‘I want to read this book again!’ decolonizing children’s literature to support indigenous children in reading and mathematics learning

Although children’s literature is often viewed as a means to achieve educational goals and to strengthen children’s identities, existing or ongoing literature projects devalue Indigenous identity–or, more tragically, systematically obliterate it–to the point that every narrative within postcolonial education systems is inherently harmful to children. This study was intended to decolonise children’s literature to increase children’s reading and mathematics learning. We designed and implemented a decolonised picture storybook as a complementary resource for the third graders with integrating Indigenous West Papuan culture. This collaborative work involved an Indigenous elder and teacher, a homeroom teacher, and an expert. The results of the study showed that students were immersed in the narratives of the books they were reading during reading time. Due to our emphasis on social justice-oriented approaches–familiarizing Indigenous students’ experience in this book, students began sharing analytical, intertextual, personal, transparent, and performative responses. They expressed their genuine excitement by saying, ‘I want to read this book again!’ When brain-crossing pathways took place, students gained a more thorough understanding of the mathematical concept (i.e. multiplication). It occurred as they visualized, drew, estimated, and synthesized the narrative symbols in order to make sense of what they read

Impact of a place-based education curriculum on indigenous teacher and students

This study aimed to investigate the impact of a place-based education curriculum (PBE) on the indigenous teacher empowerment and improvement of indigenous students' learning achievement. This study applied mixed method research particularly concurrent triangulation design. The study took place in a remote indigenous elementary school in Papua, Indonesia. The participants were an indigenous teacher and eleven indigenous students. The PBE curriculum entitled "Who is Papuans" was developed by integrating the indigenous students' place. Findings of the study revealed an effective teaching for the indigenous teacher provided by developing and practicing the PBE curriculum. In order to teach indigenous students effectively, there is a need for indigenous teacher to: (a) focussing on the curriculum; (b) starting from day to day of students' life; (c) emphasizing the use of dialogs, pictures, story, writing, and telling; and (d) utilizing the cultural approach to enable students' learning achievement. By developing and practicing the PBE curriculum, indigenous teacher also obtained a new sight of culture awareness