During 1977, Ms Kathleen Miller and Mr Adrian Haydock operated an innovation program for disadvantaged children at the Kewdale Development Centre. A high proportion of the children attending the centre were Aboriginal, and so the Aboriginal Education Branch was approached for assistance in designing a suitable course. Mr Eric Hayward, an Aboriginal liaison officer, visited the Centre and suggested a community-based program similar to that outlined in a branch report entitled Minority Groups and the “Foxfire” Experience. Since then, the enthusiasm of the two teachers and the interest of the Aboriginal Education Branch have developed the project to the stage where the following report has been prepared.

For many children, belonging to a minority group with its varying degrees of alienation from mainstream society, presents an obstacle to success in the normal curriculum. With Aboriginal children in particular, it is known that excessive numbers of high school students are operating at basic levels and below. There are many factors that contribute to this situation. Yet there is one factor, possessing two facets, that probably overrides all others. This factor is aptly expressed in the following statement from the Ontario Ministry of Education in 1975:

To speak of alcoholics and alcohol abuse is one thing, and we quite often tend to stick to that area, perhaps because, among other things, it is easier to see and treat. Here I wish to speak of alcoholism, the disease, as it affects the family, mainly the children, and also highlight the early age at which the children are affected. I ask you to try to keep an open mind right from now, because I may not be saying what you expect, but, what you will identify and understand.

We all know a lot about alcoholism, although we do not always identify it. We find comfort in diagnosing and treating its symptoms, whilst the disease itself continues to run wild, often to the extent of mental and physical injury, as well as insanity and death.

We often overlook alcoholism in a family because there is no obvious drunkenness. Drunkenness is only a symptom of the disease. It is the alcoholic’s attempt to ease the pressures of the illness, which is, briefly, the inability to cope with irregular but constant periods of emotional conflict.

Stereotypes “can be defined as the attribution of general psychological characteristics to large human groups.” (1. Tajfel, p. 150). Often stereotypes have their origin in historical and cultural traditions though the prevailing social climate may also be an influence. Bettelheim and Janowitz (1. p. 48) distinguished between two types of stereotyping:

1. 1) the superego variety with traits such as over-ambition, craftiness, shrewdness and slyness;

2. 2) the id variety with derogatory traits such as lack of ambition, stupidity, laziness, lack of inhibition, dirtiness, smelliness and over-sexiness.

On Friday, June 23, 1978, between 9 a.m. and 4.30 p.m., an Education Department Staff In-service Conference, organised by Port Augusta’s Central Primary School, was held at the Davenport Aboriginal Adult Training Centre (DAATC), on Davenport Aboriginal Reserve, Port Augusta.

The conference was called, and largely organised by the principal of Port Augusta’s Central Primary School, Mr Ian Westley, with the co-operation of the students and staff of the DAATC, and the Davenport Cultural Club. It was chaired by Ms Catherine Guinness, Lecturer in Aboriginal Studies at Torrens College of Advanced Education. Attending were the staff of Central Primary, the students and staff of DAATC, the students of the Aboriginal Pre-vocational Course at Port Augusta College of Further Education, representatives of all public primary and secondary schools in Port Augusta, representatives from the Adelaide Head Office of the Education Department, as well as visitors from Hawker and Adelaide. In all, between 50 and 60 people were present.

The conference was divided into parts, separated by lunch provided by the Davenport Cultural Club. The first part was taken up by talks given mainly by Aboriginal people, and the second part was for the teachers present to discuss the problems they had teaching Aboriginal pupils, with a summing-up by Mr Ian Westley and Ms Catherine Guinness.

The following article is reprinted with permission from Duran-Duran(Messenger) – Newsletter of the Aboriginal Education Council (N.S.W.), November 1977.

In the last issue of Duran-Duran there was information given on a new project for the Council. The A.E.C. has now applied for an Innovations Grant from the Schools Commission so that this pilot project can become a reality. Hopefully the members of the Innovations Committee of the Commission will recognise its worth in terms of benefits to Aboriginal students and recommend that the project be funded.

For your information we print details of the project as presented to the Commission.

A most important aim is to bring our people our cultural history because, without it, we will be spiritually dead.

The study centre at 108 Smith Street, Collingwood, was established because of the urgent need for such centres within our Aboriginal communities.

One aim is to have a community controlled centre of which our people can feel a part. We encourage our people to participate actively in programs that they feel are important for our survival in today’s society.

Our people today are much more aware of the education system and see it as negative and racist towards not only our Aboriginal people, but also other races.

A most important aim is to bring to our people our cultural history because, without it, we will be spiritually dead. Our history did not start in 1770 but was alive, full, and rich thousands of years before the invasion.

The idea of producing a play started when I mentioned to a young Aboriginal lass named Venita Bolt that it would be great if the Aboriginal children could do something in front of the whole school. Venita went around telling all the Aboriginal children that they were putting on a play in front of the school. All the children came back to me asking when could they put the play on.

