ACRP Assessment Two: Essay Liam Culhane 18361777

Knowledge of the racism encountered by Indigenous children and young people in

schools is essential for understanding the changes needed and how to bring them about.
Students may experience racism in schools in a number of ways and from a range of
sources including harmful assumptions, paternalism, prejudice, low expectations,
stereotypes, violence and biased curriculum materials’ (Hickling-Hudson & Ahlquist,
2003).

Can the uptake of an SSI high expectations relationships framework improve educational
outcomes outlined in the closing the gap report for Aboriginal young people?

The active reflective maintenance of high-expectation relationships championed by the

Stronger Smarter Institute (SSI) ‘High-Expectations Relationships Framework’ successfully
addresses the personal and structural manifestations of racism within the Australian education
field. High-expectation relationships are emphasised across classroom learning environments
and the student-teacher relationships within these places, in addition to high-expectation
school leadership relationships both within the school and with the broader community (Sara,
2013; Stronger Smarter Institute, 2014). More holistically, the overarching theme of these
expectations remains the challenging of systemic personal assumptions regardless of context.
To recognise the need for high-expectation education relationships with Indigenous students,
is to recognise the historical and continued perpetuation of deficit attitudes toward
Indigenous Australian competencies regarding academic ability, cultural identity, behaviour,
self-management and family education values socially bound up within Indigenous student
identity (Harrison & Greenfield, 2011; Lethwaite et. al., 2015; Stronger Smarter Institute,
2014; Wilkinson, 2009). The dominant education experience of Indigenous students has been
characterized by the devaluing and misrepresentation of their cultural literacies, knowledge
and experiences, with little attention paid to the generalised or tokenistic way Indigenous
knowledge is represented (Harrison & Greenfield, 2011; Mackinlay & Barney, 2012). These
educational experiences prompt students with overt and covert discourses of assimilation and
negative identity that have historically informed teacher and school attitudes, perpetuating the
acceptance of low expectations – which therefore directly relates to student learning outcome
performance (Dobia & Roffey, 2017; Lethwaite et. al., 2015).
ACRP Assessment Two: Essay Liam Culhane 18361777

The framework acts as self-reflection tool that challenges these assumptions, negative
constructions of identity and the education gap they inform utilising three intrapersonal goals:
understanding personal assumptions, creating spaces for dialogue, and engaging in
challenging conversations (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2014). A teacher’s ability to critically
understand their personal assumptions is directly relevant to their professional identity, and
vital to addressing key targets in both the Closing the Gap Report 2019 (Department of the
Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2019) and 2017 Aboriginal Students in NSW Public Schools
Annual Report (NSW Department of Education [DOE], 2017) regarding Indigenous student’s
attendance, literacy and numeracy, and HSC and tertiary education attainment targets.
Without critical reflection, internalised deficit constructions of Indigenous student capacity
position these gaps in attainment as inherent within students and as caused by individual
students and their community’s Indigenous identity (Hewitt, 2000; Mackinlay & Barney,
2012; Stronger Smarter Institute, 2014). Without professional devotion to decoding colonial
power dynamics within public and education discourse, teachers fail to perceive their own
contribution to continued gaps in Indigenous student education involving failure, absenteeism
and disengagement, thus colluding in the sabotage of their own professional agency, in
addition to damaged Indigenous student perceptions of education and their own ability
(Hewitt, 2000; Stronger Smarter Institute, 2014). Without conscious professional awareness
of teacher’s cultural and transformative agency, the unconscious colonial social forces that
have shaped deficit and low expectations of Indigenous students and community cultural
knowledge cannot be challenged (Giovanangeli & Snepvangers, 2016; Hewit, 2000;
Mackinlay & Barney, 2012). Only positive student-centred learning partnerships guided by
high-expectations of teachers own professional reflexivity, both pedagogically and regarding
all discourses present in their professional environment, can achieve the desired educational
outcomes.

Creating spaces for dialogue and responsive platforms are the enactment of recognising all
students as dynamic and unique cultural beings, which is made possible by challenging the
habitual assumptions of oneself, their faculty, school and wider community. It is the student-
centred valuing of cultural competencies, complexities and localised knowledge that
challenges the binaries of colonial thought, thus privileging the learner’s needs and
improving student engagement, attendance and subsequently their learning outcomes
(Giovanangeli & Snepvangers, 2016; Harrison & Greenfield, 2011; Whitehouse, 2011). The
facilitation of dialogue cannot be as simple as the integration of Indigenous perspectives
ACRP Assessment Two: Essay Liam Culhane 18361777

