Unseen Metaphors: Teaching the “Other” Half

Diversity, Social Justice and Learning Unit Reflection – Catherine Lock

Thanks to Dr Karin Mackay for her insights during the unit tutorials

From the beginning of this unit I have been both fascinated and confronted by the position of the

others or the “unseen half” (Ferfolja, Jones Diaz, and Ullman, 2015, p 2). Challenged in the

acknowledgement that exclusions and silences do exist. Bewildered by the reflection that until now,

the marginalisation that is apparent on multiple intersections of society, never actually had a

vocabulary in my consciousness. Vygotsky (1986) explains that realistic conceptualisation is not

possible without words, and therefore thinking conceptually does not exist beyond verbal thought.

This reflection concentrates on the relevance of social justice perspectives in learning communities;

the importance of equity and diversity within residing power fields; and overviews pedagogical

strategies that may enhance an included learning experience.

It is important to implement social justice perspectives into teaching practice so that the other half

of any given student community is not overlooked and ignored. Ferfolja, Jones Diaz, and Ullman

(2015) comment that the other half has many explanations and incorporates both individuals and

communities, who are made invisible by the daily school environment because they are different.

Ayers (2004) cited in Gay (2010) discusses this notion of difference, stating that we are all born into

a pre existing cultural world of race and place and that during our lives we are taught lessons from

each. This connection between ethnicity and consequently academic performance is a complex

relationship between “class, gender, religion, migration history, parental education and family

experience” (Watkins, 2011, p. 845), which overlaps, influences and shapes both student and

teacher behaviour over time. True cultural difference and ethnicity may however conflict with

contracted 'cultural' understandings where the advantage of knowing western patterns of what to do
and how to be a part of the dominant discourse has “inferiorised minority cultures as the less

enlightened other” (Keddie, 2011, p. 28). Ayers (2004) cited in Gay (2010) concurs that

opportunities and efforts to present beliefs are often forsaken for the sake of harmony and

collegiality, before intervening and articulating that “teachers and students do not have to be

voiceless, they can and should learn to speak their thoughts and beliefs” (Gay, 2010, p.144) in order

to verbalise intersections of diversity with a view to reconstruct and fluidly evolve them.

The fluid evolution of enhancing 'inclusion-al' pedagogical strategies has, under the banner of

multiculturalism, been adopted into the Australian Curriculum by the Australian Curriculum and

Reporting Authority ACARA (2016). Shipp (2012) however, questions whether these adaptations

have been mere measures of tokenism and reasons that the improvement of indigenous engagement

in education requires more substance. This fabric should include the educational system's capability

to create room for indigenous cultures, Aboriginal English narratives and voices in real teaching

spaces. Ang (2011) cited in Watkins and Nobel (2016) notes that contemporary multiculturalism

may have the reverse effect since it reproduces the pedagogy of difference. This idea of living apart

yet together in a patchwork of separate cultures, may result in modern students having “difficulty

reconciling their understandings of culture with their lived experience” (Watkins and Nobel, 2016,

p. 47). Furthermore, educators need to acquire resources for engaging with cultural complexity in a

globalised world, which is increasingly sculpted by migration, multi-nationalism, cross-marriage,

age diverse changes and cultural mixtures in order to enable meaningful cultural exchanges for their

students, families and communities.

To add to this extensive student community patchwork, Parsons (2013) expresses an academic rage

and anger that students born into poor families and communities have diminished chances in life

and that “despite vocal political commitment and extensive academic comment, little changes in the

outcomes and prospects for poor communities” (Parsons, 2013, p. 268). Additionally, Parsons
(2013) questions the morals of power imbalance and why the odds are so stacked against poor

communities. Similarly, Creagh (2012) scrutinises the Language Background Other Than English

(LBOTE) category within The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN)

statistics and identifies that the pedagogical needs of students from refugee backgrounds are

ignored, and that policy and funding capacity are not forthcoming for this particularly

disadvantaged group of Australians. Likewise, Huppatz and Goodwin (2013) examine symbolic

violence commenting on the invisible constraint that gender exerts through conformity to the doxic

order, implying that individuals who cross the gender limit do so at an immeasurable personal cost.

Accordingly, teachers need to explore an anti-racist educational approach in order to “negotiate the

racialized boundaries that demarcate cultural spaces of belonging and otherness” (Martino and

Rezai-Rashti, 2008, p. 429). It is difficult to describe how, as a pre-service teacher with little

teaching experience, my own future teaching practice will be shaped, but student inclusivity and a

sense of belonging will be predominant.

This overriding principal of knowing or being included is incorporated into The Australian Institute

for Teaching and School Leadership Ltd (2011) standards which stipulates that teachers need to

know their students and understand how they learn. The key to unlocking this standard is to ask the

questions. It is only by asking the students questions that teachers will discover “what is really

going on inside schools and how it is related to wider structures of society” (Sever, 2012, p. 668).

Teachers need to continue to ask these questions and commit to “work with and value difference …

and move to a deeper understanding towards the politics of identity” (Martino and Rezai-Rashti,

2008, p. 418). Once the identities of individuals are understood, then a “respect for the presence of

others” may be cultivated to exist within “tension and conflict” (Ho, 2011, p. 603). Finally in order

to create a “sense of belonging in and across public spheres” (Itaoui, 2016, p. 261) classroom

dynamics need to build equality and support equity in the lives of all, but specifically marginalised

students. This will conceivably assist in “removing the barriers that prevent students from being all
that they can be” (Keddie, 2011, p. 27), to enable them to confidently move into a world of

increasing complexity.

I am hoping that when the intricately, complicated, teaching-Monday-morning arrives, that I will

uphold my “responsibility to parents and take care of their children for the short time that I teach

them” Obadiah & Howard (2012 p. 251); that social justice perspectives of equity within diversity

will be of vital relevance in the learning communities that I nurture; and that these elements will

find a negotiated harmony within residing influences of power to enhance an included learning

experience for my students.

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Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership Ltd (AITSL), Australian Professional

Standards for Teachers, February 2011. Retrieved from https://www.aitsl.edu.au/

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Ferfolja, T., Jones Diaz, C., & Ullman, J. (2015) Understanding Sociological Theory for

Educational Practices. Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press.

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experiences: Understanding occupational segregation in Australia. Journal of Sociology,

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Itaoui, R. (2016) The Geography of Islamophobia in Sydney: mapping the spatial imaginaries of

young Muslims, Australian Geographer, 47(3), 261-279.

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