Working as Teacher Aides at Mount Isa

Extract

We would like to share with others our role as Aboriginal teacher aides at Healy State School, Mount Isa.

The administrative staff of the school has encouraged us to keep our roles and timetables very flexible. Our timetable changes as the needs of the Aboriginal children change within the school.

The Aboriginal population at school is 16%. Half of these children come under the heading of ‘assimilated Aboriginals’.

The suburb of Healy was built by the Mount Isa mining company for sale to mine employees. The Aboriginal children from these homes have equal housing and their parents have no trouble ‘fitting in’. They are accepted on their own worth along with children from first and second generation migrant families. These children could be called success stories but we see them as the result of equal opportunities.

Close to our school we have the ‘camping area’. These are the children we mainly work with in Reading and Maths. Within this area we have found two distinct groups. Families who say ‘I never had much schooling, so I always send the kids’, and families who see no benefit in schooling. From the first group children come on a regular basis and we are able to help individual members of the family to catch up and return to ordinary classroom activities, or keep them learning at a different level. The other group from this area do not see the benefits of school and have heavy social problems. Consequently we have a truancy problem with their children.