Because of the increasing number of Aboriginals continuing on to high school (Lewis, 1974); because of the increasing urbanization of the Aboriginal population (Rowley, 1971; Gale, 1972; Pryor, 1974; Gale and Brookman, 1975); and because of growing interest among many Aboriginal adults in greater educational opportunities for their children (Watts, 1969b; Schools Commission Report, 1975), every Australian secondary teacher is potentially a teacher of adolescent Aboriginals. The purpose of this paper is to consider the personal and professional characteristics of teachers who would seem likely to effectively nurture the intellectual, emotional and social growth of adolescent Aboriginals generating in them an enthusiasm for learning, and inspiring them to strive for achievement and personal excellence.

It is difficult for a teacher who is non-Aboriginal to understand what the Aboriginal people expect from their school. One welldocumented fact is that eyery Aboriginal community so far approached in the Northern Territory has stated that the children of that community must be taught English.

Towards the end of last year I wrote a somewhat optimistic article for the West Australian Newsletter of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, under the heading, ‘A Plea for Alternatives in Aboriginal Education’.

Yarrabah is an Aboriginal community of approximately 1200 people. The community, although close to Cairns, is isolated by a 3000 ft mountain range. The people identify more with the community than with individual tribes. A few crafts remain; Aboriginal languages are known but are not now spoken. So, in comparison with the communities further north, it is fairly westernized. The Grade 8 class is attached to the primary school. It is considered as a transition year from primary to secondary.

Before the first week of school was over it was evident there were vast differences in ability and attainment levels in the class of eleven boys and twenty-three girls. Through a variety of testing procedures, students’ performance levels in the basic skills of numeracy and literacy were tabulated to give a composite picture of the class.

Something had to be done. The Gudschinsky approach, which we had been using for two years in our bilingual program, was working well with a group of children who happened to be both bright and making it to school five days a week. However, a large group had tried with the Gudschinsky method and, either because they were not yet ready for this approach to reading, or through irregular attendance, simply never got off the ground. The other children, in the middle, were off the ground but fluttering precariously.

The ‘never-off-the-ground’ group was given to me. It comprised over twenty children, about ten of whom would be at school on any one day. They were second and third year infants with whom I had an hour and a half every day in an open classroom. The children knew me well and I could speak to them in Gupapuyju (or in English to the one or two children from other settlements whose language was not Gupapuyju). Gupapuyju speaking children read in Gupapuyju, the others in English. Elements from the Ashton-Warner approach and the Language Experience approach were used.

Rarely has an educational decade seen such dramatic reactions as in the proposal, acceptance and subsequent expansion of the involvement of aides in education. Many different terms are used – usually interchangeably – such as paraprofessionals, auxiliary staff, teacher assistants, etc.

The basic rationale was that the aide could free the teacher from the trivial, mundane administrative matters and thus release him for the more ‘professional’ areas of curriculum, programming and implementation. In many schools it is considered essential to distinguish between the professional and the non-professional; and this generally means between the instructional, and the non-instructional. Some leading educators are forcing a reappraisal of this thinking for they feel that the aide can provide significant assistance in the instructional field. And, as time progresses the extent of involvement in the instructional programme will probably increase.

Analysis of the argument for and against the employment of aides generally indicates that the employment is validated on educational grounds, whereas it is criticised on personal or administrative grounds. Whilst appreciating that education is concerned at present with the interaction of people with people, it is essential to establish the correct priorities: are teachers more important than the pupils they teach? Is the teacher who has an unfounded reservation because of possible side effects more important than the pupil who can learn more effectively because of the presence of an aide? Obviously the pupil is the prime consideration, because the task is the important thing! However most critics appear to show that the child is not the important factor.

Reading S.6. Harris’s timely article summarizing recent work in bilingual education (1) prompted me to write for readers of The Aboriginal Child at School, this brief report of part of a project I carried out in Canada in 1972/73. In particular, Harris’s reference to Susan Philips’s work (2) reminds us all of the complex and vexed matter of social contexts governing the use of language. It may be of interest to teachers of Aboriginal children to read examples of language interactions between white and native, and native and native people in several contexts, from another country which has similar ‘pluralistic’cultural problems – Canada.