Teaching Multiculturally

Nakata, M. (2001). Another window on reality: A Torres Strait Islander’s story of a search for a “better education.” In B. Osborne (Ed.) Teaching, diversity and democracy. (pp. 331-353). Altona, Vic., Aust.: Common Ground.

This chapter was written by a Torres Strait Islander who was educated on Mainland Australia. He talks about his personal experience. One of the major issues he has is that he felt left out of the education system, which I am sure he was. He felt angry at not being heard, and I felt his anger and was angry with him. As he noted
This has meant that culturally relevant programs become 'add ons' to largely unchanged mainstream practices in the education system you see, this is why I need to maintain a political position. The experts still name the game, they still identify the problem as a lack, and they still provide solutions on our behalf, I must say, this agenda in the national policy has been a preoccupation with a 'tourist's view' of the islands and indeed, of the education problems Torres Strait Islanders face in schooling.
Then he goes on to talk about change.
You know, we're all in the field of working towards changing things for the better but we don't appear to think much about what underlies our ideas or theories on change. What is change? How can it take place? What causes it to happen? And, indeed, what causes it not to happen? And how do these notions of change and its causes limit what we are to understand as subjectivities to political or repressive positions or standpoints we so readily defend? You see, on the one hand, everybody wants to change things for the better but no one seems to want to spend the time to look at what theoretical foundations currently exist in the education system that contradict ways changes are to take place: and on the other, no one wants to look at how foundational elements to intellectual standpoints can only locate problems experienced by the Islanders and change them into ones defined as "lack". Along with others, I feel people reproduce a lot of mistakes because they fiddle around with symptomatic domains rather than foundational ones.
This idea of change is important.
However, I do understand that if you are in a game, you have to play by the rules. It's a very good way of maintaining the status quo. That's why football and cricket are sacred institutions in this country. The point for you as teachers and educators is that it isn't enough to just make spaces for people to speak. You have to examine your own ways or listening to what your students have to say. If you are calling children to account for what they say by contesting what they say, perhaps you should examine more closely your version of reality, as critical educators would have you do.
This is one of the things that makes me angry. As Nakata says, it’s a game and we have to play by the rules. However, the rules are for the dominant culture, which makes it difficult for those from other cultures, or even those who do not conform to the dominant culture. I have tried, as Nakata says, to examine my ways and listen to what students have to say, and it is part of the reason I live in Taiwan.
So can I tell you here that I think it was all to do with the racism I experienced. … But I would be very cautious about reducing it to that end and that is why I think that while anti racist strategies are necessary, they're in no way sufficient. Was it perhaps the curriculum and the language mismatch? Yes, it probably was, but I've sort of mastered that now, and I have a tertiary degree in education, but I continue at the University to have the same feelings I had in primary school. So, yes all these issues that are being addressed in cross cultural education, such as sensitivity, 'different' standpoints, cultural, racism, language, curriculum issues, bias history, etc., are all necessary but are they sufficient?
This is where I disagree to an extent. While I do not wish to dismiss the effect of racism, my bias is the belief that different cultures have different ways of thinking (Nisbett) and this is true for Australian Aboriginals (missing quote). I believe that if your are socialized to think in a different way to what is expected in education, then you are always going to feel like the outsider.
To pursue mainstream education at a level that is enjoyed by other Australians is always positioned as at the expense of our culture. And to pursue our cultural tradition is at the expense of making sense of a mainstream education. Yes, perhaps we are neglecting the cultural education of our children, but whether they perceive themselves primarily as Torres Strait Islanders or are perceived by others as such, one thing I do know. They will always, without question, be perceived as girls of colour(.)
This is true if you assume culture is static. However, I do not believe this is so. Children are agents of their own knowledge and understanding. They assimilate as much of their parents “culture” as is relevant to them and add to it with the “culture” of their peers, or whatever other “culture” they encounter and is relevant to them. Maybe some of these are the same, but it is constantly changing.
One should always remember however that the solutions can never be a simple case of purchasing new techniques and deploying them in your classrooms. It will mostly depend on your willingness to change the way you already think about things as well as to change how you currently respond to changing times.