This is a slightly abbreviated version of part of a report commissioned at the end of 1995 by the Queensland Department of Education, Peninsula Region, and carried out with the help of teachers at Thursday Island State High School. It analyses some formal language differences between written Standard Australian English and spoken Torres Strait Creole (the language of most of the students) as a basis for workshop writers to develop material in a form suitable for teachers. Looked at objectively, most of the students’ errors in written English occur as a result of transference from their first language, or in areas of grammatical complexity which pose problems for all English as a Second Language learners. Certain common spelling errors seem also to be a result of transference from the Creole.

The report has been fairly widely circulated and is sometimes quoted inaccurately; hence the decision to publish the formal linguistic section here. Some of the material in the report - on the languages of the region, students’ language backgrounds and cultural factors influencing language choice and language mixing and issues of classroom management - has been omitted (see Shnukal, 1996; see also Morrison David, 2003). The report fulfilled its main aim of raising awareness of language issues and providing information and rationale for various language and literacy programs now operating in the region (Shopen & Hickey, 2003).

Indigenous Studies is a rapidly growing field of enquiry both nationally and internationally. The internationalisation of the discipline is dependent on its interdiciplinarity and on the collaborative efforts of interdisciplinary scholars. Colonised Indigenous people globally share similar experiences despite differences in histories and contexts. In collaborative situations, dedicated scholarship brings together Indigenous people and allies who are committed to the global expansion of Indigenous knowledge through shared understandings of experiences and histories. Collective efforts can improve curriculum development, enhance opportunities for publication, bring scholars together in conferences and symposia and provide opportunities for new research networks for Indigenous scholarship. This paper addresses spheres of collaborative and collective endeavours that continue to reap benefits nationally and internationally in the field of international Indigenous Studies.

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.

The Aboriginal Education Policy (AEP) (New South Wales Department of School Education [NSW DSE], 1996) attempts to create a holistic approach to Aboriginal education for all students. This is done through emphasis on Aboriginal community involvement and incorporating Aboriginal content and perspectives in all stages of schooling. The policy is based on principles which express Aboriginal students' entitlement to the opportunities and understandings which come from education (NSW DSE, 1996: 8). The assumptions and values of the NSW DSE are shown by the emphasis placed on particular aspects of Aboriginal education. The practical impUcations of this policy are that teachers need to become more aware of Indigenous issues, and develop empathy for the past and continuing effects of colonisation.

In many areas of government policy there is a big gap between theory and practice, that is, there is a difference between what ought to occur and what actually eventuates. This is unfortunately true for education as well. That education actually alienates the young from the old and from their traditional life-style may in some way be substantiated. In theory this should not happen. Before any discussion on the pros and cons of such a state of affairs, however, there is a need to define what education is, to define some of the approaches officially accepted in Aboriginal education and to differentiate between the needs of some of the more recognizable Aboriginal groups and their life-styles.

Education can be defined as all the ways in which one person deliberately tries to influence the behaviour of another person. Behaviour may include knowledge, skills, habits, values and attitudes (Butts, n.d.). I believe education should serve either or both of two purposes -

1. the acquisition of knowledge, skills, habits, values and attitudes which can be used to assist his community/society to attain a better standard of living, that is, economic development and/or quality of life, and/or

2. to enable a person to be a better and more useful citizen in his/her society.

Since the 1970s considerable human effort and fiscal resources have been expended on improving the provision of education for Australian Indigenous peoples. The success or failure of such efforts and resources allocations is not clear and requires research. What is clear is that there has been an impact on the educational outcomes of Australian Indigenous peoples duringthis time. Indeed, there have been enormous advances in some areas and minor in other.

Towards the end of last year I wrote a somewhat optimistic article for the West Australian Newsletter of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, under the heading, ‘A Plea for Alternatives in Aboriginal Education’.

The data reported in this article were collected in 1990 and 1991. To determine if verbal reasoning abilities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tertiary applicants have changed over the years, data for a more recent group of applicants were examined. Data from a sample of 100 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tertiary applicants for 1994, 1995 and 1996 were subjected to analysis.

