Weaving Educational Baskets

In this episode of Communio Calling, we bring you our first keynote presentation from the Triennial Conference, Weaving Educational Baskets: Centering Indigenous Knowledges in Leadership, Learning and Systems, presented by Kelly Humphrey. 

Kelly Humphrey is a proud Gomeroi woman, and the inaugural Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous) at Australian Catholic University. With degrees in Education and Theology, she’s dedicated to supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in achieving their futures. Kelly’s research on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school leaders reflects her commitment to advancing their educational leadership. She’s lived in rural and regional areas, engaging with communities and being responsive to their needs. 

Kelly’s presentation explores Aboriginal ways of knowing, being, and doing, through the Basket Weaving as an Aboriginal Methodology and Theoretical Framework (2023). This framework of basket weaving are not only theoretical tools but also invites educators and system leaders to reflect deeply on their practice and purpose.   

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Good Samaritan Education's Podcast. Community Calling. My name is Gabriel Sinkler and I'll be your host. Today, our episode brings you the first keynote from the Good Samaritan Education Triennial Conference with Kelly Humphreys. Kelly Humphreys is the ACU Pro Vice Chancellor Indigenous. She's the first one to hold this role and brings you the story behind her research and a really eloquent, beautiful way of sharing her own story and her authentic way of entering into research. It's a great opportunity to reflect on how we do the same.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Thank you. As mentioned, my name is Kelly, and I am a Gomroy woman from the northern part of New South Wales. My country is where the water runs hot underground. My family comes from a small town called Maury, and I have cultural and ancestral ties to another small part of New South Wales called Warholow, which is near Tamworth for anyone who knows this area well. I would like to acknowledge this country, the Camaragal people, the elders from the time before, at this very time, and those that are yet to come. It is with deep esteem I also acknowledge my own ancestors with gratitude and respect. My office actually overlooks Brangaroo, so I have this spirit of women with me every day telling me not to mess it up. So thank you. I am very excited to be here and share a little bit about my research and my passion for education. And I would really like to thank Fran and the organizing committee for the invitation. And as the Pro Vice Chancellor Indigenous here at ACU, I get to welcome you to this place. And it is lovely to have our partners, our people in mission, enriching our spaces whenever we have the opportunity. So I'm so grateful I get to be the one that says, hello everybody, and welcome to ACU. This presentation is a little centered around my research and a little around the thinking about the possibilities post-my current research topic. And I'll take you through a weaving framework that I've developed and its application, and hopefully, you will leave today with a few thoughts for you to build upon across this conference. Now I just want to talk about the image that you see on the screen here. I have to acknowledge Harriet Goodold who took this photo. And it was taken during a weaving circle at Brungle, which is a little community outside of Tumet on Radri Country. All the hands you see here are Aboriginal women who are teaching andor learning the cultural practice of traditional basket weaving. On this day, women sat in a circle telling stories of their lives, yarning, and creating baskets. Their baskets carried those stories shared and those yarns home, a physical representation of the day, these conversations, and their moments of their lives. And my mum's hands are in that photo, so I love to put that one up. My mum is a master leaver, and I'm just trying to hold on to a coattail and follow along. Well, let me tell you a little bit about myself. It's a proper way when we stand in front of crowds to tell you who I am and why I'm here. So as mentioned, I am Gomeroy, but I am also a daughter, a mother, a wife, and an educator. And I want to acknowledge that I am here with you today from the opportunities that I have had through education that have been provided to me. And this isn't lost on me. It is a position of privilege. My parents encouraged me to strive to be a little more than and do a little more than they did, to see different points of view and to be a person of integrity. My mum grew up in rural New South Wales in a family exposed to alcoholism and domestic violence. She achieved a year eight level of education. My dad came from a working class family in southern New South Wales and he completed a trade qualification, but together they made a powerful team. They are examples of lifelong learners. They both went on to complete certificate and diploma level courses as I was growing up. I also had the privilege of being supported by my grandparents. And now my auntie is eight years older than me. My mother raised my auntie, so I call her my sister as well. So the lines blend. They've been the people who have championed me in everything that I do. I'm also grateful for my husband, Matt, and my beautiful girls. And I want to make a better future, not just for those kids on the screen, but hopefully have an impact and a ripple for all young people that step through the gates of any educational facility they choose. So I did spend most of my schooling in Catholic schools in New South Wales, and I developed a passion for social justice, honouring the dignity of every human being. And I'm the first person in my family to have achieved a university level qualification. Now saying that I will be the first person to get a doctorate too, but I have my little niece slash sister. She is hunting me down. There is competition between us at the moment, which I'm very grateful for. I'm privileged to be supported by a great family as I pursue this degree in research. And who would have thought a little girl born in Moray, raised in northern New South Wales, could have this opportunity to be here speaking to you about what I'm undertaking. Now I am pretty much a glass half-full person. I always look for silver linings. But I was discussing one day with my mum the notion of racial injustice in educational workspaces, and mum handed me a book and she said, I didn't really like it that much, but you might like it. And the book was called Why I No Longer Talk to