bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Australian Bilingual Education: Some initial ideas directed at obtaining a just and thorough approach
Authors: Christie M. 
Published: November 2015

In the 1973 parliamentary session, the Australian Federal Government introduced acampaign to have Aboriginal children living in distinctive Aboriginal communities given their primary education in Aboriginal languages…and to supplement education for Aboriginal children with the teaching of traditional Aboriginal arts, crafts and skills mostly by Aboriginals themselves.Following that announcement, a committee was formed to investigate the possibilities of bilingual education and to direct the setting up of some initial programs. Five schools originally changed to a bilingual education program, and the number has grown to almost twenty. The original schools have now been in operation for five years, and there is a call for their evaluation. The government has expended large sums of money on the development of the programs, but there is still discussion concerning their possible future. Some of the key issues concerning bilingual education in the Northern Territory have not been resolved, and much of the development of programs was taken over by people of initiative in individual schools. This may or may not have been a good thing, but for the purposes of evaluation, we are presented with a very complex and freely structured situation. A just and constructive evaluation of all that has happened thus far will be difficult but invaluable for the government, the administrators, and the teachers.
Mathematics Programs for Indigenous Students: Some Guidelines
Authors: Wilson Ross 
Published: November 2015

This paper provides an overview for teachers who wish to develop a more appropriate mathematics program for their Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students. It covers cultural, linguistic and environmental issues, as well as purely mathematical and methodological procedures. Current literature and reports from teachers indicate that many indigenous students are not performing well in mathematics. It is hoped that the suggestions contained in this article will lead to a more rewarding experience for both teacher and student.It is generally agreed by teachers of Aboriginal and Islander students that most students are not performing at a satisfactory level. This conclusion has been documented by Bourke and Parkin, by the Curriculum and Research Branches of the Departments of Education in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, and by others, including Bishop, who wrote –Experience has shown that many Aboriginal children do not manifest many [mathematical] outcomes at a level comparable with that obtained by European children.The causes of this relatively unsatisfactory performance are complex, but may usually be traced to a combination of environmental, cultural and linguistic differences, as well as to unsuitable teaching programs and methods.There is a noticeable lack of literature on the subject available to teachers, and it is hoped that the following comments will be useful in drawing up a mathematics program whose content and methodology will be more relevant and meaningful to the students.
Derby Hosts First Graduation
Authors: Lawley Mount 
Published: November 2015

Over 80 people attended the graduation of the first students to complete the Advanced Education Entry Certificate course at the Derby Civic Centre on Sunday, August 12.The Director of Mount Lawley College, in presenting the awards to the successful students, expressed the college’s delight in being able to conduct the ceremony in the Kimberleys and that the college was hopeful that it could continue to provide a service to people in remote areas of the state.The first five graduates – Agnes Albert, Verna Lockyer, Rosita Lovell, Christopher Bin Kali and Selina King, had completed the course in minimum time, which was a very commendable feat, considering the course only commenced in 1978 and the program was entirely by correspondence.All the first five graduates had completed the course and been granted their award with credit. This entitled them to unconditional entrance into teacher training at Mount Lawley College.Speakers at the ceremony included Mr Steven Albert, Chairman of the National Aboriginal Education Committee, Mr Jim Biendurry of the National Aboriginal Committee and Mrs Ester Bevan of the National Aboriginal Education Committee.Mr Albert, while congratulating the graduates, stated that this was only the first step and he hoped it would not be very long before these students would graduate as qualified teachers and return to work in their own communities.The first graduates had done a magnificent job, according to Mr Biendurry, and shown all other people what they could do by studying and hard work. He wished all other students in the course every success with their studies and hoped to see many more graduates from the course in the near future.
Yirrkala : Aboriginal Studies
Authors: Nurruwutthun Daynawa 
Published: November 2015

Daynawa Nurruwutthun is 20 years old and a teacher at Yirrkala Community School. She belongs to the Munyuku clan and is of the Yirritja Moiety and Narritjan sub-section.She attended school at Yirrkala and started teaching in 1975. During 1976 and 1977 she completed the 1st Year of the On-site Teacher Training Program at Yirrkala.After attending the Bilingual Conference in Darwin in 1976 and talking with other Aboriginal teachers she returned to Yirrkala determined to begin an Aboriginal Studies Program for the Infant School.After discussions with other Aboriginal teachers, four areas of study were developed. These have now been extended to the six following areas: bush food and sea food; natural science; Homeland Centres; old ways; bush medicine; culture, i.e. social organisation and behaviour.
All Responsibility Will Be with Parents: Outstation Education in the Northern Territory
Authors: Haslett R. , Whiteford R. 
Published: November 2015

Q. Why do you want a school?A. It is very important for our children to learn.Q. What sort of teacher do you want?A. First of all, Aboriginal teachers to start.Q. How many teachers do you want?A. One for a start.Q. What do you want them to teach?A. Counting, mathematics, reading, writing in English, Aboriginal culture.Q. Do you want a school building?A. We are thinking about an open-air one, a hut with bark and bush materials. Later on we may build a better school.Another question concerned the degree of assistance required from Europeans.A. Everything concerning schools will be run only by the local people, but we will appreciate the ideas and help of Europeans when we ask them. All responsibility will be with parents.This conversation is extracted from a report by Maria Brandl, written in 1974. She was talking to a group of people who had started an Outstation in the Yirrkala area.
‘Make the Most of Yourself … for that is all there is of you.’
Authors: Chapman V. 
Published: November 2015

