A major issue facing indigenous education today is the underachievement of indigenous students (Council of Australian Governments, 2009). Although there has been a number of policies and strategies in place to help raise their standard of education, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007 shows indigenous students are still falling far behind non indigenous Australian and even immigrant students. The last census data showed that although year 12 attainment rate has increased from 6.5% in 2006 to 53.9% in 2011, the current average non-indigenous attainment rate for year 12 is 85% (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007 & 2011). PISA’s 2012 results showed that indigenous student over-represent the lower end of the numeracy scale and under-represented the top end with only 2% of top indigenous performers compared to 15% non-indigenous students. This trend follows into other areas such as literacy and science. Past statistic from around the world as well as indigenous communities shows that school attendance is directly linked to increase in literacy, numeracy and science achievement (Ng'ondi, 2012; Gumus, 2014; Ladwig, & Luke, 2014). Therefore the major issue to tackle in increasing indigenous education is increasing school attendance. The current strategies mainly targeted at indigenous students and their family revolves around bribery for attendance in the form of shopping vouchers and sporting goods while fines up to $2000 could be imposed on parents whose children do not attend school regularly under the NSW legislation. This fine may have intended to get more students to attend school, however financial punishment on those receiving welfare from the government seem counterproductive and illogical. Past policies and strategies have often takes an excluding approach by not including those whose lives will be affected by it. An aboriginal mother, Kelly Briggs explains how the previous systems and/or strategies which did not consult the targeted population are often degrading, intrusive and humiliating (The Gurdian, 2014). This shows the importance of having a democratic approach to education and its policies.
Rewards have also a good way to get students to work towards a goal, however this requires students to self generate intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation also needs constant reinforcement to keep up with the requirement of delayed gratification (Westen, Kowalski & Burton, 2006). Punishment on the other hand have also coped a bad reputation as it takes away control from the student at the same time unintentionally relinquishes the student of their responsibility of their own education (Strom & Strom, 2012).
Figure 1: Graphic representation of Skinner’s Operant Conditioning Theory
As stated in Skinner’s theory of Operant conditioning, punishment can be both about giving an unpleasant stimulus or removal of something pleasurable (Strom & Strom, 2012). Rather than the primitive caning which is a form of positive punishment, a negative punishment approach seems to be more favourable and humane. An example of this is suggested by Korff (2015), to work as a community and enforce a positive reinforcement where an absentee would be excluded from seasonal games such as football and cricket as well as not being served at local shops during school hours without a pass. Contrarily, a negative punishment has also been shown to work better in more challenging situations where there is a low level of intrinsic motivation and low response to reinforcement (Westen, Kowalski & Burton, 2006). In this scenario, all students can be given an entitlement of attending a highly desired event like going to an AFL game then having to maintain that entitlement by attending school. This method of preserving privilege works more efficiently than having to work for a reward in numerous studies in various cultural setting.
Another hurdle for motivation is the lack of participation of parents and elders in school. An inclusion of parents and communal elders have worked well several studies. This participation further empersizes the importance of attendance and school (McConnell & Kubina, 2014; Gumus, 2014; Dodd & Bowen, 2011; Malakolunthu, McBeath & Swaffield, 2014). To improve participation in engage with new language (English), Bond (2010) suggest there needs to be an increase the participation of parents and elders to foster better teaching condition in pre-schools whilst indigenous education officers can also act as role models in primary and secondary school to further ease students into formal learning environment. In order to make English more relatable, Jolly Phonics program has been successfully introduced from prep to Year 2 in East Kenwick Primary School in Perth, this multiple mode program encouraged students to learn in their individual style (Principals Australia Institute, 2009). Most importantly, school need to be an inclusive environment, which could be achieved by being supportive and welcoming as well as using and displaying indigenous materials. There is also an emphasis to build a rapport with students and community over time (Dodd & Bowen, 2011). This however can be hard to meet in hard-to-staff place, due to the high turnover (Doecke, Parr & North, 2009).