expressed by the Closing the Gap Report 2019 (Department of the Prime Minister and
Cabinet, 2019). It cannot be the uncritical transfer of Western binary perspectives and
impoverished Indigenous pedagogy, nor can it be the umproblematised valuing of one
worldview over the other (Mackinlay & Barney, 2012; Whitehouse, 2011). This
‘incorporation’ fails to address educational disadvantage because emphasising teachers as
sole content creators on topics they may not possess background knowledge in,
representation becomes tokenistic and disengages learners, therefore propagating the cycles
of low attendance and achievement it seeks to solve (Giovanangeli & Snepvangers, 2016;
Stronger Smarter Institute, 2014). To facilitate dialogue in these complex cultural
environments historically defined by misrepresentation, students must be positioned as
knowledge creators in learning spaces of multiplicity – cultural interfaces defined by
cooperative co-creation, contestation and reflection of knowledges privileges different
understandings and empowers student identity and background knowledge (Harrison &
Murray, 2013; Hewitt, 2000; Whitehouse, 2011). To value and authentically represent
localized cultural conceptualisations of Indigenous students, and to normalise the co-creation
and reflection on this knowledge in a respectful and consensual learning partnership
community; is to have high-expectations of all students and authentically engage them in
their learning (Hewitt, 2000; Mackinlay & Barney, 2012; Sharifian, 2010).

The creation of these dialogue spaces informed by understanding assumptions are

fundamental for engagement in challenging conversations with the wider Indigenous
community, including students, their family members and community Elders. These
relationships and subsequent interactions that take place are supported by similar high-
expectations, in a space that is mutually respectful and where understandings and
expectations are negotiated and renegotiated with a student-centred ethic of care as the focus
(Giovanangeli & Snepvangers, 2016). These processes of negotiation are heavily dependent
on culturally responsive and strengths-based dialogue (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2014).
They seek to augment socially just and critical relationships through the co-creation of
content, pedagogy, events and expectations, with local Indigenous cultural knowledge and
the wider Indigenous community network (Lethwaite et. al., 2015). Collaboration and co-
planning with the Indigenous community is vital for adjusting teaching behaviours,
communication assumptions and effectively connecting learning to student’s and the
community’s cultural identity – all of which expose alternative literacy code-switching and
attendance factors previously hidden while authentically representing and performing
ACRP Assessment Two: Essay Liam Culhane 18361777

localized Indigenous knowledge (Harrison & Greenfield, 2011; Lethwaite et. al., 2015).
Furthermore, seeking partnership with the Indigenous community and traversing culturally
complex conversations to represent Indigenous student identities positively, can foster the
acknowledgement of the community’s history with education and feelings of powerlessness
in the school environment. Through the active involvement of Indigenous educators and
Elders in both on-campus and on-Country learning activities as a teacher and school, in
addition to providing community space and an open doors policy; the discontinuity between
the spaces of home and school can be eliminated through the valuing of community identity
(Harrison & Greenfield, 2011; Harrison & Murray, 2013; Lethwaite et. al., 2015; Shrinkfield,
2014; Wilkinson, 2009). When the school becomes a marker of community identity,
assumptions about the learning that takes place are replaced with mutually constructed high-
expectations and flexible curriculum tailored to the community’s needs (Department of the
Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2019).

The Geography KLA is uniquely positioned as a field to raise student outcomes, utilising the
elements of SSI high-expectation relationships as a catalyst for this improvement. Across
stages four to six Geography, there is a focus on the biophysical elements of the environment
and the human characteristics of places, which The Shape of the Australian Curriculum:
Geography (ACARA, 2011) recognises as relevant to representing Indigenous perspectives in
line with cross-curriculum priorities. Emphasis on engaging students in learning about
Country and Place, People, Culture and Identity clearly seeks to improve the education
quality outcomes of the Closing the Gap Report 2019 (Department of the Prime Minister and
Cabinet, 2019), specifically teacher quality, integration of Indigenous perspectives and the
improvement of Indigenous attainment. While ACARA (2011) does value Indigenous
students seeing themselves represented within the curriculum; the authentic, relationally co-
created representation and interaction with this knowledge is not addressed and therefore
risks being tokenistic (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2014). Based on this, within the
‘Environmental Change and Management’ topic in stage five Geography for example,
singular or repeated cursory research activities addressing the different worldviews and
management strategies including those of Indigenous Australians, named explicitly in one
singular content point, could successfully achieve this representation as far as the curriculum
is concerned (ACARA, 2011; BOSTES, 2015).
ACRP Assessment Two: Essay Liam Culhane 18361777