The over-riding objective of an Aboriginal Education Policy should be to achieve equity between Aboriginal people and other Australians in participation at all stages of education by the turn of the century. Education opportunities must be available to Aboriginal people regardless of where they live and in a manner that is appropriate to the diverse cultural and social situations in which they live. It is therefore essential to ensure access for Aboriginal children and adults to school and tertiary education, to ensure that Aboriginal communities are able to influence the way in which education is provided, and to ensure that it reflects their social and cultural values (Hughes Report, 1987: 17).

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.

In his book How Children Fail, John Holt talks about the strategies children have for coping with school. The strategies of most children, says Holt,

I didn’t really get to thinking much about children’s strategies until I had stopped teaching and gone into a few classes to observe as a fly on the wall. Most of what went on in the classroom went completely unnoticed by the teacher. And what the teacher did notice, she seemed often to misunderstand. The children had an amazing variety of strategies which really had the teacher fooled. Some of them had fooled me too, for the years I had been teaching. I thought that if I were to point out some of the strategies which I saw, teachers may begin to look more carefully at their own and their children’s behaviour.

The Hon. John Dawkins (then) Minister for Employment, Education and Training, launched the Aboriginal Education Policy at a grand event in the Committee Room at Parliament House on 26th October 1989. The Prime Minister blessed the occasion with his presence and a short speech. Three of the former Chairs of the the National Aboriginal Education Committee were there, as were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educationists from most Australian states. Only New South Wales, which decided to boycott the launch, wasn’t officially represented.

There are two reasons for calling the policy that the Minister launched the Aboriginal Education Policy. Firstly, because it is the first policy formally endorsed by any National government; and secondly, because it responds to the call made in the 1988 Report of the Aboriginal Education Policy Task Force, for a concerted national effort –

A one and a half year study of listening and reading among rural children in north-west New South Wales, indicated marked differences among Aborigines and whites in listening and reading. A Motivation for School Schedule, included in the initial test battery predicted over fifty per cent of variance in listening comprehension, administered at the end of years 2 and 3, for Aboriginal girls, and was significant in a multiple regression with Aboriginal girls’ end of year three reading scores as the criterion. The schedule contributed little, if anything, towards predicting reading success for white children or Aboriginal boys.

The research underlines the importance of teachers understanding the conflict some girls from minority groups face when attending schools organized by the dominant culture, particularly when the vocabulary of the dominant language is assumed to be understood by all children in the same way.

It is disturbing that some commentators on Aboriginal education in Australia draw the superficial conclusion that, “the school system has failed Aboriginal children very badly”.

There is abundant, undisputed evidence that Aborigines, as a group, consistently score much lower in English reading, writing and arithmetic tests than any other identifiable group in Australia. They leave school at an earlier age and at a lower achievement level than the national average.

As an educator it is not something that I am proud of – and I should say that most other educators would feel much the same way. It is the task of all of us who are involved in the education of Aborigines to do all in our power to rectify the situation. But it is too glib, too shallow by far, to heap all the blame for Aborigines’ low achievement on the schools, the school teacher or the school system.

Do those who make their sweeping condemnations suggest that all teachers, all schools, all the school systems across Australia – both government and non-government, have singly, and collectively failed the Aborigines? Is it claimed that in the 166 years since Governor Macquarie’s first school for Aborigines, successive generations of teachers have failed to ‘crack the code’, so to speak?

If so, isn’t this an incredible state of affairs? Can we really believe it to be true?

The research on which this article is based was undertaken at Pularumpi, Melville Island, Northern Territory in 1984-85. At the time I was employed as the adult educator for Pularumpi, and was conducting courses and classes which involved mathematics at various levels - a course in metrication for the technical staff; mathematics for specific purposes for the health workers, police aides, Council and Housing Association bookkeepers, and for the Essential Services apprentices.

