In today’s episode we’re speaking to Dr. Marnee Shay. Marnee is an Aboriginal educator and researcher who is passionate about social justice, equity and community-driven research. Marnee’s maternal connections are to Wagiman country (Northern Territory) and she also has strong connections to Aboriginal communities in south east Queensland where she was raised.
Marnee is an experienced secondary school teacher in flexischools and has worked in diverse community school and TAFE settings with disenfranchised young people. Her academic teaching for pre-service teachers has included programs on Indigenous education and how to create positive learning environments for students.
Marnee is a qualitative researcher who works with Indigenous peoples across urban, regional and remote communities, particularly in diverse school settings. She has developed a collaborative ‘yarning’ (story-telling) and creative methodologies for undertaking ethical research in Indigenous communities. This research has led to culturally and contextually relevant outputs developed by Indigenous young people including clothing items and text that creates voices on identity, health and wellbeing. Her research findings have resulted in school-wide reviews and changes to the way Indigenous education is undertaken, ensuring both suitability and sustainability of programs.
In this episode of the ERRR Marnee discusses her experience in flexischools and what she’s learnt about how to work with disenfranchised young people in these settings. We talk about making the curriculum more people centred rather than content centred. We touch upon school exclusions and, when faced with violent behavior, the challenge of balancing the needs of the individual with the needs of the group, and Marnee shares some stories from her times in flexischools.
The second half of the interview is dedicated to Marnee’s recent career as an education researcher. We hear about the challenge of navigating ‘gatekeepers’, complexities of the ethics process, and whether or not ‘statistics’ collected on minority groups are empowering, or disempowering.
Finally, Marnee offers some fantastic suggestions of researchers and authors that listeners may like to check out.
Links mentioned in the show
- Marnee's article ‘How flexischools could help close the gap in Indigenous education‘ in The Conversation.
- Dr. Anita Heiss' book ‘Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia‘ as well as the teaching notes that Marnee Shay put together to accompany the book.
- Prof. Bronwyn Fredericks
- Assoc Prof. Grace Sarra, Yumi Deadly Maths Centre
- Prof. Jo Lampert. Exceptional teachers for disadvantaged schools
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