Today I find myself exploring how aboriginal culture and topics are taught in school. I began by looking at beginning topics, such as aboriginal art and cultures. For each of these there are a fair number of webquests available for various grade levels. I like the idea of a webquest as students work in small groups to discover information about a given topic. A webquest is a great way for students to work co-operatively. Webquests also facilitate inquiry based learning.

I then found myself exploring Australia’s Department of Education website. In particular I scoured the lesson plans available on aboriginal education. Here I was happier to see lessons plans with greater levels of analysis, critical thinking, empathy and understanding.

Ultimately my question, as I sifted through the various websites, was: can a non-Aboriginal person teach Aboriginal Culture? My initial thoughts are, of course. One does not need to be a part of a culture to teach it to students. But then I got to thinking about myself and Vietnamese culture. I don’t think I would be comfortable teaching students about Vietnamese culture, even though I have lived here for six years and my husband is Vietnamese, as I don’t feel that I appreciate the subtleties of the culture. Nor do I have a deep enough understanding of the language, cultural practices or history. But simply because I do not have the confidence does that mean that there should not be non-Vietnamese individuals teaching Vietnamese culture?

My question remains: Can/should non-Aboriginals teach Aboriginal culture?