How more traditional Aboriginal games can be brought into the PE curriculum – Podcast

Associate Professor Shane Pill of Flinders University recently conducted a study with Dr John Williams of the University of Canberra on how different frameworks, including self-determination theory (STD) and a Game Sense Approach (GSA), could be utilised to teach the traditional Aboriginal game of Buroinjin, which comes from the Kabi Kabi people of South Queensland.

Pill said that, traditionally, PE education has been highly instructive, whereas these approaches utilise more of a constructivist approach. The researchers played the traditional Aboriginal game at at Canberra public school, where it was well received.

The study was inspired by the researchers’ own experiences as PE teachers, who sought to develop an approach to teaching PE that had the capacity to engage both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, remembering that one of the cross-curriculum areas is that "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are able to see themselves, their identities and their cultures reflected in the curriculum of each of the learning areas, [and] can fully participate in the curriculum and can build their self-esteem".