Negotiating Studies of Asia in Years One and Two: Collaboration in the Production and Use of Knowledge
Journal article by Michael Garbutcheon Singh, Mary Abbott, Mel Preece, Kirsten Elliott; Australian Journal of Early Childhood, Vol. 24, 1999
Journal Article Excerpt
Negotiating studies of Asia in Years One and Two: Collaboration in the production and use of knowledge by Michael Garbutcheon Singh , Mary Abbott , Mel Preece , Kirsten Elliott Over the past three years teachers at Mercia Primary School (Geelong) have engaged in a research project aiming to extend teachers' and students' understandings of Indonesia; limitations in curriculum resources forced a broader focus on `Asia'. Motivated by a whole school research project positioned within the context of government policies to ensure Australians are `Asia literate', the teachers used action research to guide their curriculum work. The teachers were seeking ways to explore with their students the changing relations between Australia and Asia in order to improve their students' understandings of changing global interdependencies. The research efforts of these teachers were supported by links with university-based researchers. In this paper, four members of this collaborative team describe the action process, showing how it guided the negotiation of teaching and learning about Asia, and how it informed participants' understandings of the possibilities for and limitations of developing a postcoloniaI pedagogy. Introduction This paper reports one instance of a whole school research project which is exploring possibilities for curriculum representations of contradictions in Indonesia/Australia relations: a project which stresses the open and unfinished nature of this curriculum endeavour (Singh, Chirgwin & Elliott, 1998). These studies contribute to exposing and resisting neo-colonial tendencies in `Asia literacy' (Singh, 1995a). These tendencies are often represented by reducing such studies to economic imperatives; stereotyping Indonesian peoples; readily accommodating racist and sexist beliefs; making grand generalisations about Indonesia, and reinforcing mistaken ideas about homogeneity and changelessness of the nation to Australia's north (McKay, 1990; Cottrell & Makkai, 1995; Moore-Gilbert, 1997). We acknowledge that there are different approaches to postcolonial teaching and that each of these attracts substantial criticism. Our interests lie in exploring those approaches to postcolonial teaching that might reasonably contribute to an emancipatory, anti-colonial curriculum. Within this context, this paper takes up issues being explored by researchers in early childhood studies, in particular the possibilities and practicalities of collaborative research (McNaughton, 1996a) and ways of supporting multiple standpoints in early childhood theory and practice (McNaughton, 1996b; Alloway, 1997). Action Research Methodologically, the project sought to strengthen the working relations and learning partnerships between university and teacher-researchers, so as to develop more responsive research strategies, improve the use of resources available through educational research, and enhance the use of research evidence (Cousins & Simon, 1996; McNaughton, 1996a). Within the action-oriented research strategy, both university and school-based researchers engaged in the production of knowledge which had to meet the overriding criteria of being really useful. The resulting interaction heightened the university researchers' appreciation of teachers' understandings, and needs, and their workplace, while the teacher-researchers gained an increasing sense of the value of rigour in generating evidence and the role of postcolonial theory in providing a language with which to talk about Asia literacy' (Singh, 1996). As co-researchers, we worked to enhance our understandings of the evidence we generated by drawing on the local knowledge of the school community and current research knowledge relating to curriculum development. This formed the basis for improving the interdependent practices of both teaching and collaborative research. Under the leadership of the principal, Helen Henry, university and school researchers had varying levels of involvement in all phases of the research (Singh et al., 1996). Teacher-researchers had the highest levels of involvement in the project's design, particularly as it applied to their own classes. We developed techniques for the collection and generation of evidence based around familiar monitoring procedures, and were responsible for compiling this evidence, which included our own written reflections. While the university researchers contributed to this work, we were mostly involved in developing the ideas of action research and postcolonial pedagogy as frameworks for guiding the project, analysing and interpreting evidence, and preparing written draft reports for critique and revision by teacher-researchers. Planning By way of reconnaissance, we initially identified socially and educationally significant issues through small group interviews with staff about `Asia' and Australia's changing relations with the region. These discussions served to articulate the limited experiences and knowledge that teachers, academics, and students have to inform the development of Australian studies of Asia. Recognising the depth and scope of the research problem, we limited our expectations to small, manageable, and incremental improvements in understanding which feed into the larger goals we hope to achieve over a longer timeframe through a range of initiatives.For our Year 1 and 2 ... |
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