Effective Ways to Incorporate Aboriginal Cultural Awareness in Your Classroom

I recently had the pleasure of going to Kings Park (in Perth, W.A., known as ‘Karra Katta’ in Noongar)) for a teacher professional learning session. I say pleasure because it was that and more on so many levels. Being outside for a PL session is something of a rarity (at least when you are not a sports teacher). The weather was beautiful (for a winters day!) and what I learnt was amazing.

Will I offend anyone?

I, like many teachers out there, have constantly struggled to grapple with the notion of being respectful to other cultures in the way that I teach cultural awareness. We want to say the right thing, not offend anyone in the process, yet also address that we are a multicultural country and teach students about other cultures. We constantly ask ourselves if this activity is ok, is it enough, am I really being inclusive and so on.

It was easier in the country!

My teaching career began in outback Australia. I have taught in Tom Price, Kalgoorlie, Kununurra, Esperance and Geraldton (currently in Perth). In the country towns, we had an Aboriginal Education Assistant who guided us on how to teach cultural content in a respectful way. I loved how the assistants would read a story in their own language and I would read the story in standard Australian English (two-way texts). It seemed natural. To be honest, I didn’t have to try too hard, it happened in such an organic way.

As I moved from town to town, I quickly discovered that every place had their own specific way about doing things. You couldn’t just generalise – ever! Each group of people in that location had their ways of doing things. Some education assistants would say girls could paint and play with didgeridoos and others would say no, because that was a “mans tool.”

One year in Kalgoorlie, we had an excursion to a local bush area where the students walked around discovering lizards, plants and watched a kangaroo tail be prepared for a meal. That was a great excursion and really gave students a true picture of Aboriginal culture. 

In my first year of teaching, my family and I traveled with our schools’ Aboriginal Education Assistant, Flo, to Port Hedland. I was so excited to see another country town.  I hadn’t travelled much so it was really exciting (another reason I took part in the country teaching program). There’s not much in Port Hedland but I’d never seen these places so for me, it was incredibly exciting! We went together to participate in an Aboriginal Speaking and Listening English professional development. It was such a rewarding experience. We made games that would develop speaking and listening skills. As a teacher, we are usually pretty happy to learn but also create things that are actually useful in a practical way.

When Flo and I returned to school we set up our box of resources to be used in our classroom and we also created a cooking crate of resources. This was used in all classes and also for a special room that aboriginal students could drop in. She was an incredibly gentle, kind and beautiful woman to work with. She was a highly respected woman amongst her community. I felt incredibly lucky to have that experience.

One strategy I always used was to encourage a positive relationship with the Aboriginal Education assistants was to be friendly, talk about my own family and ask them what they were happy to share with me. Their skills were varied and I always offered to help if they needed to be shown how something worked but mostly I made my classroom a welcome place to be. I had plenty of tea, coffee, cool drinks and snacks available for when they joined me so they knew they were welcome.

Now what?

Coming to Perth was where I found embedding Aboriginal culture into my classroom more of a struggle. I no longer had an Aboriginal Education Assistant working alongside me and generally speaking, I had less aboriginal students in my classroom. The cultures were also a lot more diverse. This meant I had to cater to a wider selection of cultures.

Back to my Kings Park professional development…

Belinda (a Kangeang/Bibblemum Noongar woman (Yorga) gave a great presentation. She is one of those engaging speakers that you don’t want to stop talking! I won’t share everything that Belinda shared with us because that is her information to share. I will leave the details down below of how you can get in contact with her. Some general things that were useful for me, and probably for you though are;

• Acknowledgement to country – this can be done by anyone (non-aboriginal)

• Welcome to country – this should be done by an Aboriginal person

• Reframe the teaching aboriginal culture as the fact that you are teaching Australian culture (especially if you are an Australian person living in Australia)

• Aboriginal elders should be the people to read Aboriginal dreamings stories

• Dot paintings are not really something that Noongar (think of coastal W.A.) people did. Dot paintings are more of a central Australian art form. Noongar people focused more on landscape art. This does not mean that we cannot do dot painting but it’s good to know!

• Yes, we can paint out own symbols (similar to Aboriginal art symbol representations) but we show the traditional style and encourage students to create their own symbols!

So, what have I done in my class?

I’ve tried to do little things by writing a targeted plan for each term. I have incorporated really simple ideas because, let’s face it, we’re all busy and being an early childhood teacher, we just have an incredibly big work load!

My short-term (sprint) plan for Term 2 and 3:

1. To set up more environmental print and objects that are inclusive to Aboriginal People

2. To explicitly teach the Noongar seasons and family structures

3. Work with our HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences) team to plot where we were on the Aboriginal Curriculum Standards Framework tool. https://www.education.wa.edu.au/dl/jjpzned

These are some of the activities that I did to encourage students to learn more about the Aboriginal culture;

• I discussed the Noongar seasons every single day. The students are now able to say them and what is special about these seasons. I feel like I’m still learning in this area though.

• We (our Year One teacher group) had an Australian animal incursion to teach the students the names of the Australian animals. It was the first time I saw a koala up close!

• I made a PowerPoint lesson on Noongar seasons and every now and again we go through it and read it

• I got the students to create their own symbols for each Noongar season. They absolutely loved this. I used cotton buds with natural colours of paint. My next extension would be to use natural implements (like sticks) and naturally sourced colours.

• I displayed Aboriginal art in my classroom. I made letter cards and stuck them up! That simple. I need letter cards anyway, so why not have them in an Aboriginal art form? My students commented on them and really liked them.

• I created a sand tray for students to create their own symbols. I displayed a book with Aboriginal symbols portrayed to inspire students.

• I made Aboriginal symbol posters and displayed them in my classroom (see below my links).

• I made sure that I include some Aboriginal books and puzzles in my classroom.

• I taught the idea of Aboriginal kinship in my family unit when teaching HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences – an Australian curriculum topic).

• I wrote a HASS plan for myself that incorporated Aboriginal perspectives for each topic alongside my regular content taught. Just easy “tweaks” to consider.

• A colleague/friend and I booked a singer (Gina Williams) to sing Noongar songs for an incursion! Our students loved this, were thoroughly engaged and keen to sing the ‘Wanjoo’ song every morning thereafter. 

This is just a really simple start but I think what matters is that you do actually start. Whatever your community culture, reach out and find someone from that culture. Ask them for ideas. This is especially important if you really don’t know. It’s better to ask than do nothing. I feel lucky to have worked in the country and taught a lot of Aboriginal students and worked with a lot of Aboriginal Education assistants. I now need to work on embedding this culture into my classroom where I have no Aboriginal students or Aboriginal Education Assistant.

Let me know in the comments what you are doing if you are in a similar position. How are you embedding the Aboriginal Curriculum into your classroom?

You can find some information on SCASA (for Western Australian teachers) on the cross-curricular priorities that include Aboriginal cultural awareness.

I hope this information, and products, are helpful to you. I will continue to update products and blog content as I learn more! Teaching Aboriginal Cultural Awareness is about having a go, finding more knowledgeable people to help but also – actually starting. Take care and let me know how you go in the comments section. We are all on different journeys, so let’s just help each other. Collaboration is key.

https://www.teachnchatter.com/noongar-seasons-activities-printable