Aboriginal Teachers and Bicultural Schooling

Extract

‘Aboriginal teacher training’, ‘Aboriginalisation of staffing in Aboriginal schools’, ‘Aboriginal self-determination in schooling’, ‘bicultural education’, ‘Aboriginal control of schools’, ‘Aboriginal excellence in the 3Rs’ are all phrases used by people with some commitment to seeing Aboriginal interests achieved through schooling. These statements in relation to traditionally oriented Aboriginal schools are often used as if they all contained mutually supporting ideals. The reality is not, however, without dilemmas and it is the purpose of this paper to point out some of those dilemmas and to demonstrate that quite often the choice is not a simple one but between the lesser and the greater good, or between individual Aboriginal teacher preferences and recognition of the better good of the language group as a whole.