Responding to early years educators’ concerns
For their first assignment in the course Intercultural communication in early learning contexts, students were required to respond to educators’ concerns related to Reconciliation and intercultural education (see Appendix for the assignment instructions). In the table below, the left column presents the concerns as expressed by the educators, and the right column directs you to the resources that our students created. We hope that this provides educators with a quick and handy resource for teaching, and it might also stimulate professional conversations about how we can become more culturally aware, culturally responsive and culturally active.
CONCERNS RELATED TO RECONCILIATION |
CHAPTERS |
| I really want exposure and access to Indigenous cultural resources. Where can I source local knowledge and stories that are meaningful and within a context that my local Indigenous children understand? | Sourcing local knowledge
Incorporating Indigenous Perspectives |
| We’re really struggling with making connections with the local community elders. Can someone put together some ideas for this, specific to a location in Queensland? | Aboriginal languages
Creating a shared cultural history |
| I wish we had more opportunities to make connections, formally and informally. There are email groups but there’s no real sense of the person. A personal approach is more effective because conversations, sharing, knowing someone personally makes meaning. How can we create more opportunities to make community connections for Reconciliation? | Professional connections for Reconciliation |
| We’re mostly white educators at our service and we’re not sure; how much are we allowed to share of Indigenous culture? Are there any guidelines? | Acknowledgement of country |
| From an operational level, we need time to connect. From a managerial level, we have to have the ability to replace staff so they can attend professional development. Do you have any ideas for how early years education and care services can create opportunities for their staff to learn more about Reconciliation? | Learning more about Reconciliation |
| Our regulatory body is very black and white. They don’t always have the time to be creative. This is why we need people to step in and be creative. Our children know technology, they’re very savvy with it, so can we put some cultural stuff into that? |
Acknowledging country |
CONCERNS RELATED TO MULTICULTURAL OR INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION |
CHAPTERS |
| We’re having to find our own resources and the best one we found was through the Department of Health! These resources are like little diamonds. But they’re not readily accessible. How can educators access these if they don’t know that they’re there? Can you help us with similar shareable resources for multicultural early years education? | Shareable resources |
| At the least, I need words in different languages to comfort children when they’re upset or for toilet training. Can someone make a resource with simple, useful phrases that we could use with children? 85% of our children are Vietnamese but resources in any of Australia’s community languages would be great! | Communicating with simple phrases (German and Vietnamese)
Common words and phrases in community languages (Gujarati, Hindi, Mlayam, Tamil, Vietnamese, Mandarin) Language cards (Jarowair and Jagera) Vietnamese toileting procedure Vietnamese phrases to use with children Toileting phrases in Vietnamese Consoling and meeting children’s needs (Vietnamese and Gamilaraay) |
| I wish there was a community of practice where you could talk to other educators who are experiencing similar challenges. The fact is, we’re time-poor, dispersed, and in many cases, we’re each other’s competition. To bridge that gap and focus on some of our big issues will be how we have our impact. Given the challenges in our sector, how can we create communities of practice for early years educators interested in multicultural education? | Building professional connections: Cooktown |
| The department’s guidelines for school lunches are all in English. I tell parents “Sandwiches aren’t your only option. You can take fried rice to school. Children can eat it cold. I know you’d prefer they eat it hot, but it’s better for them to have familiar food that they like rather than something they don’t usually eat”. Can you make some guidelines to help parents with culturally diverse backgrounds prepare school lunches? | School lunches |
| When we put in a request into the DOE we were instructed to translate our own documents from the Early Years Learning Framework all the way down, including legislation. They were like, ‘that’s your problem’. It’s frustrating. We’d love to have resources that translate aspects of key guiding documents for our educators and families. | Tagalog translation of the Early Years Learning Framework |
