EDUC2420 Essay Tahlia Jones

As beginning teachers, how will you teach for social justice?

Choose one theoretical framework:
• Reconciliation Pedagogy
Outline how you would apply this theoretical framework in the
classroom to meet Australian Institute for Teaching and School
Leadership (AITSL) standards 1.4 and 2.4.
Introduction
Teaching for social justice is important if, as a future educator, I wish to facilitate a more
equitable classroom. As a pre-service teacher within Australia, I need to be aware of the past
and present inequalities that affect all the students within my classroom and embrace these
differences as a tool which I can use, to enable the young people that enter my classroom to
leave as more wholistic and understanding individuals. The Australian Institute for Teaching
and School Leadership (AITSL) evidence the importance of this in a specifically Australian
context through the standards 1.4 and 2.4 which relate directly to Indigenous and Torres Strait
Islander peoples. These standards and aims can be met through teaching for social justice. At
a secondary schooling level this can be particularly hard to achieve since students in these age
groups are generally more judgemental and harsh towards each other than other year levels
(McCarty, 2016, supported by Swain, 2016). Add to this a racially challenging awareness and
a change agent approach to teaching may open further paths to bullying. In utilising a
Reconciliation pedagogy, I hope that in my classroom I can do my part in breaking down the
prejudices and preconceptions of the dominate culture towards the minority to enable the young
people of the future to see all people as equal and to treat each other with respect and to work
towards reconciliation.
Reconciliation Pedagogy
Reconciliation Pedagogy is a three-step process that enables the students to look critically at
the world around them. The three steps of the process are Acknowledgement, Unity and
Commitment (as outlined by Kennedy, 2017). Acknowledgement refers to recognising the
shared histories of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. This is important to do as
often the version of Australian history presented in schools is “whitewashed” meaning the
version of events presented by the European settlers, without the input of the Indigenous
peoples. Unite refers to coming together as people with a common objective and celebrating

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the differences between every person. In the education setting this is important as a classroom
is a snapshot of Australia so as a teacher if you can bring your entire classroom together as a
collective with similar views on this topic then you have made a little step towards uniting of
Australia. Commitment is self-explanatory; however, this steps importance is often
underestimated since to make change in the broader scheme of the process of reconciliation it
is not enough to just embrace this approach for one or two years as this short length of time
will not mobilise a long term change outside of the classroom. Despite the possibility of failure,
it is important to maintain this approach until the end of your teaching career. This approach
teachers for social justice through showing the students that being open-minded about others
around them leads to positive relationships which can make a positive foundation of support
for each of them despite their differences since each student has their strengths. If they can
support each other by dwelling on their strengths in the classroom, then the same can be said
outside of school.
Application in the Classroom
I intent to apply Reconciliation pedagogy within my classroom, in two key ways, based on the
key subject areas to which I will be teaching. These two subject areas will be History and
English and therefore will each be approached differently in terms of a Reconciliation
pedagogy. Firstly, for English I intend to utilise a Negotiated curriculum approach to enable
students to bring in their contextual and textual knowledges so as all students have a voice in
my classroom (Pendergast and Bahr, 2010, pp. 205-220). To ensure that the children are
committed to the curriculum that they choose I will utilise a commitment contract signed by
every student and kept on record by both myself and the student to ensure that there can be a
consistent reminder that they have committed to this version of the curriculum and the
assessment pieces they choose. After putting this curriculum approach into place, I then intend
to open the topics with an acknowledgment of country, a Dreamtime story and then an in-depth
discussion around why these are important and tie the commitment contracts into these
discussions with the possibility of the students signing a reconciliation commitment contract
as well. This teaches for social justice as it allows the students to bring their shared knowledge
into the teaching space and to share their interests and utilise their strengths to achieve the best
outcome for all and since the curriculum is negotiated the students will need to consider the
needs and wants of all their fellow class mates equally for the curriculum to be fair. To ensure
that negotiations do consider all people in the classroom I may possibly say to the students that
there are two approaches I could take to their learning one being what they want to learn and

