I have often been asked: How can mathematics be beautiful? This question is usually sparked by popular culture, such as the movie A Beautiful Mind or television shows that have popularised mathematics. For most of the inquirers, their experience with mathematics is so divorced from subjective statements such as ‘beautiful’ that they cannot fathom any connection between them. They have also been taught that mathematics is supposed to be objective – that is, transcending our own subjectivity (or bias) to find ‘the truth’. These are common perceptions of mathematics informed by our common experience with the teaching and learning of mathematics. This chapter explores such perceptions, questions notions such as objectivity and explores how these perceptions have positioned Indigenous people as mathematical learners. In essence, this chapter explores the connection between culture and mathematics – putting subjectivity back into mathematics and looking at how this can affect the teaching and learning of mathematics for Indigenous students. These new approaches also have implications for mathematics education in general, by allowing students to connect with mathematics through their own social and cultural backgrounds.

This chapter employs the timestamp of the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference on Education (WIPCE), emphasising that elements of education relating to both First Nations communities and the teaching profession are central to transversing and bridging the two knowledge traditions of Indigenous and Western knowledges. Within this timestamp, we will look at the foundations we have created, the distance we have travelled and the new challenges we face for what remains as unfinished business.

This chapter explores how important it is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in particular to have access to studying their own languages across all jurisdictions in Australian education. It also explores the increasing options available to teachers to provide these opportunities for students from Foundation to Year 12. The value is not limited to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students; all students in Australian schools can benefit from the deeper understanding of Indigenous peoples, cultures and histories that develops through the study of Indigenous languages. Language is the vehicle of cultural expression, and when a language is no longer spoken by its people all humanity is diminished by the loss of cultural transmission that occurs when a language ‘goes to sleep’. Teachers are very well positioned to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to help wake up the sleeping Australian languages and to maintain those that are still languages of everyday communication.

This chapter discusses the ways in which I implement Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing into my process as a First Nations performing arts practitioner, working to create resources for Australian schools to support all educators in approaching First Nations content in Indigenous ways. Examining the design of two projects as case studies, the Kings, Brothers and Heroes exploration (a verbatim performance ceremony intended as a resource for secondary school students and teachers) and the Totems program (an immersive creative arts program for students from Foundation to Year 6), I discuss the ways in which I related ways of Indigenous knowing, being and doing to the work. This includes connecting to First Nations oral traditions, creating a space of free creative expression, discussion and engagement for students around story, history and culture that maintains, supports and preserves community ownership while recognising the importance of the Outsider relationship into which practitioners enter when working with community.

This chapter explores a number of key principles and concepts dealt with in the Commonwealth government’s National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. The chapter’s central focus is the impact and continuing effects that past ‘assimilation’ policies have had on the contemporary circumstance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It also explores the Inquiry’s observations regarding the meaning and intent of genocide, the notion of self-determination and the vexed question of Aboriginal ‘identity’.

Game worlds are steeped in depictions of different characters, settings, events and, in many cases, different cultures and cultural knowledges. In some cases, these in-game cultural depictions have been created by outsiders of the culture and, even with good intentions, these creators may misrepresent the culture or represent the community in superficial ways. My game design approach attempts to respond to this issue faced by digital game designers and developers and provides an approach that encourages close collaboration with communities, cultural immersion by developers and greater forms of rigorous research in constructing game worlds. While the intent of my approach is to help designers create more meaningful and deeper cultural representations in digital games, the design process itself is an educative experience and there may be opportunities to capitalise on this digital and cultural design approach in learning contexts.

There are many facets to the historical context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education in Australia, from the ways in which knowledge was transferred prior to invasion through to the deliberate withholding of information from all Australians. When we refer to Indigenous education in Australia, we must remember that this is both for and about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This chapter therefore discusses the historical context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education, beginning with how knowledge was transferred prior to invasion. Several ‘case studies’ – early evidence of First Nations children’s academic capabilities immediately following invasion – are cited in terms of the ‘grand experiment’, followed by reference to the inclusion/exclusion of Aboriginal children using the oft-quoted phrase ‘clean, clad and courteous’. The chapter then moves past the infamous exclusion of Aboriginal children to the formation of the National Aboriginal Education Committee, which so heavily influenced a change in the political landscape, to involvement in curriculum development, and discusses some of the strategies, plans and policies that have been put in place.

The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians identified that a world class curriculum in the twenty-first century required more than learning areas alone. It also required the interweaving of other aspects such as fundamental skills and capabilities as well as being able to respond to critical educational issues and future needs. These requirements were met by the Australian Curriculum through its three-dimensional structure of Learning Areas, General Capabilities and the Cross-Curriculum Priorities. The Melbourne Declaration noted that to meet its commitment of ensuring that all Australians could become active and informed citizens, each learning area would require all students to have the opportunity to access First Nations Australian content where relevant. Additionally, the Declaration highlighted the need to improve educational outcomes for First Nations Australians to ensure that, as a nation, we achieve not only equality of opportunity but also more equitable outcomes. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures Cross-Curriculum Priority provides a national opportunity to confront First Nations Australian educational disadvantage and break the cycle of non-First Nations Australians not knowing about or who this country’s diverse and vibrant First Nations peoples are.