All of us concerned with the education of Aboriginal children must be concerned also with the attitudes held by non-Aboriginal Australians towards Aboriginals. All of us who teach in schools teach about Aboriginals. Our own attitudes will be revealed in what we teach and how we teach. Do we in the schools help to perpetuate the ancient and modern myths discussed below by Mr. Spalding?

Several programs have been developed in Australia recently designed to help Aboriginal children to be more comfortable in the Standard English situation of the classroom. These programs are concerned particularly with children whose first language is not an Aboriginal language but rather a form of English which differs in some respects from Standard English.

One such program has been developed by the State Department of Education in Queensland with some funding from the Bernard Van Leer Foundation. The program is intended to cover many aspects of the curriculum during the first two years of schooling. Teachers’ Handbooks for the first year of the program have been produced and the following extract is taken from the introduction to the first Teachers’ Handbook.

Mr. Russo from Yalata has written about a project which he is initiating at his school; one two-minute movie film has already been made. Other teachers might like to follow his lead.

Basically my idea was to take a movie of certain aspects of the present way of life of the Yalata people with some reference to the past. Examples include:

– life stories of noted people,

– carving boomerangs and wombats,

– cooking of different foods.

It was envisaged that the films would be taken by me initially and perhaps by the people and children themselves, after some teaching in night classes in movie taking.

It was felt essential that agreement of the School Council be obtained before the project was undertaken and that final edited film should be presented to the Mission and School Councils for preview, review and a final decision about its distribution. The people should not only be informed and participate but also be given the opportunity to take some (if not all) of the responsibility for the presentation of the material.

With the permission of the Superintendent and two Aboriginal people a short two minute movie film was made. It was divided into two parts. The first part concerned David Edwards, a Reserve foreman and his work and the other showed Mervyn Day, an Aide in the school, taking a craft class.

To further aid my presentation before the School Council and the community (shown at a local film evening) an English and Pitjantjatjara dialogue made with the help of Mervyn Day was played.

Our school has 30% of culturally different children of Aboriginal ancestry,. This, in a primary school population of 180, represents a significant proportion. This group can be, and is, defined by colour of skin, facial features, and different life style. Membership of this group is decided both by public opinion and by other members of the group.

Our town with a population of some 600 people is representative of many small rural communities with a significant proportion of people of Aboriginal descent. Some of these families, about 30%, live in houses provided by the Aboriginal and Island Affairs Department which are of comparable standard to those of the white people in the town. The remainder live in shanty type settlements which are common to such towns and which are usually located on the town outskirts.

Let me first explain my situation. All the people in Duchess are involved in some way or another with the Queensland Railways. Duchess is a railway town, supported by the Queensland Railways and existing only because of them. The majority of settlers are Islanders, with a few Aboriginals. These people live harmoniously side by side. All the fathers have jobs. The children thus have the necessary monetary backing to encourage development. These people are not poor, though their conditions may indicate otherwise. All the children are clothed reasonably well, and fed reasonably well. Most of the children are scrupulously clean.

It is wise to keep in mind the fact that regardless of what my successes and failures are, each one of us has a special situation, which differs vastly from everyone else’s. It is therefore necessary for us to be continually trying, adapting, and changing, in order to achieve any measure of success.

In the small school, the teacher is faced with a number of problems which perhaps appear unique or magnified by virtue of the fact that he is on his own. Multiple grades, voluminous workloads multiple cultures, remoteness and lack of finance are amongst the greatest problems facing me personally, and no doubt many of you at present. But the small school also offers unique opportunities to teachers to experiment and implement new ideas and methods. The relative freedom of working alone offers unlimited scope for development in every field. Numbers are fewer, and parental contact is more practical and rewarding. In every field our freedom to work is limited only by our capacity. I believe that the small schools are more effective amongst these people, simply by virtue of the fact that contact and discussions with both parents and children are more intimate, and therefore more successful. Of course, initially they are shy, but eventually we can reach them, and once their confidence is gained, they will make every attempt to help us. This is a big advantage to have, and very necessary if any program is to achieve success.

How can teachers in small remote schools develop a meaningful and attractive program for their pupils and for the Community? How can they help their pupils to develop self-confidence and self-esteem?

In the following article, Mr. Manwarring puts forward a number of very insightful suggestions.

Across Australia many exciting developments are occuring in Aboriginal education. This section of the journal is planned so that teachers throughout the country can share with each other their thinking and their innovations, so that good ideas and successful practices can spread. In this issue we present a variety of reports.

In the Walgett Primary School there are 256 children who fit into the category of part-Aboriginal. This is 49.2% of the total school enrolment. In 1970 it was 42.9% and this 6.3% increase represents the trend in Walgett over the past few years. For quite some time teachers in Walgett have been conscious of the need to do something special for the Aboriginal children. Successive teachers and administrators have approached the problem with typically varying degrees of dedication, and always with what we might term a “conventional approach”. Predictably, results varied, and as late as 1969 35% of Aboriginal children left the primary stage either substantially or totally illiterate. This state of affairs was attributed to a degree of mental deficiency which some believed to be genetic. I shall return to this fallacy later.

During 1969 a number of factors contributed to a change in attitude, and consequently in approach, and since then marked advances have been made. It would hardly be appropriate to examine these in detail here, but certain points can be made with a degree of certainty.

There are many benefits gained by employing Aboriginal Teacher Aides. These include:

1. (a) The employment of such people as Yvonne Walker at this school, to undertake work of an experimental nature, in teaching untried courses in language to Aboriginal children.

(b) The self-respect gained by Aboriginal people in working with teachers in responsible organizations.

(c) The decreased reliance on Social Services and consequent upsurge in desire to obtain responsible positions. (One Aboriginal person recently asked me if the Police Department have aides).

(d) The efforts made by employed aides to attempt to standardize their social interaction through accepting norms in dress and general conduct.