White People About Race. It's by a British author named Rennie Edo Lodge. And I had a quick flip through the book and I connected to a reflection on one of the pages, and she had said that she was confronted by the daily costs and costly round trip of a commute to work. So she decided to keep her costs down, this is in London, and to take the train halfway and then cycle for the rest of the journey. She talks about an uncomfortable truth that dawned on her as she lugged a bike up and down the flights of stairs at train stations and how the majority of public transport she had been travelling on was not accessible. She reflected on the lack of lifts, ramps, and the impossible feat that it would be to access this type of transport for parents with prams or people in wheelchairs or any person who may have a mobility issue. And it's here Edo Lodge stated that before she had to carry her own wheels, she had never noticed the problem. Before this time of her life, Edo Lodge had been oblivious to the lack of accessibility for thousands of people, and it's only as she became close to it she became angered by it. Now, I am an Aboriginal researcher and I came to this research problem like Edo Lodge because I had something that was niggling at me, something that was making me a little bit angry. Throughout my educational career as teacher and principal, as an education officer and a director in public education, I watched Aboriginal colleagues who aspired and applied for leadership positions not be successful candidates over and over and over. Feedback for unsuccessful candidates was often confusing and sometimes contradictory. There was no offer of constructive feedback for next time, all pathways planning for future successes. And as a result, I'd often question whether identity played a role in the Aboriginal educator being unsuccessful. So my journey into research began with question. What are the barriers and enablers for Aboriginal people to progress to school leadership roles? With only 1 to 2% of the teaching population identifying as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers, and even though there had been significant interventions across the nations to attract Aboriginal teachers to the profession, there was not something to elevate those teachers into leadership opportunities. And I wanted to amplify the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers, identifying the personal, school, and system structures that empower or perhaps disempower career progression to school leadership. And as I wove my way deeper into this inquiry, it became so much more. The stories that have been gifted by my participants are not just career pathways, they are a lived experience, bound with tension and strength and challenge. To honor the stories, I began to weave them, both metaphorically and then eventually physically, into baskets. Each basket story is a career journey. The knots and ties speak of barriers and enablers. The structures may be strong but flexible. These baskets aren't just holding stories, they're holding truths and resistance, insight and hope. So I brought this method to the Academy and I ended up developing a framework which was published in 2023. And it came about because I was really struggling with academic theory and trying to apply something from a Western lens in an Aboriginal context for Aboriginal people. And this happened to dawn on me one day as I was sitting and I was watching my mother weaving a basket, and I was reading the work of Engstrom, and this is from 1999, and he defines the term not working. So not not working as in tying not workings. He defines this process as the tying, the untying, and the retying of separate threads of activity. So here I am watching my mother pulling the fibers through, knotting and connecting them and continuously adding more. And it was at that moment my personal paradigm was revealed, and I finally figured out how I could connect Western structures to the voices of Aboriginal people through Indigenous standpoint and allow myself to make sense of what my theoretical framework would be. So this framework is a decolonizing response to research conventions, drawing from indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing. And it allows me to walk within both worlds, Western and Indigenous research, while never letting go of who I am. So I'm going to show you two examples of it because some people I understand like a bit more logic. I'm a bit of a creative fluffy person myself, so I've got a lovely, beautiful picture of how I've represented it as well. But there are five elements to weaving a basket. There's the core, there are the grasses, there are the hands, you need your mind. And then a recently introduced process would be adding a needle. And my mum uses a needle, a silver needle. So across this framework, I've tried to articulate what are the research terms from Western lenses. So you'll see those big words: axiology, ontology, methodology, epistemology. Students, if you can tell me what they mean, I will buy you all a Marsbar because it took me a long time to figure out what they were meaning. Then I've aligned that to current Aboriginal Toshlander researchers and the way in which they express these words. And then looking at the way in which methodologies can be used to explore it. Let me show you my favourite picture. So I want to walk through the basket weaving methodology with you and then talk about its applications post-my research. So at the core of this framework, we talk about ethical foundations. It represents the ethical and moral compasses of the research. It embodies principles that guide inquiry, emphasizing the importance of addressing inequalities and centering Indigenous perspectives. The foundation ensures the research remains grounded in respect, responsibility, and relational activity. The grasses is this relational knowledge. It symbolises the aspects of knowledge gathering. Harvested sustainably, it reflects the interconnectedness between the researcher, the community, and the environment. This element underscores the significance of relationships, cultural practice, and the cyclical nature of knowledge transmission with indigenous communities. The hands, the action, the methodological practices. This talks about, for my research, the use of storying and the use of yarning as a method. These practices facilitate the sharing of experience and knowledge in a respectful and culturally responsive manner and allow participants to guide the direction of the content and the discourse. The mind, this is the epistemological insights, represents the ways of knowing and understanding the world. It acknowledges that knowledge