The Emperor's New Berry Street?
Commodifying First Nations' Knowledge
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”
- Audre Lorde
I recently completed a 1-day Berry Street Training Workshop: Body.
The training was good; trauma-informed, sensible and had practical strategies.
But, I had a nagging feeling the entire time. Something seemed a bit off.
So bear with me, while I try to write-through my disconcertion.
Unexamined assumptions and omissions
There were many things that made me uncomfortable, so I’ve listed them in no particular order below:
The circle - this is clearly a yarning circle, it privileges connectivity, discussion and relationship first - a long-standing cultural practice by First Nations people. The BSEM blog says: “The practice of sitting or standing in a circle is one that many cultures have used for centuries”.
The “many cultures” in this quote does heavy-lifting in invisibilising First Nations’ contributions.
Given that BSEM is practiced on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land, I would expect some explicit connection to be made here.
Claim to universalism - I am immediately suspicious of anything that claims to be “for all students” and “a universal system”: worse than obfuscating underlying assumptions, this position assumes authority to set the framework; implying the deficit of educators and students.
BSEM is based on “Trauma-informed classrooms” and “proven positive psychology interventions” (training booklet).
But as this journal article highlights, positive psychology is:
“deeply rooted in the North-American ideology that the pursuit of happiness is a strongly individualistic process and negates the importance of indigenous knowledge. In other words, positive psychology is mainly individualistic in nature and positions the self as the center of the proverbial universe, where thoughts/feelings/behaviors are caused by internal processes and not influenced by environmental factors”
“Anxiety is due to being fixated on the future” (trainer quote) - this position privileges the Western view of temporal linearity and fails to understand alternate First Nations’ understandings of time such as spiral time, circular time, the Dreaming and the “everywhen”.
“Psycho-education is self-education: All students must have the opportunity to understand themselves and how they learn. Struggling students learn best once they learn about themselves” (training booklet) - the research and practice of psychology is fraught with systemic racism. To presume to teach students about themselves through one problematic lens is inappropriate at best, and dangerous at worse.
Whose psycho-education would that be? And whose voice is excluded?
This literature review points to the criticisms of Positive Psychology as pseudoscience, besieged by neoliberal ideology, and touted as a “capitalistic venture”.
Positive Psychology extends the myth of “meritocracy” - that individual choices and behaviours are what primarily drive outcomes.
The application of BSEM is linked to problematic measures - citing decreased behavioural incidents and increased attendance as success measures.
Yet, educators have been strongly encouraged to refrain from lodging minor behaviours in a bid to reduce workload - behavioural incident data is highly manipulable.
In addition, correlation does not equal causation - how do we know that BSEM is the change factor when attendance rates increase?
How is success measured? And how does parent income impact these “measures”?
Deficit positioning and assumptions - the problem is squarely put on students as problems to be fixed since they “lack” self-education, resiliency, coping strategies etc.
However; from another perspective, we can see that students who have experienced trauma are incredibly resilient, developing quick minds and quick mouths; survival skills; ability to voice their discontent; with deep loyalty to their friends and family.
Consequently, educators are positioned as the “fixers”. The ones who can teach the right kind of resiliency, the right kind of compliance.
This binary obfuscates the complexities of the educator-student relationship: educators can also be impacted by trauma; educators are currently struggling with overloaded class sizes impacting their coping strategies; teacher shortages mean that educator resiliency is worryingly low.
We could Berry Street Model all the students in Australia, and this would still NOT appropriately address the systemic issues in education.
Fancy new clothes
I may change my opinion after completing the other workshops, but for the moment, I can’t help but feel that Berry Street commodifies First Nations’ knowledge, strips it of its cultural roots, re-packages it for the education sector, and positions itself as the expert knower without properly acknowledging its sources (excepting a cursory and generic Acknowledgement of Country).
Consider how problematic this becomes when people of colour (including First Nations people) are frequently the targets of Berry Street training and implementation, which all the while obfuscates its selective cultural underpinnings on the one hand, and blatant omissions on the other.
Instead, students must contend with a watered down product made palatable for Western tastes. The flavour of their epistemological origins, transplanted into a system that is wholly anathema to their very being.
How can you have open-hearted discussions rooted in deep empathetic relationships, while adhering to a hierarchical structure which disproportionally excludes/suspends Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students?
Until we can grapple with systemic issues borne largely from a hierarchical structure which privileges compliance over relationship, as well as unexamined biases; then we will not begin to see significant improvements.
The Body Workshop advises educators to focus on self-regulation. Yet, ignores the fact that the most dysregulating factors are overstuffed, and understaffed classrooms. To Hattie, I respectfully disagree, class size has a huge bearing on the success and efficacy of class work. No amount of deep breathing can mitigate an overloaded class of heightened students and stressed-out educators.
