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ABSTRACT 1 Enabling for Engagement: towards a custodian stance for learning in life Associate Professor William Oates Enabling programs specifically designed and delivered for Aboriginal people are few in number and together with their faculty or divisional counterparts can too often be focussed on ‘skills’ or ‘techniques’ to achieve in a first year university course. A technical/neo classical approach to curriculum has its advantages especially if the focus is market driven. However, given the opportunity to establish, maintain and promote an enabling program in university why should the Aboriginal Centre duplicate existing programs in design, content and intent? If we have the opportunity, why not do something different and create curriculum that meets the needs of students in diverse contexts; a curriculum that reflects an engagement with people who will extend, confront and challenge our taken-for-granted beliefs and practices. What are we ‘enabling’ our students to do and why are we doing it the way we are doing it? The paper addresses the pedagogical approaches taken in the CQU Tertiary Entry Program that encourages an ‘engagement’ of A&TSI students with ‘others’. ‘Engagement’ is seen not as a one off event but an ongoing opening-up process, exposing students and staff to a diversity of traditions of thought together with an appreciation of the commonality of human experiences; for some this is a considerable shock. Issues of life are addressed through humour which assists an extraordinary re-experience of the ordinary. Enabling lecturers need to be more than educational crowd controllers dispensing the educational equivalent of microwaveable pre-cooked dinners; even if some of them are homemade curried sausages.
Enabling in Enclosed Spaces: reflections on teaching custodians in Australian correctional centres Associate Professor William Oates Correctional Centres can be hostile
environments and as such may not lend themselves to be sites of sustained,
focussed and enriched learning. Why should the education of the incarcerated be
a concern to those in universities? Is it too much effort and expense, real and
notional, for little return; do the costs far outweigh the benefits to the
institution? The fetters of bureaucracy, structural and systemic barriers
hindering the take-up of the educational opportunities and their delivery are
not all based in the correctional centres. In what way can the system be
subverted to ‘enable’ rather than ‘hinder’ learning? How difficult is it for
lecturers and learning advisors teaching with Aboriginal Australians in
correctional centres? What limitations are placed on the pedagogy? What works
in enclosed spaces with restricted opportunities and resources? What
adjustments need to be made to the curriculum; assessments, materials, delivery?
What impact does visiting the correctional centres have on the staff delivering
the program? This presentation explores the delivery of the Tertiary Entry
Program to Correctional Centres in Queensland and NSW and its impact on
curriculum and staff. |
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