geri.pancini@vu.edu.au
Geri has been a literacy and ESL teacher and a lecturer in Adult Education and Teacher Education over many years. She has taught in schools, TAFE, Universities and in the Community Sector. For over 8 years, Geri worked in Indigenous education: first at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE), and later with Indigenous men and young girls for Corrections Victoria. She has also delivered in the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) for Indigenous youth at Kangan Batman Institute of TAFE.
In her years at Batchelor Institute, Geri learned to work within Batchelor’s philosophy of ‘both ways education’ including the important concept of ‘cultural safety’. In her work in Indigenous education in Victoria, Geri continued to draw on these ideas and coupled them with the concept of a pedagogy of hope in her personal approach to teaching and learning. She finds these philosophical principles helpful and relevant in all education environments. She is particularly interested in culturally appropriate and age appropriate curriculum resources to assist learners to engage and stay connected to the education system. She believes these principles should to be coupled with appropriate professional development for teachers of Language, Literacy and Numeracy.
Geri is currently a Research Fellow with the Work-based Education Research Centre (WERC) at Victoria University in Melbourne.