The Research Files Episode 98: Getting more First Nations teachers into schools

Thanks for downloading this podcast from Teacher. I’m Dominique Russell.

We know the global teacher shortage is impacting many different school contexts, and that encouraging young people to consider a career in teaching is an important part of the long term picture. One recent research project undertaken in the Northern Territory in Australia has surveyed both Aboriginal students and teachers to gather insights and inform recommendations for encouraging Aboriginal students to consider a career in teaching.  

The research was led by Dr Tracy Woodroffe, who joins me for this episode to share more. Dr Woodroffe is a Senior Lecturer and researcher in Indigenous Knowledges at Charles Darwin University’s Northern Institute, in the Northern Territory. The 12-month study was funded by the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (or ACSES, as we’ll call it throughout this episode). The findings she shares from her research project are insightful and really practical. So, I hope you enjoy the conversation. 

Dominique Russell: Welcome, Dr Tracy Woodroffe and thank you for joining us on the Teacher podcast today. We're really excited to talk more about your research project into increasing the number of Aboriginal teachers in the Northern Territory. To kick us off, though, I thought it would be great to hear a little bit about yourself, your research areas of interest and why this project that we're talking about today was important for you to undertake?

Dr Tracy Woodroffe: Thank you, Dominique. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be speaking with you today, and of course, I'd love to share some information about the recent project. 

So, I'm going to start by saying teaching is really a passion. So I started out, obviously, you know, a young Aboriginal girl growing up here in Darwin. And I went to school one day and something that I saw the teacher doing really clicked and I thought, ‘Wow, I'm going to do that’. So I went home from school that day and told my dad. I said: ‘Dad, I'm going to be a teacher’. And he said ‘OK, you do that’. And so I didn't really change my mind after that and it was just, you know, it's amazing to think there was one thing that kind of cemented what I was going to do with the rest of my life on this one day. Like, how random is that? But I really didn't change course after that. 

And so, for me, it's just a life's work of being a teacher already. So, I was a teacher with the Education Department for about 23 years – primary trained, which is absolutely, you know, wonderful, because when you do primary training, you learn how to teach people to read. So, it's such a fantastic course to take if you're lucky enough to be able to do that. But once you're in the education system, with the shortage of teachers and the way that schools work, you know, you move around. So, of course I started in preschool, followed them through to transition, became their transition teacher, worked in early childhood/middle school as well as upper primary classrooms. Never thought I would move into the middle school/high school setting, but when the Territory changed to that system, of course I followed through my year 6/7 class and we went into Palmerston High up here, so. Teaching is an absolutely amazing job and it's so dynamic and so interesting and so needed. 

It just fascinates me about why there aren't more Aboriginal teachers, especially when we know the benefits that Aboriginal teachers have for all students but, especially for Aboriginal students. And, if anything, that was just confirmed more in this project that I did for ACSES.  So, it was the ACSES First Nations fellowship, and the project was called ‘Increasing the number of Aboriginal teachers in the NT: Planning for the future’. So, you know, for someone from the outside, you won't understand why it's so vital in the Territory to increase Aboriginal teacher numbers – but it's because the percentage of population in the Northern Territory of Aboriginal people is 30%, so a third of all people living in the Territory are Aboriginal. And the classroom numbers are even higher – so, roughly 40% of all students in Territory classrooms are Aboriginal. So, it's so important for Aboriginal people, but also for non-Aboriginal people. So the majority are non-Aboriginal teachers, so it's important for non-Aboriginal teachers to understand about Aboriginal people and to be able to teach Aboriginal students and to be able to also embed Indigenous content and perspectives in what they do. 

So, if Aboriginal people already have that and come with that cultural knowledge and connection and understanding, especially through their own Indigenous knowledge – so, it's explained as knowing, being and doing. So, in your being aspect of that Indigenous knowledge is this area of relationality or connectedness and it's about how we know through connections and understanding. Also, in relation to people, so how can we connect respectfully and appropriately with people? And that is so important for learning, that really strong teacher-student connection or relationship. 

