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‘No Shame at AIME’: Listening to Aboriginal Philosophy and Methodologies to Theorise Shame in Educational Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2018

Anthony McKnight ,
Valerie Harwood ,
Samantha McMahon Open the ORCID record for Samantha McMahon [Opens in a new window] ,
Amy Priestly  and
Jake Trindorfer
Anthony McKnight*
Affiliation:
School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales2522, Australia
Valerie Harwood
Affiliation:
Sydney School of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, New South Wales2006, Australia
Samantha McMahon
Affiliation:
Sydney School of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, New South Wales2006, Australia
Amy Priestly
Affiliation:
Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience, Gadigal House, Redfern, New South Wales2016, Australia
Jake Trindorfer
Affiliation:
Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience, Gadigal House, Redfern, New South Wales2016, Australia
*
address for correspondence: Anthony McKnight, School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales2522, Australia. Email: anthonym@uow.edu.au.
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Abstract

Shame is a ‘slippery’ concept in educational contexts but by listening to Aboriginal philosophy and Country, we can rethink its slipperiness. This article contemplates how multiple understandings of shame are derived from and coexist within colonised educational contexts. We focus on one positive example of Indigenous education to consider how these understandings can be challenged and transformed for the benefit of Indigenous learners. We discuss a mentoring program run by and for Indigenous young people that is successfully impacting school retention and completion rates: The Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME). AIME has a rule, ‘No Shame at AIME’, with the view to minimising shame as a barrier to engaging with Western education. But is this as beneficial as might first appear? Might this erode important cultural understandings of shame necessary in Indigenous education? Instead, could shame be repositioned to better align with original cultural meanings and purposes? We philosophise about the AIME rule with Yuin Country and stories from Country along with our observational and interview data. We argue AIME does not so much ‘remove’ shame as reposition it to better align with Aboriginal cultural educational practice, which positively impacts mentees.

Keywords

ShamecolonisationdecolonisationIndigenous educationAustralian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME)
Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , August 2020 , pp. 46 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2018

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