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<p>Improving mathematics education for Indigenous language&#xa0;speaking students requires Indigenous educators, resources, and teaching in students’ first languages. This paper examines the professional learning of two Pitjantjatjara&#xa0;speaking Assistant Teachers at a remote central Australian school with a longstanding bilingual program. The study investigates how they are moving from support roles alongside non-Indigenous teachers to leading mathematics instruction, a shift framed as professional identity transformation. Professional learning activities included targeted workshops, collaborative planning, classroom enactment, and participation in wider professional communities through presenting at conferences. The paper analyses these experiences using the framework of identity resources—material, ideational, and relational. Material and ideational resources, such as mathematics terminology in Pitjantjatjara and lesson scripts, supported the Assistant Teachers’ early teaching. However, the most powerful enablers of transformation were relational resources: collaboration with Elders, affirmation from the community, and recognition from external professional audiences. These relationships helped legitimise the Assistant Teachers’ authority as mathematics educators and enabled them to describe themselves as <i>ma-nintiningi</i> “teaching them properly”, while positioning their students as <i>ma-nintiringanyi</i> “properly learning”. The case demonstrates how professional learning that centres Indigenous voices, languages, and collective knowledge-building can strengthen teacher identity, transform classroom practice, and expand students’ opportunities for meaningful mathematics learning.</p>

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Teaching them properly: transforming professional identities in Pitjantjatjara mathematics education

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年1月10日

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  • Cris Edmonds-Wathen

摘要

Improving mathematics education for Indigenous language speaking students requires Indigenous educators, resources, and teaching in students’ first languages. This paper examines the professional learning of two Pitjantjatjara speaking Assistant Teachers at a remote central Australian school with a longstanding bilingual program. The study investigates how they are moving from support roles alongside non-Indigenous teachers to leading mathematics instruction, a shift framed as professional identity transformation. Professional learning activities included targeted workshops, collaborative planning, classroom enactment, and participation in wider professional communities through presenting at conferences. The paper analyses these experiences using the framework of identity resources—material, ideational, and relational. Material and ideational resources, such as mathematics terminology in Pitjantjatjara and lesson scripts, supported the Assistant Teachers’ early teaching. However, the most powerful enablers of transformation were relational resources: collaboration with Elders, affirmation from the community, and recognition from external professional audiences. These relationships helped legitimise the Assistant Teachers’ authority as mathematics educators and enabled them to describe themselves as ma-nintiningi “teaching them properly”, while positioning their students as ma-nintiringanyi “properly learning”. The case demonstrates how professional learning that centres Indigenous voices, languages, and collective knowledge-building can strengthen teacher identity, transform classroom practice, and expand students’ opportunities for meaningful mathematics learning.