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the other being what most teachers believe they want to or need to learn and therefore if they
choose not to allow everyone to have a fair go in negotiations then I can just implement the
“standard” curriculum.
Secondly, for History I intend to run a topic for each year level to explore the importance of
counter-stories in not just Australian History (Schulz, 2017 and Zembylas, 2010). At a year 8
level I intend to run this topic with Australian history in mind to use it as a launching pad for
later years. The way this topic will be run is first by getting students to engage with various
cultural artefacts and having various members of the community come in and share stories to
expose the children to the two different cultures. I then intend to do a brief outline of the
settlement/invasion period in Australia. Using this knowledge and my own research into the
resources available I will then assign each member of the class a side of the history for them to
then find a settlement/invasion story of someone from the time. I will then partner them up to
present each sides stories in a round robin so as each person gets to here each story from the
other side to which they have been positioned. I will then engage the class in a discussion of
what they learnt through this process, what impacts they believe the colonial period had and
still has today, followed by discussions around reconciliation. I intend to teach this type of unit
with every year level, not always surrounding Australian history, to expose my students to both
sides of each historical story and debates every year. This approach teaches for social justice
as it positions the students in the shoes of the “other” therefore exposing them to the
disadvantages that come with certain titles and labels that we automatically apply to people on
first sight even though there is usually a deeper reasoning and meaning for why a person may
act in a certain way.
AITSL Standards
AITSL Standards 1.4 and 2.4 address the issues relating to Indigenous and Torres Strait
Islander peoples. Standard 1.4 states that a teacher needs to “demonstrate broad knowledge and
understanding of the impact of culture, cultural identity and linguistic background on the
education of students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.” (AITSL, 2017).
Standard 2.4 similarly asks that a teacher “demonstrate broad knowledge of, understanding of
and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and languages.”
(AITSL, 2017). In addressing these standards, the units of work that I intend to utilise
demonstrate that I have immense knowledge of the impact culture, cultural identity and
linguistic background have on education through allowing the students in English to show me
what types of texts that would like to study and how they would like to be assessed as opposed

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to the standard essay form and canonised texts. The negotiated curriculum approach allows
students of diverse backgrounds to share their cultural knowledge and allow myself as the
teacher to explore the different impacts culture have in terms of what the students want to study.
These units also meet standard 2.4 through representing the culture in a way that exposes
students to the struggles that the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people experienced
through the colonial period which most non-Indigenous do not see and do take for granted in
their everyday (Schulz, 2017).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is important to teach for social justice regardless of the approach taken as it
shows students to be equitable by dwelling on the strengths of the people around them and
understand that there are more elements of life that shape individuals than just the person
themselves. By opening the student’s eyes to the injustices that surround them and have
occurred in the past and exposing them to the different interests’ skills and talents of the people
around them I hope that I am able to generate a more understanding and respecting group of
young people who can go out into the world feeling that what they do today can change what
happens tomorrow on both a small and large scale simply by applying the three steps of a
reconciliation pedagogy.

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References
Cross, M. and Naidoo, D. (2012). Race, Diversity Pedagogy: Mediated Learning
Experience for Transforming Racist Habitus and Predispositions. Review of Education,
Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 34(5), pp.227-244.

Hattam, R. and Atkinson, S. (2006). Reconciliation as a Frame for Rethinking Racism in

Australia. Social Identities, 12(6), pp.683-700.

Kennedy, T 2017, ‘Reconciliation Pedagogy and Inclusive Practices’, lecture slides

distributed in the topics EDUC2420/9400 Teaching Indigenous Australian Students/Critical
Indigenous Pedagogies, Flinders University, Bedford Park, 28 August
McCarty, C 2016, ‘Teaching the Developing Child’, lecture slides distributed in the
topic EDUC1120 Teaching Educational Contexts, Flinders University, Bedford Park, 9 March
O’Donoghue, L, 2016, ‘Reconciling the Nation in the 21st Century: Hopes, fears, and
dilemmas’ in G Worby, T Kennedy & S Tur (eds), The Long Campaign: The Duguid Lectures,
1994-2014, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, pp. 62-74.
Pendergast, D. and Bahr, N. ed., (2010). Teaching Middle Years. 2nd ed. Crows Nest
NSW: Allen and Unwin, pp.205-220.

Schulz, S 2017, ‘Critical race theory (CRT) and critical whiteness studies (CWS)’,
lecture slides distributed in the topics EDUC2420/9400 Teaching Indigenous Australian
Students/Critical Indigenous Pedagogies, Flinders University, Bedford Park, 7 August
Scott, E. (2000). Committing to reconciliation through education. Australian Journal of
Adult Learning, 40(3), pp.189-195.

Swain, K 2016, ‘Synaptic Pruning’, lecture slides distributed in the topic EDUC1223
Middle Schooling: Philosophy and Pedagogy, Flinders University, Bedford Park, 30 July
Woods, D. (1998). Racism, reconciliation, rights—The 3 Rs of indigenous education in
Australia today. The Australian Educational Researcher, 25(1), pp.53-70.

Worby, G., Rigney, L. and Tur, S. (2010). Where salt and fresh waters meet: reconciliation
and change in education. Australian Cultural History, 28(2-3), pp.201-224.

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