SSI high-expectations focalise relationships that can make student engagement, particularly
Indigenous student engagement and representation, truly authentic. Through sustained
investigation of Indigenous environmental management strategies and the continuous
significant contributions of Indigenous Australians to environmental management informed
by unique connection and responsibility to Country embedded within Indigenous Australian
identity and holistic belief systems; the entire topic can act as a valuing of Indigenous
Australian’s holistic responsive management strategies as a unique expression of cultural
ways of being, knowing, thinking and doing (Shay & Wickes, 2017; Whitehouse, 2011).
When Indigenous Australian perspectives act as an interconnecting authentically represented
theme within the unit, not only is the aforementioned content point addressed, but multiple
outcomes involving influences on place (GE5-2), interaction and connection (GE5-3),
perspectives (GE5-4) and management strategies (GE5-5) are interacted with and delivered in
a meaningful way (BOSTES, 2015). Further professional high-expectations manifest when
students and the school community’s background cultural knowledge is valued in spaces of
dialogue, and localised culture and knowledge are represented respectfully (Hewitt, 2000;
Mackinlay & Barney, 2012; Sharifian, 2010). The invitation of the Indigenous community
and Elders to professional planning construction as a practice of negotiation is an ideal way
for the community to share localized knowledge and literacies of choice, shape the
representation of their community identity, and bridge the discontinuity between home and
school (Shrinkfield, 2014; Wilkinson, 2009). The grounding of content in student-centred
lived experience is paramount to constructing personal relevance and positive student
identity, to maximise engagement and understanding (Buxton, 2017; Hackling, Byrne, Gower
& Anderson, 2015; Molyneux & Tyler, 2014). Finally, guided by the trust and relational
knowledge in the above processes, fieldwork can focalize this person-centred approach to
Geography – by making connections with local and non-local Indigenous educators and
arranging on-Country learning facilitated by these educators, in addition to local community
fieldwork facilitated by the teacher with the invitation to community to join. Not only does
this personal relationality of content to students develop positive identity, connection and
engagement in Indigenous students, but affirms a sense of identification and relevance
between all students in the learning community that Geography as a problem-solving tool is
most effective during cooperation (Engelman, 2013; Romey & Elberty, 1980).

The high-expectations framework prioritises an ethics of care student-focus and benefits

educational outcomes at an individual KLA level by challenging and navigating sensitive
ACRP Assessment Two: Essay Liam Culhane 18361777

cultural complexities rooted in histories of trauma, violence, prejudice, guilt and bias.
Therefore, the framework’s overarching limitation is the resistance of students, teachers,
faculties, the school and wider non-Indigenous and Indigenous community to the three high-
expectation goals. The first manifestation lies within staff and the school itself. The
professional body may lack understanding regarding how language, attitudes and curriculum
embody the transmission of cultural schemas that may be insensitive or tokenistic or based on
these hegemonic forces may actively resist such changes as additional or unnecessary work
(Whitehouse, 2011; Sharifian, 2010). Similarly, the school leadership may lack guiding
commitment to change (Giovanangeli & Snepvangers, 2016). With school management
actively committed, professional development and hiring processes can reflect school values
co-created with the Indigenous community and professional body, where faculty practice
involves collaboratively planning units and resources in addition to collegial observations and
meetings to ensure reflexivity is a part of practice. Without school leadership support,
collegial action in the form of reflections, observations and committees taking charge within
their school, in addition to actively seeking out individual relationships with Indigenous
students, their families and the wider Indigenous community and Elders, is essential
(Harrison & Murray, 2013).

Similarly, the combined education and life experience of Indigenous community school
families is one of systemic: prejudice, disadvantage and low expectations of their capabilities;
in addition to those of their children and broader culture (Dobia & Roffey, 2017; Harrison &
Greenfield, 2011; Harrison & Murray, 2013; Lethwaite et. al., 2015). Logically, these
experiences result in well-founded feelings of distrust and mirrored low expectations of
teachers, schools and the education system. An ‘open doors’ policy alone is unlikely to make
the Indigenous community feel welcome, based on a high-expectations reflective
contemplation of these low expectation attitudes. Providing community spaces within the
school such as gardens or parents gathering rooms, and visibly representing Indigenous
culture by flying the Indigenous flag, Acknowledgement of Country and local symbols;
operate to make the school setting feel more welcoming (Wilkinson, 2009). Having
Indigenous education members present on campus, whether community-recognised
Indigenous educators or Elders, can improve the school’s relationship with the community
and challenge assumptions while repositioning the school as a site of negotiation. Similarly,
individually inviting Indigenous parents into learning spaces, in addition to inviting parents to
discuss, question and co-create planning and content materials in a community conversational
ACRP Assessment Two: Essay Liam Culhane 18361777

circle is a respectful and less intimidating means of creating relationships and challenging
negative assumptions in spaces of trust and dialogue (Stronger Smarter Institute, 2014). With
the intention of conversational circles explicitly described and co-facilitated by a community
Aboriginal educator or Elder, trust can begin to be circulated through the community
encouraging greater involvement. Furthermore, new information may surface regarding
families more remote than others, and provisions to ensure their access and involvement to
school-community decisions can be co-created appropriately as a community, further
improving identity and educational outcomes outlined in the Closing the Gap Report 2019
(Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2019) and 2017 Aboriginal Students in NSW
Public Schools Annual Report (NSW DOE, 2017).

Ultimately, the ‘High-Expectations Relationships Framework’ demonstrates that the

acknowledgement of prejudices facing Indigenous students and their communities is vital to
understanding the changes required to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
students. The challenging of low expectations are embodied at a personal and institutional
level of reflection, and through the active involvement and representation of the Indigenous
community can not only improve education outcomes, but renew community relationships
damaged by harmful assumptions.
ACRP Assessment Two: Essay Liam Culhane 18361777

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ACRP Assessment Two: Essay Liam Culhane 18361777

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