edna.edu.au

Week 1: Indigenous Society and Eduation - An Overview

First Impressions

Sitting in the lecture today, I felt quite comfortable and happy to be there, despite having very little holidays.  I am looking forward to developing my understanding of Australian Indigenous Cultures. I feel that I have a some awareness: I understand its more appropriate to use the word Indigenous Australian as opposed to Aborigine; Indigenous Peoples have strong connections to their land and being separated from it can (mostly it seems) cause stress and unhappiness; I am aware that the health of Indigenous Peoples is worse? Poorer? than non-Indigenous Australians, and that they have a shorter life expectancy [from the media]; I am aware that is inappropriate to use the Kaurna Shield in artwork, particularly public art work, without permission from the Kaurna People (unlike flags). I am aware that as I am writing this, I am thinking very carefully about how to word what I am saying, so as to try to use the correct terminology, and try to be inclusive and inoffensive.

So from this subject I hope to gain greater awareness, and understanding of Indigenous Peoples, their culture and how to cater for the individual needs of students in my classroom. I was happy to see that Daryl (Topic Coordinator) stated that part of the aim of this course was to provide strategies that can help teachers teach Indigenous Australian students. This is reassuring but I feel some skepticism towards being told this, as previous subjects have made similar promises and not delivered. Having said that, I have been impressed by the level of organisation of this subject so far; someone has put in a lot of effort, so I have hope.

I really enjoyed Daryl ending the lecture with a couple of stories. The story of the boy who lived at Sutton Boys Home really stuck in my head. It's amazing how we perceive things. A child was missing his parents, and in trying to see them became labeled a troublemaker. It also points out to me the need to talk to people, and try to understand why they are behaving the way they are. Why didn't the boy (can't remember his name) tell someone he missed his parents and wanted to see them? Maybe he tried to and was told no. Why didn't he write and tell his parents that he missed them and wanted to see them? Maybe he could have visited them or vice versa.

I was also very shocked by what have happened to John's wife and daughter (When a at childcare found out John's daughter was Indigenous while chatting to his wife, the parent picked up her child and said to her "Let's go and play with Amy over there."). I suppose racism always shocks me because I consider it to be something that happened in the past and that the human race, at least Australians, have got past this. Obviously not. Maybe it's shocking to me because most people I hang out with aren't openly racist or prejudice around me? To me it just seems so stupid to not allow your child to play with another child because of their genes. I could understand if she was behaving in an inappropriate way, but not simply because of her genes.

Readings

The readings for this week I found hard going. I don't mind reading information about stats, but not in such great quantities (There were several reports, giving statistics about Indigenous Peoples). I found I tended to glaze over after a while. It reinforced the idea that I had, that the health of Indigenous Peoples is generally below that of Non-Indigenous People. It also pointed out to me some of the links that health has to other area's of life. If a student has poor health, they are more likely to be away from school, making it harder to keep up. It's a bit of nasty circle, because strong links have been made between health and education. But if your sick and miss out on education, how can you learn about being healthier? When a person has a reduced level of schooling, they are less likely to find employment as well.

Maybe the point of bombarding us with several reading all related to Aboriginal Peoples health is to get it through to us that this is a serious issue that we need to consider. Maybe they were aiming to make an impact through quantity.

I was happy to see in the reading "Indigenous Australia Today: An overview by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission", that they acknowledged that statistics only at best tell part of a story. I couldn't agree more! I believe you can manipulate stats to say what you want them to say. It's like everything in life, you present your perspective, because that's all you can do. At least this Commission is stating that it's their perspective. As a side issue, how do you decide what stats to collect? Someone had to decide once upon a time. What information you include and exclude can say a lot. How would our responses to the information varied if they had included stats associated with mental wellbeing, happiness or other area's that may have had a more positive response?

In this reading page 4 reads "More than 1 in 10 persons aged 25 and over had been separated in childhood from their natural family." I feel very curious about this. What were the reasons they were separated from their family? Were they being abused? Did they have to stay with an Aunt or Grandpa because their parent/s were sick/had to move to find work? Were they sent to a boarding school? Does running away from home count? Was it forced separation or did they or their family choose to be separated? Whose definition of natural family was used and did the people answering the survey, use the same definition as the people who made the survey?

Posted at 07:12PM Sep 17, 2008 by April W  |