A logistic problem often faced by indigenous students is the lack of transport to school, especially during seasonal work migration, festivals and funerals. Schools providing transport or supplying a mobile teacher could help to keep attendance up and giving the students the continuity of education which they need (Santiago, et al. 2011). Other problems are associated with their low social economic statuse where health substancially affects attendance, Verma (2015), Ng'ondi (2012) and Langford et. al. (2015) suggest that by tackling health related issues like oral health and meals, this can contribute to better attendance.
Focus on education for indigenous students have often been addresses as a “problem” which needs to be solved. Students are often labelled as disadvantaged as they are aboriginal, without an actual understanding of what this disadvantage is (Munns, Martin & Craven, 2008). Though students could live in impoverished condition this does not by default mean they would be disengaged or not interested in learning. Larkin (2012) found that teachers’ attitude and expectation plays a significant role in students’ achievement. Despites this, Doecke and Parr (2009) shows that only 24% of teacher received more than one day of personal development thus not feeling confident to work with indigenous students. This inadequacy in training is evident in the lack of understanding of cultural norms and strategies to work with indigenous students, which directly impacts their learning and motivation to attend school (Malakolunthu, McBeath & Swaffield, 2014; Reid, 2012). It is hoped that more personal development would contribute to better understanding of the problems faced and indirectly change the language used to describe and address indigenous education issues.
Purpose of education and the impact of this knowledge
The identification the above issues means there is should be a mandatory requirement for teachers to undergo more substantial personal development on indigenous education before being in a position to teach indigenous kids. This will not only equip the teacher with the necessary skill to handle the class management but also be able to handing to the stress, workload and challenges accompanying the role as they possess strategies and resource to deal with them.
Teacher training will benefit the students most as they will have a prepared and culturally aware teacher. Students will benefit from attending and engaging in school, with a better prospect of getting out of the welfare system and being a contributing member in financial, cultural, political and educational aspect of society.
Parents will notably have to be more attentive to their child’s attendance and learning some English to set a good example but this also means that parents will be setting themselves in a better situation to interact with the wider Australian population with the mastering of literacy. The community in a whole will gain immediately with the reducing of purposeless youth roaming the streets and in the long term have productive and educated representative to advocate for wellbeing, living standards, human rights and cultural heritage.
Reflection
Learning a foreign language not spoken or written by ones parents is extremely hard, especially when you can’t even turn to anyone in your community circle to ask for help due to the lack of knowledge. My family spoke English at home, while I also spoke Tamil to my babysitter and neighbours and learning Malay from the television. I was then enrolled in a mandarin primary school to learn the language. Although the contents taught was familiar to me through acquired knowledge from home, communication and written work was extremely hard. Not having any scaffolding to learn to read and write a new language was torturous, as patterns were not taught explicitly. I can relate this to indigenous students having to learn English without parents who could help them. I have personally have experienced soft racism, where there is an expectation for me to fail in a school environment due to my cultural background. It made trying to be motivated hard, especially when students began to notice the teacher treating me differently, which eventually lead to bullying. There were points in my primary education where I refused to go to school and wanted to drop out, but thanks to my mother and special teachers I stayed in school and regained my confidence in my capabilities to learn. After about 3 years of undetected dyslexia and ADHD, I was fortunate to meet a couple of dedicated and well trained teachers, who looked beyond my disadvantages and taught me to overcome them which allowed me to complete primary with relatively good grades.
When I went to high school, the teachers’ high expectation motivated me to perform well in my academic as well as extracurricular activities. My parents motivation did not matter as much as all my teachers and most teaching staff encouragement drove me achieve to attain approval.
Implementation
Firstly, I personally seek to have more personal development in indigenous education before trying to implement any changes to the current system. This assignment has also highlighted the importance of having a democratic classroom and school system where those directly involved would have a say in what is learned, this not only foster trust, and an appreciation for schooling but also give all parties the responsibility to perform as it is part of their proposal. I also look forward to using the negative punishment technique in behavioural and classroom management.
Reference
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