The Aborigines faced hardship and danger daily, so it is no wonder that courage was instilled in the youths by example and precept. The myth of the brave fisherman is typical of those told around the camp fires to show the young the kind of behaviour they should try to emulate (L.A.A.)

The proliferation of Aboriginal Studies, as a formal component of teacher education programs, has been variously met with praise and criticism by educators. The financial, educative and ethical aspects of this proliferation have caused such bodies as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) to look closely at the outcomes of such courses. The variability of stated objectives, coupled with a reluctance by individual institutions to evaluate their own courses, has prevented any overall evaluation from a cognitive stance. Implicit in each course, however, are affective aims (sometimes wishes) that students will become more tolerant, sympathetic or positive in their attitudes towards Aborigines and, that those attitudes will be maintained and conveyed to the pupils they teach. Whether or not these are actual outcomes of Aboriginal Studies courses is a question that was chosen for exploration by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, in a three-year project located at Armidale College of Advanced Education.

As the study is essentially a longitudinal one, the focus of this paper is on the attitudes towards Aborigines of 100 primary children aged from six to nine years. Where it is relevant, the relationship between the teachers’ and pupils’ attitudes is discussed but in general, only the methodology of testing teacher attitudes is reported, as it is too early to say whether or not there is a causal relationship and whether or not it can be demonstrated. However, it is already apparent that the use, misuse or neglect of affective strategies in an Aboriginal Studies course affects both teachers’ and pupils’ attitudes towards Aborigines. This factor similarly affects the teacher’s predisposition, and competency, to teach about Aborigines in the classroom.

The first national Aboriginal Teacher Aide Workshop, organized by Alan Randell, Margaret Valadian and Art More and hosted by the Queensland Department of Education, was held in Brisbane, 19–22 June, 1978. It was attended by Aboriginal teacher aides from all states who, during the three day workshop, identified common areas of concern about the education of Aborigines and proposed acceptable strategies to achieve stated goals. We present below the recommendations from the report of the workshop.

Most teachers of Aboriginal children are aware that to teach reading to their students they have to jump significant hurdles, some of which are so high they appear as barriers to progress along the learning trail. We are often faced with substantial hearing losses, and/or poor health. Often Aboriginal children’s motivation to improve is poor, because of their poor health. More often than not, response is poor, due to the home environment and attitude towards learning. Employment prospects must dampen much enthusiasm for learning. All these social and health factors are reasonably well documented and teachers are aware of their implications and program their teaching accordingly. However, taking into account all these factors, we still have non-achievement, in the field of reading in particular. Several children appear healthy – and this status has been confirmed by medical personnel – appear to be positively motivated with all the teacher and parental encouragement needed to succeed, and yet, despite significant remedial efforts, reading development is extremely slow and tedious. Why?

Almost without exception we have found that the non-attaining Aboriginal children who for all intents and purposes should have been progressing, especially in reading, exhibited visual problems, most of which appear to stem from poor eye muscular control. These children have good sight, which is the ability to see, but lack good vision, which is the ability to use one’s sight correctly.

If these problems are not overcome, then the sight will deteriorate, or most likely, in the case of Aboriginal children who have little inducement to excell in reading, the child will ‘give up’.

This is the twenty-third year in which a special day for Aboriginal Australians has been organised. Pastor Doug Nichols (now Sir Douglas Nichols) held the first Aboriginal Sunday at his small chapel in Fitzroy, Melbourne in 1957. His original intention was to publicise and aim for recognition of the prior-ownership by Aborigines of Australia.

Aboriginal Sunday has now become National Aborigines Week (July 9–15), with Friday, July 13, designated National Aborigines Day this year.

A National Aborigines Day Observance Committee (NADOC) from Melbourne co-ordinates events, ranging from a Ball at the Lakeside International Hotel, Canberra, to displays by local schools around this year’s theme, What About Our Kids?

This article looks at changes in the educational area, and asks the question, “Where to now?”