is contextual, experiential, and deeply connected to one's background and experiences. This element highlights the importance of reflexivity and recognizing multiple truths within Indigenous paradigms. And as mentioned, the needle. The needle serves as a tool that weaves together the various components of this research. It is the tool that helps me integrate different theoretical perspectives, including indigenous, post-structural, and transformative paradigms, to create a cohesive and holistic framework. This element emphases a dynamic, evolving nature of Indigenous research and methodologies. For me, this framework is also how I am starting to story my participants' career journeys, what lies at their core, what have been the connective and relational knots. But coming to higher education, I've been doing lots of reflecting on educational impact in general. And I've been schematizing about what this framework could look like for teachers, educators, and educational systems. And this is really just my rambling. So don't take it as gospel. If you're interested, let's work on a research topic together. This will be fantastic. But I wanted to offer some thoughts to you below, and I'd be really interested in how you pick this up and if that if this is something that you think is worthwhile. So if I think about moving beyond this research and weaving educational baskets with students and teachers and systems, I might ask myself, what might it mean to offer the basket weaving framework as a guide for educators and school systems? And here we go. What's at the core? Well, that would be embedding the ethical purpose. The core of the basket would symbolize ethical, moral, and religious foundations for education. For educators, this might mean embedding respect, equity, and cultural safety values into their practice. By acknowledging and addressing systematic inequalities, educators can create environments that honour students' identities and promote social justice. The grasses is where we can build relationships and cultural connections. They represent the relational aspects of education. Teachers can support young people by fostering strong connections with their students, their families, and their communities. This involves integrating Indigenous perspectives and knowledge systems into the curriculum and validating students' cultural identities and promoting their sense of belonging. At the hands, I'm talking about employing cultural responsive pedagogies. The hands signify the pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning. Educators can adopt culturally responsive pedagogies like storying and yarning to facilitate learning. These approaches honour indigenous ways of knowing and allow students to engage with content in a more meaningful and culturally relevant way. The mind could talk about valuing diverse ways of knowing. The mind embodies those epistemological understandings of education. Educators recognise the values and diverse ways of knowing that each student brings to the classroom. This includes creating spaces for students to share their experiences, knowledges, and enriching the learning environment for all. Again, the needle, that foreign tool, is the tool that we're going to use to integrate structural frameworks for transformation. It represents the integration of various structural education frameworks to guide transformative education. Educators can draw upon indigenous, educational, and pedagogical theory, data, and student and family stories to inform their practice. This holistic approach enables education systems, schools, and teachers to challenge dominant narratives and support students in navigating and reshaping their educational journeys. So the metaphor isn't just soft language, it's actually a structural critique. If we begin with ethical purpose, we stop confusing diversity for equity. And if we center relationships, we stop assuming connection is optional. If we teach with our hands, we honor culture as a pedagogy. And if we expand our mind, we allow different knowledges to lead. And when we use a needle, we don't just stitch up the system, we re-weave it. So what happens if we invite teachers and educators to weave? What if we asked? What is at the core of you being an educator? How do you gather grasses of relationships with your students and communities? How do you foster those relationships and know your students truly? What do your hands do each day in pedagogy that is culturally responsive? What are you doing with your mind to hold and honour different ways of knowing and being and doing? How does building this basket challenge you? And how are you creating a space to understand these challenges? How do you hold and use your needle, the systems and the structures around you to weave change? How do the structures of your educational system, the practices of your school, the approach of your teaching enable and challenge the dominant narratives to work to being better for your students' educational journeys? And how do you know? So, across this conference, you are going to have the opportunity to hear from an impressive lineup of speakers and voices and the voices of your students, which is just fantastic. And I hope that you will weave a basket of knowledge, of insight, and of practice, not as a framework and not as a checklist, but one that you'll carry long after these days end. As the conference unfolds, I hope that you will be asking yourself, what will you be weaving? What knots are tied tightly and which ones need to be undone? Loosened a little. And who are you weaving for? Because when you teach a student, you hold their story, and when you lead a school, you shape a system, and when you weave with care, you pass something strong, something sacred, onto the next or another set of hands. In my research, I've seen how stories have become leadership, how weaving becomes a theory, and how culture becomes a method. And I truly do believe that together we can weave educational baskets that hold not just knowledge, but transformation. So let us not just fill our baskets, let's create, reshape, and transform them. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

And I guess it is an opportunity for us to think about how we engage in all things, how we approach the way we do our research, the things that are important to us. But although Kelly is bringing a very specific indigenous perspective, it really gives us an opportunity to think about what we bring to our work or how are we showing up authentically with our whole person in what we bring into the world. I hope that the table of hospitality is wide and that you may continue to go and do likewise in your own community.