When young Indigenous children have positive self-identity, they are more likely to achieve successful school outcomes in terms of higher attendance rate, attachment and commitment to school and satisfying academic grades (Purdle et al., 2000). As an educator, I should recognize that negative self-identity erodes self-esteem, self-concept and self-confidence. This reflection focuses on Indigenous people’s right to identify themselves as a foundational human right and the ways of how teachers can strengthen their identity through daily teaching practices. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2008) has stated that Indigenous people ‘have the right to be free from any kind of discrimination, in the exercise of their rights, in particular that based on their indigenous origin or identity’ (p.2). People can easily generate some bad stereotyping about Indigenous people from the …show more content…
It was in 1788 when the first group of Europeans arrived in Australia and declared Australia as terra nullius – land belonging to nobody, meanwhile, denying Indigenous rights’ and their special connections to the land (Reconciliation Australia, 2017). Under the protection policies, Indigenous were forced to leave their homelands onto reserves or missions to cut the relations between Aboriginals and other Australians for the protection of white blood. The assimilation policies which featured at forcibly removing young children from Indigenous families – what is now known as the ‘stolen generation’, impacted harshly on indigenous people and the legacy of these policies still remains in the lives of Indigenous people today (Australian Human Rights Commission,