ABSTRACT
Sidorkin suggests that ‘relations ontologically precede all else in education’; in other words, relationships need to be attended to first. He says that there are two possible courses of actions in schools: forcing students to learn using a range of forms of discipline and ‘violence’ invented by educators for centuries, or building a community where students love their teachers and hence will ‘do the school stuff too’. Indigenous students come to Western schools with different perspectives as a result of their different life experiences outside the school. The behaviours of non-Indigenous teachers can sometimes influence and even aggravate the disruptive behaviours of Indigenous students. Schools, through their policies, rules and behaviour codes—often totally different from those that exist in Indigenous homes—work to socialise Indigenous students into Western norms. In schools, white teachers set limits on what students can say and do; these may be unfamiliar behavioural codes for many Indigenous children.