In all this I was never too sure of my methodology: what was the most effective way of helping these adults to learn? The basic problem was that I had no information of their pre-knowledge - the mathematical knowledge they possessed prior to their entry into the classes. Most had formal education to a secondary level, a few had completed secondary schooling in Darwin, Perth or Melbourne, with mixed results. Beyond that formal knowledge, however, I needed to know the students mathematical preconceptions so that I could more effectively assist them to learn the specific purpose mathematics they needed for the jobs they held.

In 1984, the Northern Territory Education Department published a paper by Pam Harris, Money in Aboriginal Communities. This was the first academic work I had encountered which addressed my needs as an educator in this area. Harris examined modern shopping practices and posited a theory of attitudes to numeracy. This information was presented in a readable form and in an effort to assist educators of Aboriginals in mathematics.

In the recent history of Australia Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders have only had widespread access to a university education for approximately 20 years. Before this, Indigenous graduates from Australian universities were relatively few. Universities were seen as complex, often alien places in Indigenous cultural terms; institutions of European Australian social empowerment and credentialling from which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students were virtually excluded.

Campfire sessions are springing up at conferences and educational institutes as an alternative to PowerPoint presentation workshops. As an educational tool, the campfire session is presented as innovative pedagogy, yet sitting around an open fire, telling stories, talking and ‘yarning’ has long been practised in Indigenous societies. This paper reflects on story-telling as an Indigenous educational method with a focus on traditional Māori society in Aotearoa/New Zealand. More specifically, the authors reflect on a campfire session facilitated at the Ako (reciprocal teaching and learning) Aotearoa (Māori name for New Zealand) Conference in Christchurch in November 2018. The campfire session was designed to draw on participants' experiences and stories of biculturalism and their own bicultural journeys. Its intention was to enable participants to explore what it means to be bicultural in Aotearoa/New Zealand and how being bicultural manifests in practices of ako across a range of disciplines and fields of practice. The paper endeavours to be an instructional article for educators interested in experimenting with the Indigenous teaching method of campfire sessions. Detailed explanations and descriptions of the campfire method are provided to assist teachers to design their own campfire sessions. The campfire method was well received by the initial audience, as evidenced by their full engagement and participation. All participants fed back that they felt enabled to design their own campfire sessions. The main benefit of this method is its engagement and appreciation of Indigenous wisdom. The main challenge is its unpredictability as just like fire, it can produce a wonderful warmth and transformation, but also engender inflamed discussions. It requires skilful facilitation and appreciation of potentially diverse views and opinions.

The following paper argues for a critical creative paedagogy as a means of meaningfully engaging with Indigenous and decolonial philosophies. We showcase our critical frameworks and pathways for teaching a decolonial and Indigenous university course where philosophy and arts meet to engage with complex colonial, racial and epistemological questions. We first frame our theoretical and philosophical stance within critical postcolonial, Indigenous and decolonial studies. We then describe an epistemological critique within western philosophical discourse that will gesture towards a decolonial pathway to arts and discuss our creative teaching approach grounded in decolonial and Indigenous theories. Lastly, we reach to a critical and decolonial space where ‘southern’ philosophies can be ‘heard’ in their fullest complexity. We contend that creative writing and visual arts grounded in critical decolonial and Indigenous theories provide a space in which a decolonised knowledge seems possible.

Narratives have always been integral to Indigenous knowledge transfer. In this autoethnography the author shares her border crossings between her Indigenous knowledge systems and the often dominant Western knowledge system. Pertinent to these experiences are the stark contrasts that exist between the two knowledge systems and their educational goals. This paper opens up space for conversation amongst those educators who are keen to learn and enhance their teaching and learning experiences in schools, particularly of those students whose cultural background differs from their own.

This paper explores the prescriptive, distancing and separating qualities that exist in Western systems of knowledge production. It examines scientific language and how discrimination takes place in the university setting and explores the ways in which academic knowledge production affects the learning experiences, participation and completion rates of Indigenous students. It suggests improving teaching and learning strategies to enhance unacknowledged learning processes towards providing inclusive learning practices, and to strengthen educational outcomes for Indigenous students with the prospect of improving their completion rates at universities.