It is quite likely that at the start of a teaching career at an Aboriginal school, a teacher would know how to teach reading. He would have received the theoretical background at college or university, and applied this knowledge with varying degrees of success at practice-teaching sessions and possibly with increasing success at an urban school. Therefore, when an obviously talented teacher finds that previously used strategies simply do not work, and even his knowledge of how to cope with disadvantaged and remedial children seems to be of no use, it is time to look a little deeper into what motivates his pupils.

‘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.

This paper addresses issues related to the conflicting paradigms of Western systems of knowledge and Indigenous systems of knowledge within the context of teaching about gender and music in Indigenous Australian women's performance practice. I will first describe the subject which I am currently teaching at the University of Queensland. I will then discuss the theoretical concerns related to teaching about gender and music in terms of the differences between Western and Indigenous ways of knowing about these concepts. I will then examine the conflicts which arise in the context of teaching Indigenous studies within a non-Indigenous framework. Finally, conclusions will be drawn in regard to the reconciling the differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing and the implications for teaching this type of curriculum on an international scale.

When we talk about Aboriginalizing education, we have to find ways of describing or analyzing what happens in education, which will help us to understand what needs to be done. For me, one of the most useful ways of thinking about education is to make a clear distinction between what is taught (the content, or message of education), and how it is taught (the methods, or processes or the medium of education). In traditional white education, both the content and the process of education reflect the white ways of looking at the world. In traditional Aboriginal education, the process and content of education are both Aboriginal.

It is uncertain when the last exclusion of children from a public school, merely for having some Aboriginal ancestry, actually occurred. In 1937, the Commonwealth and States’ conference on Aboriginal matters recommended assimilation as a general policy rather than protection, particularly with regard to the detribalized, part-caste Aboriginal people. In 1938, the New South Wales Public Service Board in its report on the Aborigines Protection Board, recommended the policy of assimilation be implemented in schools. In 1940, the Aborigines Protection Act was amended. The Aborigines Protection Board was renamed the Aborigines Welfare Board and restructured to include Aboriginal members. The complete responsibility for the education of all Aboriginal children was transferred to the New South Wales Department of Education. Almost overnight, the policy of segregation was changed to assimilation.

My topic today is Aboriginal education – a reality in the 1990s. To be more specific, I should say Tiwi education is a reality in the 1990s. For it is in the Tiwi context that education has taken a giant step forward. This is because firstly we are working together to Aboriginalise the school – or rather to localise the school. Secondly, I have been challenged to ‘let go’, to move away from the dominant role as Principal (i.e. non-Aboriginal, non-Tiwi Principal). This challenge came as late as May 31 1995 from our present Assistant Director of Catholic Education.

The first and probably most important piece of advice that anyone can give to prospective teachers of Aboriginal children is to ‘watch your language’. Whether or not the children speak an Aboriginal language as their first language, a Creole or a Pidgin or a version of Aboriginal English, with standard English as either a second language or second dialect, opportunities for miss-communication and non-communication abound.

The study sets out to find out urban Aboriginal children's views of schools and teachers, particularly the things they enjoy and find valuable in their schooling experience and their ideas on what changes they would like to see. Literature indicates that whilst, on the one hand, Aboriginal parents and communities increasingly “want to help my children do better at school” (de Lacy, 1985, p..282), on the other hand very few succeed, especially once they have entered high school. A study by Goodnow and Burns (1985) has shown that primary school children are very discriminating judges of what helps them learn. Thus finding out what Aboriginal children actually say about their school experience may help educators to interpret their behaviour in the school setting more accurately and consequently to communicate with them more effectively. In the fairly extensive literature on Aboriginal children's education a number of relevant themes recur. One is the importance of personal relationships in Aboriginal children's learning. Affiliation is the basis of traditional Aboriginal relationships with individuality of the person secondary to the close knit family group. This is expressed as concern with affectionate relations in Aboriginal children's interactions with teachers and peers. It relates to what Honeyman (1986) calls traditional Aboriginal society's “humane teaching”, where education was through guidance rather than direct instruction. Another theme is the unpredictability of educational outcomes for Aboriginal students, particularly the nature of the acquisition of English literacy. “It is the most puzzling yet most debilitating characteristic of Aboriginal education to be recognised in recent times.” (Willmot, 1989, p.10) There are contradictory findings on Aboriginal adolescents' attitudes to school. Jordan (1984) in her South Australian study found that Aboriginal students had a “positive view of schooling and school personnel” (p.289).

