Listening at the cultural interface: A co-produced story of a learner-centred alternate model of education for remote Aboriginal adolescents

Secondary education in remote Aboriginal communities is complex and multifaceted. Families and youth in communities sit at the interface between two cultures, navigating daily life and education in ways that are largely provided through a “one-size-fits-all approach”. Government policies for secondary education and learning are enacted through a standardised pedagogy, national curriculum and a boarding school pathway that, in its current form, does not work for all adolescents. For remote Aboriginal young people, the educational experience is more complex than just being present in a classroom. An Aboriginal worldview is holistic, meaning all facets of life are intertwined and engage with one another. The place and context, the land, the people, the interests of youth, the past and the future all intersect to make meaning in the present. This difference in worldviews must be considered when designing educational opportunities for youth in remote Aboriginal communities. Education is influenced by society and this thesis reminds us that education is reflected by how we interact at the cultural interface. This thesis was a collaborative co-produced study with the people from Pormpuraaw and Kowanyama. The thesis is situated at the cultural interface where together we sought to understand the educational needs of families and youth in these two Aboriginal communities on Cape York Peninsula. We sought to answer the question: “what learner-centred alternate model of education could meet the unique developmental needs of remote Indigenous adolescents who do not fit mainstream educational opportunities?” We asked this from a community-based perspective that recognised community members’ voices are not always heard or understood. The unique context and histories of each place meant it was appropriate to work from a community-based participatory approach informed by decolonising methodologies. This way of operating enabled working relationally through the Indigenous method of Yarning across five fieldwork visits. Yarning is a comfortable method of data collection for Indigenous people and requires the outside researcher to meet people where they are at in ways that might not be culturally comfortable for the non-Indigenous person. Yarning allowed me to sit with the tensions of engaging at the interface to build new knowledges and understandings about youth and education through shared conversations. Embedded processes of thematic analysis, co-design techniques and observations within four cycles of research facilitated a shared understanding of the problem, checking of the data collected and building a co-produced story about youth and education in both communities. What we found did not elicit a succinct model of education ready for implementation by the community and service providers, but rather a co-produced story that includes potential enablers and barriers to inform future design and implementation. The findings show that educating the youth of Pormpuraaw and Kowanyama is about more than classroom-based learning through specific secondary school subjects. The youth are lost and living on the “bad side of community life” or “running on a treadmill” with nothing to anchor them. Families know their youth and want an education that is “both ways”. A tree growing out of firm foundations in the ground, was the metaphor used to depict the co-produced story formed during this research. The findings are situated around principles of learning that involve a strong foundation of relationships connected with land, place and context, and a program directed and governed by local people. These embedded principles are consistent with the findings of the systematic literature review that identified the attributes of alternate models of education as well as literature speaking to Aboriginal ways of teaching and learning. The principles illustrate that the people and context of Pormpuraaw and of Kowanyama desire a community-based approach to learning both ways – mainstream and “Culture way” built together, based on recognition of each other as equals engaging at the interface. This thesis acknowledges that this is not occurring. “We are already heard, we just want someone to listen.” The final focus of the study illuminates the obstacles that are present in every day practice. At first glance, what this thesis raises seems simple. Yet, the co-produced story evidences otherwise. The “problem” of education for youth in remote Aboriginal communities’ will not be solved by a single stand-alone approach as mainstream provision assumes. We need to broaden our understanding of the interface between cultures and include the lived realities of community members and their responses. All of us, youth, families, service providers and government bureaucrats in Cairns, Brisbane and Canberra hold responsibility to sit with the tensions of engaging in dialogue at the interface and building together opportunities for these young people. This thesis provides advice on “listening” and working relationally in order to understand what a learner-centred alternate model of education that meets the developmental needs of remote Aboriginal learners could be.