We have already seen the impact of colonial benevolence through the Stolen Generations - are we keen to see this benevolence repeated through the arrogance of an educative model, which thinks it knows best?
So what’s it’s all about Berry Street?
The Body Berry Street workshop didn’t teach me anything I didn’t already know.
I’m trauma-impacted and AuDHD - I’m all over the brain, interoception, proprioception, cortisol, dysregulation etc.
In discussions at my table, teachers were already implementing most of the strategies. We could have arrived at the same information/advice by spending the day talking to each other. This would have been preferable because at least we would have had an opportunity to align the framework to our cultural, locative, experiential and site- specificity (not to mention the $$$ savings).
To be honest, my greatest takeaway was having an opportunity to meet with educators, share stories, laughs and food. The training went to great lengths to highlight the importance of relationships with students, and yet, this same attitude isn’t applied to educators getting to know each other.
It’s almost as if the cost of Berry Street is justification enough for its rollout across a school - would a school be trusting enough to allow a whole day for educators to connect, share best practice, advocate for change? Probably not. The spending of money is the point. The sprinkling of self-serving research is the point.
We are assuming that just doing the training will facilitate buy-in for BSEM principles, but this isn’t necessarily true. Would it not be more worthwhile to talk to each other?
A final review
The good: the tools/strategies are sound; the brain break ideas were interesting and easy to implement; highlighting the impact of decision fatigue (and subsequently highlighting the need for robust and transparent processes); the speaker was good (if not a little rehearsed).
The not so good: the all-day workshop could have been condensed to a two hour workshop since we were mostly talked at - pointing to capitalistic motivations as justification for stretched out training; the training would have been much more valuable if tables were tasked with workshopping scenarios and reflecting deeply on practice.
In all, there were valuable parts - it wasn’t bad training per se - but it seemed an excessive response to what was truly required: educators connecting and finding liberation in each other.
What can we do instead?
Build strong community relationships - for too long the relationship between schools and communities has been one-way; contacting parents only when things go wrong. I’ve spoken to many parents who are scared to go into schools, it is a site of trauma for them. We need to repair these broken relationships and invite parents/families/elders into the school environment; acknowledging their expertise in the care of their own children.
Diverse staff and management - far too often the right kind of staff gets promoted up to management. Once in power, they can bring through other like-minded friends and associates - concretizing systemic issues and myopic vision. Diversity makes us better able to consider alternate perspectives and enriches the scope of solutions proffered.
External Advisory Group - P&Cs are also filled with the right kind of people and are not necessarily representative of diverse communities. They also tend to be focussed on fundraising, school rules, uniform etc. A targeted external advisory group could feedback on proposed changes, especially for things like inclusion - privileging the membership of people with lived experience of disability. This makes schools more accountable to their communities; and ultimately, better spaces for students.
Re-think learning design - consider how classroom learning is achieved.
Here are a few ideas:
Station teaching, whereby a teacher aide takes a third of the class through an activity which reinforces the teaching (at the back of the room), effectively cuts the size of the class by a third, making it more manageable for the teacher.
Team teaching and/or doubling up on teacher aide support.
Change rooms - ensure that the room works for your class and the way your students learn; go outside!
Bring in guest speakers, particularly those from the community, make the learning relevant for the students.
Consider what you teach - consult with teacher aides, who have close working relationships with students. They will often know what will interest students.
Look to independent schools - Hymba Yumba Independent School has been purposefully designed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in mind: privileging language and culture through respect for self, family, community and country. The school has a very clear strategic vision, is transparent with its reporting and actively partners with organisations, community and elders (not to mention, has incredible expertise and diversity within school governance).
Admittedly, I have never worked for Hymba Yumba, so I can’t speak to the implementation of their framework, but I certainly think there are ideas and solutions worth exploring in their set-up.
Develop partnerships - I am often surprised by how little schools do to leverage resourcing and funding through partnerships. Universities, for example, have entire teams dedicated to high school student engagement; and university students frequently require work placements to fulfil degree requirements.
Here are a couple ideas:
Three high schools combine to approach a university to establish a Community Maths Hub run on Saturdays. Maths and Education students volunteer their time to provide a community service, where families learn alongside their children: an apprentice needing help with their maths; a parent comparing car loan deals or needing budgeting help; alongside students learning curriculum content. The location of the Hub can alternate between the three schools, who provide teacher aide support to oversee (Dept. of Education provides precedence with Homework Centres supervision).
I’ve written previously about lack of management training in schools, so it would make sense to collaborate with academics, who have a vested interest in: (1) demonstrating how their research articulates to real-world outcomes; (2) demonstrating broader public engagement for academic promotion; (3) strengthening grant applications such as ARC and NHMRC.
By approaching a School of Business; schools can make use of management expertise for refining school processes, and procedures - particularly for change implementation best practice.
As always, subscribers can comment below; or you can email me at teacheraideqld@gmail.com