So, all the things point towards teachers being, you know, the driver for students in the success of their lives. So, why can't we frame that in a way to convince more Aboriginal people to become teachers? So, while the title of the project seems very straightforward, really, the intent, or the purpose, was about picking out Aboriginal perspectives and words and priorities and understandings, and to think, OK, so how can we shape those particular aspects in a way that creates promotional material that will speak to other Aboriginal people? It's directed specifically towards an Aboriginal audience. How can we convince more Aboriginal people to be teachers? That was the main intent of the project.

DR: And so a big part of the project was obviously, like you say, gathering those perspectives. So, you conducted some surveys and the data you were able to gather was really rich and there are so many different perspectives and really practical comments to come out of that. I wanted to delve into those a little bit more and understand them a bit better in this episode. So, firstly you surveyed senior secondary Aboriginal students and then you also spoke with Aboriginal teachers. We'll get to the teachers’ perspectives in a minute, but let's look at the students first and unpack that a little bit. Can you share with us about what they told you?

 TW: Yeah. So it was really, really important to get the student perspective because past projects haven't really focused on that. So that's an innovation in our project, to actually understand student voice and student perspective about their aspirations to do with teaching. So, out of the students we surveyed, one third said they wanted to be teachers, which is fantastic. And they had so many positive things to say about why, but mostly it was because they've had a great experience at school. They've been encouraged by fantastic teachers, or they've been enthused about particular aspects of the curriculum. You know, there was this fantastic comment about biology and marine biology and how a teacher had really enthused this student to the degree where they so much wanted to go on and be able to understand about this particular topic. And, you know, some other students said they'd already begun because they were doing VET in School subjects that could connect them with education and they could go through into a teaching pathway, which was wonderful because we don't know enough about that. That actual data isn't collected by universities. So, it's interesting to see how students have already started thinking about how they want to continue their culture. They want to follow in the footsteps of their Elders. Lots of fantastic positive comments. 

But then there were two thirds that didn't. So the two-thirds that didn't want to teach gave us some really interesting responses. So, there was one group of the students that responded who already had their sights set on something else, and that's fair enough, you know, not everyone is meant to be a teacher. So, some students were going to work out bush, some were going to work in the mines, some were going to work as childcare workers. You know, there are already a plethora of career ideas that the students had, which was wonderful as well. That was wonderful. But there were reasons why they hadn't chosen teaching specifically. So, there were 2 things that really sort of jumped out at me. I thought, wow, OK. So, one of them was they didn't want to teach students with poor behaviour, so they didn't want to be the poor teacher in the classroom lumped with students who were giving them a hard time. So, that was one thing that really stood out. So as we're getting these messages, we're thinking, well, I'm thinking, OK, so how do we flip that? So, if this is a thing that students are concerned about, what does that mean for how you present teaching to them in a way that's more enticing? So, there was there was that particular comment there. 

And there's another one also that I didn't really even draw out much, but it's definitely something to bring to people's attention. So, the students, some students commented about how school isn't really a welcoming place for them, so there's still a disjointed kind of feel for some students that they don't belong or that maybe they would want to be teachers if they'd had this experience of being welcomed into a school and feeling like they belonged there. Perhaps that would change their idea. 

But there were some other comments that said something like: ‘Teachers always seem so unhappy. Teachers always complain, they go on strike. Why would I want to do that?’ So, you know, how we present ourselves has such a great impact, and unless we think about that as teachers in a different way, that's what the students see. They see these miserable people out the front of the class, teaching them. And, really, I don't think that students understand enough about how, you know, a teacher might be having a bad day. Maybe, you know, something's happened. We're all people. We're human beings. So, you know, to present the flip side of that, about how rewarding teaching is, the fantastic way that you feel when you see a student learn something – those are the key messages to use to promote teaching. 