Western-style schooling for Aboriginal children in New South Wales began formally in 1940. Nineteen-forty was the year in which the New South Wales Department of Education abandoned its long-standing policy of exclusion relating to Aboriginal children. Prior to this, Aboriginal children were excluded from State schools on the complaint of a white parent. From 1940 on, it could be said that Aboriginal people had achieved the right to State schooling. This is, of course, a political statement as much as an educational one. I would argue that 1940, in fact, saw the beginning of modern Aboriginal politics.

Modern Aboriginal politics, as such, began in the early 1960s when Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji people walked off Wave Hill; that was the beginning of the land rights movement. The 1940s and the 1950s, however, saw Aboriginal people struggle for the human right of education for their children.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, many Aboriginal people spent a great deal of time criticising the very education systems which they fought so hard to become part of. Yet Aboriginal people have voted for this form of education with their feet. In 1975, according to Commonwealth Government statistics, there were 223 Aboriginal people in tertiary institutions in Australia. In 1980, there were 881, that is a 295% increase. In 1970, however, there were only 20 Aboriginal people found to be in tertiary institutions in Australia and that, believe it or not, registers by 1980 as being a 4,310% increase. Unfortunately, this does not reflect an equivalent 4,310% improvement in outcomes of schooling; this extraordinary phenomenon associated with the tertiary education is very much an Aboriginal adventure.

Preparation and support programs for teacher trainees were instituted in South Australia in 1978. By that time, only thirteen Aboriginal/Islander people had ever graduated as teachers in South Australia. Since that time, and by the end of this year, over one hundred awards will have been completed in South Australia, eighty percent by people who had been prepared and enrolled through special entry preparation and support programs such as ATEP (Aboriginal Teacher Education Program) at Underdale and the Magill Early Childhood Education Program. Graduates now work across the range from pre-school to tertiary education. Around seventy percent of graduates are in classrooms, with another fifteen percent otherwise involved in education. Very few, if any, are employed.

Since Amata Aboriginal school commenced late in 1968 we have followed a policy of respecting the wishes of the parents. One such wish was that their children learn to read and write their own language as well as learn to speak, read and write English: Hence, the policy regarding language teaching at Amata school stands: “to teach literacy in both languages.”

Basically, the means by which we attempt to meet the demands of this policy consist of beginning all instruction in and about Pitjantnatjara. Then, once a level of proficiency has been attained, (mainly a sound phonetical grasp of Pitjantjatjara) the particular child is moved to a class where instruction is almost entirely in and about English.

Thus, the infant grades’ language lessons are mainly Pitjantjatjara. We have been fortunate in the past to have a European teacher who could, before two years in the area, speak Pitjantjatjara fluently. She could, thereby, teach the infant children about Pitjantjatjara.

Now we have Aboriginal teacher aides who are doing the same job, with a European teacher as part of the teaching team.

Once a child is proficient in Pitjantjatjara the next move is into grade 3 where European teachers, with the assistance of an aide, take over the child’s instruction. In fact, by this stage, the child has attained a few phrases of English speech and can write some basic words.

Presently, the grade 3’s (for want of a better title) range in age from nine to sixteen years, and are divided into a class for boys and a separate class for girls, this being the expressed desire of the boys. It is mainly the grade 3 boys’ class which will be discussed here. However, most of what is mentioned is also applicable to the class of girls.

Bilingual education programs are being developed in some remote Aboriginal communities that have retained their own languages and a high degree of traditional orientation. As bilingual education in the Northern Territory is today beginning really to mean bilingual/bicultural education, this means that Aboriginal teachers are expected to act in different ways from when they worked as Teacher “Aides” and assisted in programs that were solely based on the non-Aboriginal culture. It is also a new situation for many non-Aboriginal teachers who, particularly in the Early Childhood area, have been trained to work with small children and now find that their most significant activity is the interaction they have with adult Aboriginal teachers as they help these teachers work with children. This paper outlines an approach that assists teachers develop more meaningful early childhood programs for Aboriginal children, and in addition helps teachers function more effectively in their new roles.