For many years researchers have documented the high incidence of otitis media (middle ear disease) and hearing impairment among Aboriginal children. While basically suggesting medical intervention and socio-economic development as the main remedies of this situation, there has been some indication of a need for compensatory measures aimed at the education of these children (Stuart et at, 1972)

All of us in the broad field of Aboriginal education – teachers, aides, administrators – are innovators. For the first time there is an effort being made to modify the school system to cater for the needs and interests of Aboriginal students and parents – individualized treatment, bilingual teaching, meaningful consultation with the Aboriginal community, new studies in Aboriginal culture and Australian history. Seminars and teacher training, consultation on books and curriculum in preparation, provision of special resource teachers and Aboriginal teacher aides and a number of initiatives begun at individual schools by resource teachers and teacher aides themselves, are the means of change.

Innovation brings difficulties for the innovators, whatever field it is in. It is rare for new ideas to go into practice smoothly, because new ideas generally replace old ideas and old, established ideas have their followers. Quite often there will be a vested interest involved. Vested interests in education do not often involve money or profits but they do involve time and effort, and sometimes reputations. People don’t like hearing that some practices or beliefs they have spent great effort in developing, or learning, are now regarded as obsolete. So they resist. They resist change. To be able to handle such people is just one of the extra demands made on innovators. It calls for patience, the ability to remain firm in your own beliefs while trying to win people over. It calls for flexibility in your own plans where discussion reveals shortcomings.

Innovation also means an increased workload. Explaining to teachers, principals, students, parents and curriculum developers takes time. Preparing submissions takes time. Drawing up detailed action plans for any education program takes time. As education is funded by government and as innovations create interest among colleagues, report writing becomes part of the job – far more than when well-known practices are being followed. Finding solutions to problems which arise along the way takes more time than usual because there are no precedents to follow.

Roslyn Watson likes to stand out from the crowd. Which is almost unavoidable when you’re the only Aboriginal dancer on stage with the Queensland Ballet Company.

But being black in the very white, very competitive world of Australian ballet was not always an advantage. It has never been easy.

Roslyn has just started a five-week tour of the State, teaching dance to Aboriginal and white children in remote northern and far western outposts. Before she left she said: “I started late because we were handicapped financially. I had to really struggle.” When she said: “I think I’m a very determined person,” you knew she was not kidding. And when she said: “I am the first Aboriginal person to become a professional ballet dancer,” you understood the pride in her voice.

Born in Brisbane 24 years ago, she arrived third in a family of six children. Perhaps she inherited some of that determination from her parents. “Mum and dad both worked to put us all through school,” she said. “They were right behind us.” And there was every encouragement when she started learning ballet at the age of 12. “But I wouldn’t have been able to continue my dancing if I hadn’t got a study grant.”

That was in 1970 – she was 15 years old and Kathleen Gorham’s School of Dancing in Melbourne was a long way from the suburban Brisbane ballet classes. At first it was a disaster – she was not measuring up – and the crunch came when she had to return to Brisbane for a wedding. “Miss Gorham said when you get on the bus to Brisbane don’t bloody bother coming back,” said Roslyn.

I am one of a group of young Inala mothers who are involved in a playgroup in which we teach and learn with our children through their different stages of growth.

Each Thursday we are visited by Margaret Henry and Jeannie Barney. They offer me advice concerning different and new methods of play or sometimes we exchange methods of play and communication.

The play involved doesn’t require a set time or any expensive toys. Cotton reels, plastic containers etc., can provide hours of fun. However, we are fortunate enough to have a toy and book library from which our kids can select a toy or book for the week.

Once a month we all meet at the Inala Family Education Centre, and there we mothers have the chance to talk and our children to play. In general, we discuss and experiment with suggestions and ideas, and we get the chance to show off our creativeness in the making of an item of play for our sons or daughters.

The advantages of such a program are many. We are not only teaching our children but we’re learning with them also. We develop a relationship as friends with them, and they shall have some form of preparation for kindergarten. But, for me, there is nothing more fulfilling than to see my son repeat something I’ve shown him, and enjoy doing it.

On Friday July 7, Jungai Day was held at Bell Primary School, Preston, to mark the beginning of N.A.D.O.C. week for 1978. Bell has an enrolment of just under 500 and has a high and expanding migrant population.

In early 1977, the first Aboriginal child arrived at the school, to add to the already complex nature of the school’s ethnic structure. Children from other Aboriginal families soon followed as the Housing Commission pursued its policy of providing houses that would match the finances of Aboriginal people.