And if we're looking at the behaviour aspect, that gives us so many pointers towards promoting teaching in a different way. What it says is that students want to know the technical details of what they'll learn when they study teaching. They will want to know: ‘What do I do if this happens? How do I set up my classroom in a positive way so that students understand the boundaries?’. That we use positive reinforcement and that when students enrol in a university or teacher institution, when they go to learn how to teach, they'll be taught behaviour management skills and strategies and that when they go out on their practicums, they're practising those skills and strategies in a supportive environment with a supervising teacher. So, I don't think the students have enough information and enough detail about how you learn to teach and what's involved. So that's what we need to use those kinds of messages to shape promotion of teaching as a profession.

DR: And that's one of your recommendations from the project, isn't it? The promotion of that information to students. And so we'll talk a little bit more about some of your other recommendations as well, but firstly, if we go back to what these senior secondary Aboriginal students told you, something that I really liked was that you asked them actually for suggestions on how to promote teaching as a career. Did they have any other suggestions that they came to you with?

TW: Yes, they definitely had other suggestions and the theme that kept coming up was more information. So, they want more information. You know, you just assume that they're being provided the information, but maybe not, because they all wanted more. They also really, really just wanted to have a conversation with someone. They wanted someone to please ask them: ‘Do you want to be a teacher?’ or even tell them: ‘You could be a teacher. Do you know that?’ You know, to have those high expectations and to tell them they can aspire to things like that. Students really wanted that, and they believe that they could see that if they had more role models. They really would appreciate, I think, more role models to be able to see what's possible. 

And also, there's an element of culture embedded in what they've requested. So, in Australia not so much, but in America there's an effect. So, there’s this concept called the role model effect. And what it talks about, or how it's discussed in the US, is they're talking about African American students – so, if African American students have an African American teacher, by the time they've reached their third year of school, they're more likely to attend college. So, they're more likely to stay at school, complete, and enrol in college. And they've got it down to a degree – I can't remember what it is, maybe, 13% – there's like a quantification they've given this number because they've researched it. The amazing thing is, if they have more than one African American teacher, that probability of them attending college increases. So, it proves that having a teacher who is the same as you can really make you feel as if you can achieve educational success yourself. But when you look at the readings or the studies that are done in that area, they nominate 2 reasons for why that happens. So one is because the students can see themselves in that person, obviously. The other one is because an African American teacher will have high expectations of an African American student, which is kind of sad in a way because it means that non-African American teachers may not. So, do we have that similar situation in Australia? I don't know. But that's a suggestion for future research, even. Can we quantify the impact of an Aboriginal teacher on Aboriginal students? Can we argue in a quantitative way for why that case is important?

My focus in research is qualitative, because I want to know about people, I want to know about individual stories. Everyone is important and I really am interested in people. I want to know about that. Numbers is something that supports my argument, so that's like an aside, but my focus is qualitative. But maybe what we need to do is to conduct, perhaps, some long term research and look at the quantitative reasons as well, because, you know, people are convinced by different information, aren't they? And I can provide qualitative information and a little bit of quantitative. But if we had that whole focus as well about exactly, how can we describe that in that quantitative way, I think that would be important to convince more people as well.

DR: And so as we’ve said, you’ve gathered insights from Aboriginal teachers as well through this project. Can you tell me a little bit about the types of things that they told you? 

TW: Absolutely. So, the Aboriginal teachers really thought that role models was the key. To the point where it made me think that we need, like, a database full of examples of videos. Really, I think the main thing was people preferred – so students and teachers preferred face-to-face conversations, like real people telling their stories. And, you know, that would be the first thing that we would love to be able to increase; the flood of stories of positive outcomes for Aboriginal people becoming teachers. 

Some of the teachers suggested that talking about the positive message is great and we should frame that first, definitely, but that we also need to discuss the challenges that Aboriginal people face in our education system and on that path to becoming a teacher, because you present these in a way that people then know. They're empowered, they understand. But some of the bumps in the road might be as they're studying, but also from people's real stories and role model examples, they'll understand that they can overcome them. So, they may be a challenge, but they are things that you can overcome and that the good that comes from being a teacher shouldn't be diminished or dismissed, or cancelled, even, by a challenge that you face along the way. 

