Page 453 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

428 P. Chigeza and H. Whitehouse

The school context may confront Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students not only
with modes of expression and interaction which are unfamiliar to them, but also, at least
by implication, with messages that deny their own identity. The standard English which is
used without question … is not neutral to people to whom it has always been the language
of the “outsider.”… The exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and
Aboriginal English from classroom communication is a symbolic exclusion of the identity
and perspectives of those who speak them.… It forces a choice upon Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander students either to suspend or deny their identity, or to accept the status of
“outsiders” to the education system.
This study was conducted in a wholly indigenous school where Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander identities are explicitly celebrated. And half the students in the
study struggled to engage with compulsory school science curriculum. As Philemon
explained to Hilary: “I sometimes think in Shona while having to communicate in
English. I have continually switched between different language and knowledge
systems in my teaching career with indigenous students. I see my Torres Strait
Islander students attempting to do similar, that is, think in Creole and then attempt
to put in English.” So, what does it mean for a grade 9 indigenous adolescent who
knows how to identify problems, plan, research, analyse, evaluate and explain patterns
but cannot communicate their scientific ideas in the required language? What if you
thought in Creole but could not communicate the complexity of your thinking in a
different language? How would you recognise yourself, or perform as an agentic
learner in such a differentiated cultural field? How would a teacher implementing a
constructivist approach capture the resources you bring to the classroom?
Malcolm (1998, p. 125) is very clear that, “when Torres Strait Islander students
come to school with the ability to understand or speak an [indigenous] language, they
possess a significant resource … of linguistic and cultural knowledge … that demon-
strate they have a ‘track record’ as successful learners in experiential contexts.”
Malcolm (1998) argues that formal schooling needs to complement students’ prior
learning experiences. We see the problem is at systemic level where mandated curri-
cula relentlessly treat the standard language of instruction and assessment as neutral,
when clearly it is not. This study’s data raise many questions for us. In the next sections
of this chapter, we discuss our thoughts on how Torres Strait Creole could be used as
a resource for learning western science concepts more productively in the classroom,
and we express our current concerns about equity and assessment in year 9 science.

Making the Space for Creole in the Science Classroom

We are not linguists but science educators versed in the complexities of student
understandings of physical science concepts. Given the findings that almost half of
Philemon’s students could not speak English well enough to confidently engage in
science learning and represent their understanding of science concepts in his
classrooms, we began a conversation about the possibility of teaching grades 8, 9
and 10 sciences in Creole, just to see where this would lead. We turned to published
dictionaries to inquire how well physical science concepts are translatable between