The Aboriginal children made an immediate impact on the school. For some teachers and children, it was their first encounter with Aboriginal people. The children also brought their own problems, apart from those usually faced by any child starting at a new school.

It would hardly be overstating the case to say that the Aboriginal families would not have accepted the houses that they did, if they had not been in dire straits financially. The houses generally were small, cold, and inadequately furnished.

During their first winter at the school, the children were absent for much of the time, due to illnesses that were almost certainly related to the quality of the housing. The long breaks in the children’s attendances, however, were also indicative of a negative attitude to school, an attitude that proved very difficult to change as the children were away so often.

The situation didn’t really begin to improve until Pam Pederson arrived at the school to work as a teacher aide. Pam filled a crucial liaison role between the school and the Aboriginal families, as well as being a focal point of support for the Aboriginal children within the school.

We departed from Sydney on Sunday, 22nd April, at 9.05 a.m. The trip was via Adelaide, where we arrived at 10.55 a.m. It was a fine day but very cold. We had to wait more than two hours for our connecting flight to Darwin, stopping over at Alice Springs.

The children were all so excited; for some, it was their first trip by plane and it was one, I’m sure, they will all remember. We arrived, finally, in Darwin at 5.15 p.m. E.S. Time. We almost passed out from the heat; it was 36°C.

Mr Silvey and John Killen met us at the airport. They brought some of the students from Kormilda College with them. We arrived at Kormilda College with enough time to be shown our quarters then we had to rush to dinner.

The college occupies a large section of ground. They have two huge complexes which house the students, an administration block, school buildings, a theatrette, a large library, donated by Rolf Harris, a canteen, and a very large modern dining room which is situated in the centre. There is a modern clinic with a full-time nursing sister. The matron of the college has residence there also. There is a large stock-room, a laundry, and for recreation the college has a huge sporting complex. This consists of two football ovals, a swimming pool, two tennis courts, basketball courts and a couple of volley-ball courts. At the northern end of the grounds there is a large portion set aside for gardening implements. Kormilda College has a driving-school also, and the students can actually get their drivers’ licences from the college.

The Armidale Aboriginal Education, Health and Welfare Conference, 1978, was held at Mary White College, University of New England, from Thursday, 30th November to Saturday, 2nd December, 1978. The conference was convened by Margaret Wells and Jane Purkiss, with the assistance of Ross Bell from Duval High School, Armidale. The conference was granted in-service status by the New South Wales Department of Education, and teachers attended from schools within North West Region. Academics and teachers, health and welfare workers attended and a large representation came from the Aboriginal community of Armidale.

The conference, which was funded jointly by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Armidale College of Advanced Education, dealt with : Aboriginal Teaching Assistants’ courses; Aboriginal housing; participation in decision making by Aboriginal communities; use of Aboriginal personnel; support for Aboriginal Health Centres; and District Aboriginal Education Committees. Workshops were also held on various aspects of Aboriginal education, health and welfare.

Key speakers at the conference included Professor Colin Tatz, Professor of Politics, University of New England, who discussed various aspects of race relations and their relevance to the classroom, and Stephen Albert, Chairman of the National Aboriginal Education Committee, who outlined guidelines which have been formulated by the Committee on Aboriginal education, and have been distributed for comment. They recommend that Aboriginal community members be included in decision making in areas concerning Aboriginal education. The Committee also recommends that local Aboriginal Education Committees, all Aboriginal in membership, be established for advisory and consultative purposes. Local District Aboriginal Education Committees would also have an advisory function for the National Aboriginal Education Committee.

An evaluation of the principles and aims of bi-lingual education, with special reference to Yuendumu School, Northern Territory.

Having sat himself down excitedly, Johnny, a little European pre-schooler, waits expectantly yet somewhat apprehensively for his teacher to appear. It is the first day of school, and Johnny has not met his teacher yet, but he knows she is a Warlpiri.

Thus little Johnny is confronted and bombarded with an unknown, incomprehensible language which only receives a vestige of meaning through the teacher’s reassuring gestures and prompting voice inflections.

How is it that Johnny finds himself in this position? Some years ago, when the view was still widely accepted that Johnny, being English (European), belonged to a race of such low intelligence that he was impossible to educate, he would not have been here at all.