Twenty-first International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

For over forty years as a teacher albeit apprentice, I have learned from the Warnumamalya, Yolngu, Nyungar and Wongi Australia’s First Nations peoples’, observing parents/teachers often express frustration with the delivery of mainstream anglo-centric education. This disparity never sat well with me but I understood I did not have a right to speak for Indigenous parents/carers or their communities. Over the path of long-time cultural immersion, I experienced ‘both ways’ learning, meaningful experiences where liminal spaces created new understandings, culturally-sensitive shared ways of knowing. Provoked, I wanted this praxis to be recognised, applied widespread, Aboriginal perspectives given parity of esteem with non-Aboriginal knowledge. When I first began to express the importance of pre-service teachers learning culturally sensitive ways of teaching Indigenous learners, I found myself in a conundrum. I was just another ‘know-it-all’ white researcher writing about black student experiences. The answer came by way of the critical interpretive research design auto/ethnography. Auto/ethnography presented the opportunity to establish one’s unique voicing where the writing process and the writing product are deeply intertwined. This decolonising research methodology provided a pathway to venerate via self-reflection enhanced cultural understanding providing the potential to transform self and others to move towards cross cultural alliance building.

Presenters

Helen CD McCarthy
Senior Lecturer On Country Teacher Education Program Manager, School of Education, Curtin University, Western Australia, Australia