I was thinking and discussing in the report that perhaps we need something like an Aboriginal Teacher Role Model Association, where there are a group of people and it's a register, perhaps. You can put your name down and say: ‘Sure, I'll be a role model. Let me know what I can do’. But I think if people are giving their time – apart from the fact we would all love to do that because it's such a worthy cause – it should also count in a formal way. So, Teacher Registration Boards should acknowledge Aboriginal teacher role models for their leadership and their mentoring, even for professional development, you know, in a way where it's recognised within the system; again, promotes this idea of Indigenous success or Aboriginal success. 

There were messages from teachers in different regions as well as students in different regions. So, we also pulled out, perhaps, region-specific information. The region that really pulled out the message for remote study, because that was a concern – you know, do we have to leave our community if we live in a remote or very remote area? In the Territory, that's a real thing. Like, 70%, I think, of government schools are in remote and very remote areas in the Territory. And so students who want to study, Aboriginal students who want to study teaching, sometimes they don't want to leave their community, they want to know they can do it in their community. And so when we had responses from students in the East Arnhem area; that was one thing that they popped out. So, obviously when we're promoting teaching to students in those areas, we would say: ‘You're able to study teaching without leaving your community. This is how it happens’. So, we tried to make as much sense of the responses in different ways as possible. 

From the teachers, we also had some teachers (Aboriginal teachers) complete the survey, who said that their home community was interstate. So, you know, obviously because of teacher shortages all around Australia, but definitely in the Territory, we have teachers come into the Territory to teach, which is wonderful. We need more teachers. Aboriginal teachers come here too. And they really talk about the importance of understanding teaching in a culturally responsive context. And how if you come to the Territory, or if you teach in the Territory, you'll learn about those kinds of practices as well; about how to be culturally responsive in those educational contexts. So, that's a fantastic thing. The interstate teachers also said how important it was, obviously, to teach away from your home community to build up your skills and knowledge in teaching in different spaces or different places. You can't discount or dismiss the diversity of Aboriginal people across Australia. So, it's always good to go and travel as well and find out people's beliefs, practices, language, ideas about learning in different locations around Australia. And that was something that came out of the research, too. 

I had a question about whether the results or the findings were important throughout Australia, and one of the ways that I looked at that was, of course, you know, people can take the findings that we had and can think about if they apply to their location, but they could also – the method that was used is so easy to replicate. Someone else could easily run the same research in their location and find out the specific perspectives of students and teachers in different regions around Australia. So, they can make it really specific for where they live. So, I've outlined the method very clearly in my report that I wrote for ACSES and it's so that people can take as much as they can out of the project – and if it means replicating it to be respectful of that diversity, that would be wonderful. That would be absolutely wonderful. 

Another question too, was, OK, so this is just teaching. What about engineering? What about, you know, different career pathways? Could we do the same approach in different career pathways? Absolutely, please. Because, what it does is it understands and respects that Aboriginal people think about career or career aspirations in different ways, and unless you ask, how will you know? You know, if the messages we're getting out in such a fantastic way already, we'd have so many Aboriginal teachers, we'd have so many Aboriginal doctors, we'd have so many, you know, Aboriginal engineers or whatever. And I think that understanding what drives someone, or what inspires someone is wonderful. But then how do you make the best use of that understanding to provide the information that's necessary to that particular person? That's really what the crux of the project was about.

DR: And another fantastic output from the project was the book that you created, and I really want to have a chance to talk about that a little bit more because you said early on in our conversation, you know, these students told you that they really just wanted to be asked, ‘do you want to be a teacher?’ So, can you tell me a little bit about the book, what it covers, perhaps who it's designed for in a school setting? Is it something you imagine a careers teacher or counsellor to be picking up and sharing with students?

