we have determined is true for any other student. It means that we need to incorporate plenty of Aboriginal culture and language within the classroom, not only to engage these students, but to model to non-indigenous students a sense of respect for the culture and hopefully instill this respect within them all (including self-respect in the indigenous students).

We need to address the issue as a pedagogical one, and offer specific, explicit and systematic strategies to the learning experience, with the expectation that the student will deliver. If we have high expectations of the student, it will foster in them a confidence in their own ability and create motivation, not only for successful outcomes in classroom tasks, but hopefully for successful outcomes in life and their future.

The text emphasises the need to communicate with indigenous families and the broader indigenous community to better be aware of both what they can bring to/offer the school and to work hand in hand in the progress of their children. It is the ultimate goal of all of us to create students who are confident, capable and practitioners of the 'learning for life' ideology. We don't want to succeed with some students and not with others, and if we do, then the failure will not be theirs, it will be ours.

Alice Howson (GDLT Primary) Mount Morgan