A three day seminar for Aboriginal secondary students was held in early April. This was the first time that such a program has been attempted by the Education Department. Valuable assistance was given by a number of other government departments.

All Aboriginal students in years 9 to 12 who attend Adelaide metropolitan high schools were invited to attend. A few representatives from selected country schools were also invited. Between 180 and 200 students attended each day. They were supervised in groups of eight to ten by Aboriginal teacher aides and other volunteers from the Aboriginal community.

Teachers of Aboriginal children have very special responsibilities. You and I know that Aborigines are the poorest, worst housed, least healthy group of people in Australia. More to the point, they are the least educated group of people in the Australian community. Our challenge is to rectify that situation.

We will not get very far if we delude ourselves into thinking that we are working for the Aborigines. We have gone past that stage. You and I work with Aborigines. That is why we are so committed to the employment of Aboriginal teacher aides; why we have pushed Aboriginal Teacher Training; why we employ Aboriginal home/school co-ordinators; why we have Aboriginal school councils, and why we are forming a State Aboriginal Education Consultative Commi ttee.

The following article by Mr Harris discusses in detail the history of Aboriginal education in New South Wales. Readers from New South Wales will certainly find this extremely interesting and, indeed, the perspective that Mr Harris offers will deepen their insights into the educational status of Aboriginals today. Readers from other states will, I am sure, also find it very illuminating; in many ways the New South Wales scene was similar to that in other parts of Australia. (Ed.)

Today, as never before, the teacher has access to an extremely wide array of materials claiming to foster language development. The language in this context can mean anything from oral language learning to appraisal skills for English literature.

This paper, however, will deal specifically with the acquisition of oral language and can be applied either to a first or second language learning context.

As teachers, we will have a personal expectation of the level of competence to be achieved by our students. Our expectations may decrease or increase according to the responses of our students over a period of time.

In January 1976, a course was started in Manual Training and Technical Drawing for Grade 8 students at Yarrabah. Our aim was to introduce all the basic tools and instruct students in the skills of carpentry to a degree where products would be strong, functional, and have some quality in their finish.

During the first six months we worked from simple to more involved projects, items being made alternately for the school and the student. These included squares, bench clamps, T-squares, tool carry-alls, student ports and drawing tables. Girls were also involved but to a lesser degree.

The Aboriginal consultative group to the Schools Commission in their report, Education for Aborigines, made the following statement about the involvement of parents in the education of their children:

These thoughts resound the sentiments of the Queensland Department of Education. We appreciate the need for parents to become more involved in education, in providing guidelines of what they feel should be taught to cater for the needs of the Aboriginal/Islander child.

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.

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 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.