An Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal find Relational space: Yarns from a Joint Leadership Team at a Rural Community Based Preschool

Members of the dominant culture have generally not been prepared to relinquish power or status as professional leaders in education (Colbung, Glover, Rau, & Ritchie 2007; Huggins 1998). My research tells our story, one of a relationship of belonging, of community, of creating a place for early childhood education. It is a story of three women, two of whom came together as joint directors of a community based preschool in a rural district. Two of the main characters are women from the local Bundjalung people who are the traditional custodians of the land where the preschool is situated. The other woman, myself, is non-Aboriginal. An objective of my thesis is to share reflections about myself as a non-Aboriginal person collaborating with the Bundjalung community for over twenty five years, rather than another white expert or observer of Aboriginal people. As an active participant of my community, I can discuss my own discoveries, such as the knowledge gained through learning to turn down the 'white noise' (McCoy 2000). My methodology is an auto-ethnographic narrative that has been influenced by phenomenology, yarning, feminist poststructural method, and postmodern emergence. This methodology permits me to write in an accepted academic method, which also honours the spiritual essence of my story. This thesis tells a story; it is my story, their story, our story. It is the story of our day. It is a story of moving from contact zone to relational space

Teaching and Place - a Mutual Relation

"To be at all - to exist in any way - is to be somewhere and to be somewhere is to be in some kind of place... Nothing we do is unplaced." --Edward Casey (1997: 3). Teaching occurs in place. Every teacher is teaching somewhere; in some place. In fact, everybody is always in some place; in some part of the world: 'even the exiled, the drifting, the diasporic or the perpetually moving, live in some ... stretch of it' (Geertz, 1996: 262). But place is more than just the physical location; the site we can pinpoint using cartography and global positioning systems. Place is both physical and non-physical. Place is sensed, embodied and relational. According to Edward Casey (1997: 286) place 'is no fixed thing ... [it is] part of something ongoing and dynamic, ingredient in something else.' This paper considers place as an ingredient in teaching; and in particular in the teaching of environmental education. It presents data from research with graduate1 teachers in rural schools; a study which employed a methodology based in the creative arts in order to facilitate the participants' representations of their relations with place. In exploring the relation between teaching and place I suggest that this relation is mutual: to teach is to be in a mutual relation with place

Rhizomatics and The Arts: Challenging conceptions of rural teaching

For the past 150 years metro-centric research into rural education in Australia has produced 'evidence' of the deficits in rural education. Many of these studies have, unknowingly, silenced rural voices by creating questions and representing data in the hegemonic, metro-centric language of urban based research. The study discussed in this paper (No One, 2007) was an attempt to bring rural voices to the centre and present an alternative discussion of the 'problem' of rural education: one which acknowledged the nature of rural place and the importance of teacher place relations in rural education. The research explored the nature of the relations between place and becoming-teacher for five graduate teachers in rural schools in northern New South Wales, Australia. I was acutely aware of the plethora of studies into rural education which described the geographic isolation and culture shock experienced by graduate teachers. But where were their stories of place? Where were their representations of their experiences? What was their lived experience of place? And how could I 'access' these experiences such that the data collected would enable me to portray them in ways that could lead t o new perspectives on, and insights into, this phenomenon? To avoid the reproduction of deficit language the study supported the participants (rural teachers) in using the arts to express their experiences of rural teaching. This resulted in the creation of artefact's with depth and breadth: some created by the participants; others created by the researcher as part of the analysis

Imagining a Teacher-Place Assemblage

Imagination and creativity are vital for finding solutions to problems, and for enabling us to improve the quality of our lives. Michael Singh and Jinghe Han (2007, p. 224) suggest that what is needed in research in teacher education is "bold imaginings of what might be". And so I propose, in this chapter, the imagining of a 'teacher-place assemblage'. In carrying out our research with teachers in rural schools I found myself confronted by notions of both 'teacher' and 'rurality' that appeared to be 'stuck' in a negative discourse. I needed different ways of thinking to assist in 'un-sticking' hegemonic understandings of rural teaching. My search for a different way of thinking was facilitated by employing an arts-based methodology and adding a Deleuzo-Guattarian (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988) analytical perspective. From this methodology emerged the notion of a 'teacher-place assemblage' - a dynamic, relational notion of the teacher and place that suggests an extra dimension be added to both teacher professional development and pre-service teacher education to facilitate an understanding of the mutual relation, as suggested in the data and quotation above, between teachers and the places in which they teach

Methodologies: Exploring the Intimate

Since 2002, the Bush Tracks (BT) Research Group, based at the University of New England, has used various methods of researching rural teaching. While some have been standard quantitative and qualitative methods, others, including 'shadowing', are emergent methodologies developed in response to gaps in the literature and research responses. The approaches used by the Bush Tracks Research Group in investigating the opportunities and challenges associated with rural teaching are described in this chapter. The first study, termed Bush Tracks I (BTl), was concerned with teaching transitions in rural contexts. The second study, Bush Tracks 2 (BT2), focused on the challenges faced by principals of small rural schools. This discussion takes a reflective and critical look at the methodologies employed and focuses on their affordances in researching rural teaching and leadership

Problematising sustainability in nature play programs: Pedagogical transformations and ambitious alignments