Knowing the interest I had caused in these children, I went to see the assistant principal, Mr Woolbank, to see if my children could put on the play. Mr Woolbank gave me permission to go ahead.

Secondly I asked the children what type of play they wanted. They surprised me by wanting to put on a Corroboree. Being the Aboriginal children they are, and not as proud as they should be of their race, I did not expect this from them.

(Readers are referred to an earlier report on this project – The Aboriginal Child at School, 4,5,1976.. Ed.)

In February 1975, Inala High School was selected as the location for a project to develop guidance and counselling services for Aboriginal students. The source of funding was the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Inala was chosen because of the relatively high concentration of Aboriginal families in what is, essentially a working class district of approximately thirty thousand people. There are also significantly high proportions of migrants from non-English speaking countries and single parent families. Staffing has grown from a part-time guidance officer and and full-time Aboriginal counsellor based at the High School, to a guidance officer, a guidance counsellor, two Aboriginal education counsellors, a Secondary teacher and a teacher aide working from a centre within the community and serving all of the primary and secondary schools.

The development of the project has been guided by the philosophy of such educationalists as McConnochie (1973) that the failure of Aboriginals to succeed at school is primarily a result of factors associated with our social institutions rather than the Aboriginal child himself. McConnochie suggests that our institutions tend to debase the black child’s concept of himself and the group with whom he identifies; and it is the child’s consequent lack of self-esteem that contributes significantly to his low vocational aspirations and academic achievement. However, low vocational aspirations and achievement themselves interact, reinforcing the child’s negative self-concept and he becomes caught up in a self-sustaining cycle of increasing school failure and worthlessness.

In this paper I will draw attention to some basic considerations which my research* would suggest are needed in curriculum development in Aboriginal studies. The research is aimed at identifying basic research findings from which propositions can be formed and constructs for curriculum development formulated. This will enable practical classroom procedures and methods, as well as curricula, to be developed. There is no body of educational knowledge in Aboriginal studies particularly, or ethnic studies generally, which allows a theoretical framework for the curriculum developer to work from. The following considerations may be useful in this regard.

Firstly, what does one mean by curriculum, and why refer to curriculum development? Generally, curriculum researchers refer to the curriculum in a much broader way than has been the custom traditionally. (Musgrave, 1974; Hurst, 1974; Walton, 1971; Stenhouse, 1975). For the purpose of this research, the curriculum is considered as the experiences the child will meet with at school as the result of the planned efforts of the school to meet its aims and objectives. This is wider than the old concept of the curriculum which had to do with courses of study in the classroom and planned syllabuses. In the new sense of curriculum, all aspects of school life must be considered. Therefore, a particular model for curriculum development will be suggested, but more essentially what will be stressed is that a model for curriculum development be followed. Intuitive leaps in the dark have seemed to be the pattern, albeit well intentioned.

This year in the post primary section of Yirrkala school my sister, Djuwandayngu and I have been teaching the students ways of understanding the two cultures; that is, the Balanda and the Yolngu ways. Our aim was to make the children aware of their culture and to give them a little bit of knowledge about the Balanda people who work closely with the Yolngu people.

We started out by teaching about the kinships system; from there we built on all the important things in the Yolngu ways. This took in marriage system, relationships, clans and the most important one, land. Land, we felt, was the most important issue because it concerns Yolngu people throughout Australia. The children already know about the fight for land and about the people who are concerned with it. We told the children which land they belong to and why it is very important to their fathers and grandfathers and to them. We told them what sacred things made our land. Then after this we invited older men from the camps to tell them more stories about Yirrkala and our other lands. We talked about our land at the present. Why are we going back to our own countries and making outstations of our own? Where do we get the money for all the things we need like iron to build houses, pipes for water, windmills, pumps and so on?

Not only did we teach about all the things that are mentioned above, but we also taught the children how to write in our own language, Gumatj, by using different activities to do with important Gumatj words.

A Survey of Teacher Education for Plural Societies (the S.T.E.P.S. Project) has been commissioned and funded by the Education Research and Development Committee of the Australian Department of Education.

In the present state of teacher education in Australia, there are quite apparent uncertainties about aims, guiding presuppositions, and models of society. For instance, in the area of pluralism, agreement has yet to be reached on whether Australia is multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial, or polyethnic. All these terms have been used at various times – often as political rhetoric – but arguably do not clarify our understanding of the nature of Australian pluralism.

At the conceptual mapping level, STEPS is designed to survey available recent Australian and overseas literature and research to arrive at a summary of the concepts currently employed to describe plural societies. It is hoped that this summary will provide a basis for arriving at a definitive statement about the special characteristics of Australian pluralism – it being axiomatic that each plural society will have its own ‘brand’ of pluralism – in order to assist educators’ and educational planners’ thinking and policy making.

In the past our school system failed to attend to the educational, social, and emotional needs of Aborigines. By accepting the simplistic and convenient notion that a more advanced technology reflected a superior social, spiritual, cultural, and educational development we were able to justify the denial and denigration of the Aboriginal character, culture, and history in the very schools we compelled Aborigines to attend.