Much of the literature on Aboriginal education tends, and rightfully so, to emphasise the disadvantages Aboriginal children face when they enter into Western schooling. Cultural discontinuity theory proposes that cultural mismatch between the home and school cultures is an important factor in the alienation and school failure for minority (e.g. Aboriginal) children. Research certainly supports the view that Aboriginal students differ from their Western counterparts in terms of world view, learning styles and sociolinguistic etiquette. Current cultural ecology theory proposes that some minority group students (i.e. from ‘involuntary’ or ‘colonized’ minorities) rectify these differences in opposition and in resistance to the majority culture and thus play an active role in perpetuating school failure (Ogbu, 1987). In some urban schools, it appears that the inability of teachers to understand and cater for the cultural differences of their Aboriginal students is compounded by an active resistance to the school culture by those students. This paper investigates the teaching styles and practices of two teachers in urban schools who not only recognise and cater for the unique differences and abilities of their Aboriginal students but who have actively created learning environments in which student resistance is either directed towards group enhancing goats or rendered inappropriate. Pseudonyms are used throughout this paper.

This role is vital to the teacher aide because it helps him/ her to develop a good relationship with teacher, parent and child. This way parents can take an interest in their child’s education. Their attitude towards teachers would be much more pleasant and understanding. Parents would be aware of their responsibilities both in the school and at home. It would help the child to recognise his/her good and bad points, how to get on well with other children in the classroom and around the community, and last but importantly, to cope with society.

Noel Pearson and Marcia Langton have both used the terms “co-dependency” and “rescuing” as part of their challenge to the rights-based focus informing Indigenous policies in Australia since the 1960s. Their premise is that the liberal/Left welfare-based agenda, for decades, has largely overlooked Indigenous responsibility. At the same time, they recognise that policy frameworks strongly influence agency and individual responsibility. I examine the implications of this argument within the tertiary education environment, using systems theory to foreground the complexity of individual change within well-established social patterns. This paper reflects on how my thinking and pedagogy have generally been based on a “moral vanity” that, at times, has sanctioned shallow and passive learning experiences that have failed to challenge student achievement.

Learnscapes are places where learning has been designed in ways that enhance the interaction with an environment (Tyas-Tunggal, 1997). A small rural primary school has creatively adopted a Learnscape as a significant focus to engage with its community. Within the school the Learnscapes Program works from the classroom to the playground and from there to the broader community to create a new place for learning. The Learnscapes Program allows cross curriculum boundaries to emerge and in the case of this school facilitates active participation with the school community, in ways that reengage culture, the community and curriculum. The experiences of this rural school as it promotes learning across the whole community through the exploration of Indigenous culture using Learnscapes are documented.

This three-year research study examined the influence of interactive technologies on the math achievement of Indigenous students in Years 4, 5, 6 and 7 technology — equipped classrooms in a rural elementary school in British Columbia, Canada. Using a mixed-methods approach, the researcher conducted semistructured interviews and collected math achievement data (reported elsewhere) over a three-year span, and distributed a survey to the teachers in the second year of the study. All data sources revealed that interactive technologies such as SMARTBoards, student response systems and document cameras influence positively Indigenous students’ math achievement over a three-year period.

This research explores media reporting of Indigenous students’ Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results in two national and 11 metropolitan Australian newspapers from 2001 to 2015. Of almost 300 articles on PISA, only 10 focused on reporting of Indigenous PISA results. While general or non-Indigenous PISA results featured in media reports, especially at the time of the publication of PISA results, there was overwhelming neglect of Indigenous results and the performance gap. A thematic analysis of articles showed mainstream PISA reporting had critical commentary which is not found in the Indigenous PISA articles. The three themes identified include: a lack of teacher quality in remote and rural schools; the debate on Gonski funding recommendations and the PISA achievement gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. This study concluded the overwhelming neglect is linked to media bias, which continues to drive mainstream media coverage of Indigenous Australians.