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Aboriginal Students In Urban Classroom Analysis

922 Words4 Pages

The article “Why is Life So Hard for Aboriginal Students in Urban Classrooms?” written by Merridy Malin, is about the school experience of three Aboriginal children in a pre-primary classroom. It is based on the three students as Malin believes their experiences would be similar to the experiences of a lot of Aboriginal children in other classrooms around Australia (1994). The article begins by describing the difference in treatment the Aboriginal children received from the teacher, compared to the treatment the non-Indigenous children received from the same teacher. The lack of positive relationships the three Aboriginal children had with the teacher lead to the children becoming socially and academically marginalized, as the non-Indigenous …show more content…

In most situations, there is a cultural difference in the social and cultural norms (such as personal values and appropriate ways of communication) between the teacher and the Aboriginal children in the class. Malin believes that many teachers have subconsciously developed low expectations of the social and academic potential of Aboriginal children, which can cause a severe lack of positive relationships between the teacher and children (1994). The main point or message that I took away from the article is that to reduce the amount of Indigenous children dropping out of school early, and to increase the level of achievements in school for Indigenous children, teachers need to display more responsive behaviours when teaching. I believe responsive and culturally competent teaching is important for the benefit of all children, especially children from culturally diverse backgrounds, as they are usually behaving in the way that is appropriate in their culture. Unresponsive teachers can misinterpret these behaviours which lead to a multitude of issues for everyone …show more content…

Although I understand the article is from 1994 and I believe that many attitudes towards Indigenous children and people have changed since then, not only in schools but in general. However, I was recently on professional practicum in a year three classroom where there was an Aboriginal girl that was treated by her teacher in a similar way to the children in the article. It was a horrible experience and I felt bad for the child every day as she was not getting the support she needed to succeed. From this experience I believe there is still a lot of learning to be done on behalf of teachers and other education staff in schools to provide a more culturally inclusive setting and to provide teaching that relates to the needs of the

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