TW: Absolutely, absolutely. That was the total, sort of, refinement of what we found out. So, being an Aboriginal person, and understanding Indigenous methodologies, the reason that we research is to help Aboriginal people, always. So, what you find can't just be left in this theoretical space. It has to have a practical, applicable outcome. And, so, the outcome that seemed to make the most sense out of the findings was to create this research output that would support the students.

So, the resource is called ‘Conversation starter: Do you want to be a teacher’ and it's specifically for senior secondary First Nations students. And it's for schools. So the intent is that the career advisor or the VET in Schools teacher – or if there's none of those in a school, just the teacher – will take this resource and use it as a starting point to have a conversation with the students and say, ‘Hey, do you want to be a teacher? Have you thought about that? You could do that’. And the actual text of the book is filled with the messages that we got from students and also from teachers. So, it talks about why Aboriginal people make such fantastic teachers. It talks about how important it is to teach Aboriginal students. It talks about what you'll learn when you want to be a teacher, what will you learn. It talks about how you could enrol. And, because it's about teaching in the Territory, it specifically has pathways of study and course information about CDU [Charles Darwin University]. And that was important, because there's lots of contact numbers we can easily give to students and provide that real practical support about, ‘hey, if you want to be a teacher, you could talk to this person’, you know, ‘here's the phone number. Here's the website. Here's the link’. So, it was trying to be as easy to use as possible and as user friendly. So, it's not thick with information, it's only like a 20-page document and it's in short, concise messages, meant to be targeted towards teenagers.

DR: Yeah, wow, imagine that, if there's a teacher in 10 years’ time who are reflecting on that moment that they realised they wanted to be a teacher, and it was that conversation starter resource. That would be such a full circle moment, wouldn’t it? 

TW: That would be so wonderful. And, you know, it's funny, the amount of people that come up to me and say: ‘I was a student in your teacher education course’. Yes, they already do that, and I see my students that I taught when I was in the compulsory schooling system when I was in there. You know, I see students that I taught all the time; they're married, they have their own children, you know, and it's so wonderful and it just pops up out of nowhere. So, I play golf – people who know me, know I play golf, right – so, I'm out on the golf course the other day and I'm just practising by myself and there's a guy and he's helping, looks like his girlfriend, she's having some trouble, but he's helping her out and there's another fella to the side in a cart and they waved me through because they can see I'm just practising, I'm going to go, whatever. And as I go up, as I get closer, the young fella helping the girl, he goes: ‘Hello, Miss Woodroffe, how are you?’ I said: ‘Hey, who's that?’ And so it was one of my students. He's having a wonderful conversation with me, takes off his glasses, and of course he looks familiar. And then we're just talking about how fantastic he's doing and I ask him what job he's got. And, you know, that it's so wonderful to see the students as they have their own lives and bloom.

DR: Absolutely. Oh, Tracy. This has been such an enjoyable conversation. I think we've covered everything I hoped we would cover. But before we wrap up the interview, was there anything else that you wanted to share? 

TW: I would just like to say thank you to ACSES for funding the fellowship project. It was only a 12 month project, but it was so inspiring and exciting and supportive and really has created a wonderful outcome which I hope will be useful for teachers and inspirational for students.

That’s all for this episode. Thanks for listening. You can head to our website, teachermagazine.com, to access the full transcript of this podcast episode. If you’re interested in finding out more about this research project, I’ll leave all of the relevant links at the bottom of the transcript for this episode, so be sure to look that up. Don’t forget to follow our podcast channel wherever you get your podcasts from, too, so you can be notified of any new episodes as soon as they land. It also really helps more people like you to find our podcast, and so it’s a really big help for our team. We’ll be back with a new episode really soon – thanks again for listening. 

References and related reading

Increasing the Number of Aboriginal Teachers in the NT: Planning for the Future. https://firstnationssuccess.cdu.edu.au/projects/increasing-the-number-of-aboriginal-teachers-in-the-nt/ 

Woodroffe, T. & Chauhan, K. (2025). Conversation starter: Do you want to be a teacher? (1 ed.) Charles Darwin University. https://doi.org/10.25913/fz8j-jb41