The data set consists of 4 Parts. Part 1: 14 transcripts of individual interviews and focus group interviews. Part 2: Interview questions for 3 individual interviews x 2 participants and 2 focus groups. Part 3; 4 photos used for photo elicitation. Part 4: Researcher Reflective Journals

Problematising Sustainability in Nature Play Programs: Pedagogical Transformations and Ambitious Alignments

This doctoral study is situated in the growing international movement to connect children with nature in outdoor settings in early childhood education programs. The assumption that children’s/educators’ connections with nature equate with Education for Sustainability (EfS) was a key issue to be problematised, as were educators’ understandings of their own pedagogical roles in relation to a perceived nature-sustainability nexus. In this study, I explored educators’ understandings of a nature-sustainability nexus and its influence on their pedagogies in Australian Nature Immersive Programs (NIPs). The study evolved from my professional concerns about how slowly the early childhood sector has addressed sustainability issues and the lack of curriculum guidance around Early Childhood Education for Sustainability. Australian policy requirements for early childhood education promote stewardship, respect and care, but often the ‘romanticised’ sensory discourse is the route promoted and subsequently taken by educators. With the rapid growth of NIP programs in Australia, I argue it was timely to question whether EfS was being implemented, or were educators assuming that connections with nature were enough to develop strong approaches to EfS. Two early childhood education centre communities offering NIPs as an integral part of their curriculum were invited to participate in the study. Both communities provided nature play programs for children aged three to five years that involved regularly taking children beyond the centre boundaries. A social constructionist theoretical framework was employed, alongside Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Appreciative Inquiry (AI) methodologies. Data were collected over an eight-month period where insights into the perceptions of the educators about sustainability and nature were sought. The data collection methods included individual interviews, focus groups, reflective journals and field notes from NIP observations. PAR was the vehicle for transformative learning which presented the educator participants and me, as a researcher participant, the opportunity to problematise and engage in both innovative and transformative thinking and practice. AI was employed as a complimentary methodology to potentially empower participants to reflect on new ideas and create new knowledges. The participant transformative changes/movement were illuminated through iterative analysis of the study data. The study findings I have encapsulated as five ambitious alignments drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s notions of rhizomes and lines of flight: relationality and the influence of place; pedagogy in the bush creating a nature-sustainability nexus; influential alignments; transformative change; and, moving from romanticised notions and human-nature dualisms towards a commonworlds framework. The participants appeared challenged by the alignments and the movements in their thinking as they grappled with new ideas. The study offered time and space to reflect and re-construct, which resulted in transformative change for both the educators and me as researcher. This opportunity led to deeper understandings of a nature-sustainability nexus for all and the examination of emergent ambitious alignments

Contemporary paradigms of rural teaching : the significance of place

This paper begins by setting the scene with an overview of a recent literature review examining teacher preparation for rural and remote settings. The discussion considers the relevance of the findings, exploring possibilities of reconceptualising rural teacher education. The next section of the paper engages with a move away from a deficit model and negative perceptions of rural Australia, to consider more contemporary paradigms of rural teaching. Two studies will be presented which have drawn upon various research methods and conceptual frameworks to inquire with families and teachers about the everyday life of living and working in rural and/or remote locations. The research methods and conceptual frameworks of the studies shared in this paper contribute to on-going research and offer possible foci for conversations about enabling approaches for rethinking rural and remote locations as not simply a physical location, but the 'whole experience of being there'. The findings of the literature review and the two studies suggest that more attention to the personal, interpersonal and collective experiences of (rural) place, in both pre-service teacher preparation and early career teacher support, may assist in teacher transitions into rural and remote education settings

Grandparenting the absent Grandchildren

When grandparents have little or no contact with their grandchildren because of family conflict or separation, emotions run high. The ethnodramatic script for Grandparenting the absent grandchildren is based on interviews with 33 grandmothers and 17 grandfathers. The ethics of representation required that the script accurately portray the experiences of the research participants by staying close to their words as recorded in the interview transcripts. To do this and also create "good theatre" required creative and innovative use of the elements of theatre. Words, movement, costumes and props create a theatrical experience highlighting the emotional trauma and legal issues involved. Audience reactions (interjections, tears, bodily discomfort) suggest that the performance captures experiences, engages people emotionally, and confronts understandings of this current social issue. Ethnotheatre permits the powerful presentation of research, focusing on its emotional and personal nature to create an impact and facilitate social change

Speaking in Our Own Voice - The Stories of Rudolf Steiner Early Childhood Educators in the Context of the Early Years Learning Framework

In 'Belonging, Being and Becoming, The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia' (EYLF), secure and respectful relationships are positioned as fundamental to ensuring all children feel a sense of place or belonging when they attend an early childhood setting. The different ways that educators form relationships with children to create that sense of belonging may hold similarities and differences depending on the beliefs that each educator holds. An open and inclusive atmosphere, where belonging is central, acknowledges the diversity present in the culture of the service. For educators, being aware of personal beliefs is an important starting point for developing a sense of openness towards the different beliefs, traditions and aspirations that families attending early childhood services hold. At the heart of this study was a professional need to explore how Rudolf Steiner philosophy interprets the practice of forming relationships with children