ABSTRACT
Th is chapter focuses only on the experience of being a white woman teacher in a school serving an indigenous semi-urban community. Th ese experiences challenged the teacher’s notion of identity and its inherit subject/subjectivities and revealed her complicity inside whiteness processes. What became apparent, in the educational scholarship and pedagogies surrounding white teachers’ concepts about how best to “be” teacher, was that critical dimensions remain unquestioned inside fi elds of indigenous education in Australian schools. A chapter such as this cannot do justice to the historical legacy of indig-
enous people of Australia. Many indigenous people work hard to overcome the daily trauma that issues of racism, poverty, and health eff ect their communities. In light of this, the commentary here may seem too subjective in respect to broader indigenous educational issues. Although I make no mention of the enormous eff orts many educators and community members make towards alleviating the educational disenfranchisement indigenous students experience, I hope that I convey a story that off ers an archive strongly supporting a shift of focus away from sole solution remedies of resource allocation (human and material) towards the problematising of white teachers’ concepts of their pedagogies, particularly the implicitness of their subjectivities and the performance of these inside their pedagogical practices.