This profile of Mr Via Chapman is adapted from the December 1979 edition of “Aboriginal Quarterly” with permission of the Editor and of Mr Chapman.In submitting his story to “Aboriginal Quarterly” in response to that journal’s request to hear from some of the 15 fully qualified Aboriginal teachers in NSW, Mr Chapman observed:
“I didn’t set out to be the first Aboriginal teacher or the first Aboriginal principal or the first Aboriginal anything – these issues are not really important to me personally…I reckon I could write a book and fill in the sadder and more negative bits – but to what avail? I subscribe to Yunupingu’s comment on Australia Day – ‘we must leave history behind and look forward’.”
The Establishment of Regional Aboriginal Committees on Education
Authors: O’Brien M.L. 
Published: November 2015

It is a significant fact that in 150 years of European settlement there is still only a handful of Aborigines working in the field of education in this state. This means that Aboriginal parents have very little say in the educational policies and programs affecting their children and they are concerned about this. Because of the fact that many Aboriginal people have had little contact with the school situation, (in fact up till comparatively recently, many, as children, were actually excluded from attendance at school) they regard it as an alien institution, representing an academic world to which they do not belong. Consequently many Aboriginal people are hesitant to approach the school under any pretext, even for the purpose of enrolling their children. They need a corporate voice, an avenue of approach by which they can make contact with educational authorities, to make known their needs and aspirations, at whatever level necessary, and to feel assured that action will be taken in response to these needs.With the object of providing a corporate voice for Aborigines in the educational scene in 1977 State Consultative Groups were set up in all states except Western Australia. Here in Western Australia, the need was seen by the Education Department to provide for organization at the grass roots level, and to plan for regional committees throughout the State. In September 1978, I was transferred from a classroom to the Aboriginal Education Branch as a community liaison officer, to instigate and facilitate the setting up of these committees, and to this date initial meetings have been held for this purpose in the following towns each serving a particular region: Bunbury, Kalgoorlie, Kellerberrin, Narrogin and Moora. At each meeting the keen response from the local Aboriginal community has indicated that this move to establish regional committees has their full approval and support. It is expected that by the end of 1980 a committee will have been established in each of the Education Department’s regions.
Schooling at Small Settlement
Authors: Roberts P. 
Published: November 2015

I was a teacher at the Small settlement school in 1977. It was not a good year for the school by any reckoning and I thought I would leave it at that when I left in December of that year – the day after school finished. Put it down to experience, let all the sordid little details dissolve in time. But they didn’t and I never got Small settlement out of my mind. In 1978, I visited the school anew and this paper is a result of my observations and interviews.It was written with teachers in mind, particularly young teachers going into Aboriginal schools for the first time. However, it may have more general interest: many features of the school’s history are characteristic of the history of Northern Territory administration. A cursory acquaintance with some of the things that have gone on before may help to provide a basis for the courage and awareness needed for working effectively in an oppressive environment. A historical perspective may assist teachers and others in approaching their clients with the humility appropriate for making their work interesting and their influences positive.
Aboriginal and Islander Advisory Group Catholic Diocese of Townsville
Authors: King C. 
Published: November 2015

In January this year, the Bishop convened a meeting in Townsville of people who are involved in the education of Aboriginal and Islander children. The purpose of the meeting was to form a Committee to review and co-ordinate Diocesan policy in regards to the education of Aboriginal students.At its second meeting, the Review and Co-ordinating Committee considered a proposal by the Aboriginal Advisor, Catholic Education Office. The essence of that proposal was that there ought to be an Aboriginal and Islander Group to advise on matters relating to Aboriginal and Islander education. Subsequently the Committee approved of the proposal and a submission was made to the Diocesan Education Council requesting that an Advisory Group be established.
Objectives in the Education of Aborigines : Some Aboriginal Views
Authors: Watts B.H. 
Published: November 2015

A variety of statements made by Aboriginal people and groups about what they see as the aims of education is presented. There are diverse emphases but a common thread relates to the education of children in both cultures and a wish to see the children grow in competence in Western skills and knowledge but also retain their own culture and its associated knowledge, skills and values.The following sets of statements, made by people from various locations throughout Australia, exhibit concern for the achievement of the basic skills, for education that will permit job access (including emphasis by some on education to tertiary level), for the development of skills to live in the modern industrialized world and/or to contribute to their own communities, and concerns expressed by many that children learn about their own culture, some seeing this as part of the school program and others believing it should be taught by the Aboriginal people themselves.
Helpful Hints for Beginning Teachers of Aborigines
Authors: Huggonson D. 
Published: November 2015

The first problem that beginning teachers will face on ‘day one’ in the classroom is a communication barrier. Teachers fresh from universities and colleges of advanced education will find that the language they are using is too sophisticated for their students. Therefore they must be conscious of the need to simplify their own language while simultaneously improving the vocabulary of their students. The beginning teacher will also find that the majority of students use non-standard English. It should be noted, however, that the use of non-standard English is not a sign of backwardness. Peer pressure not to appear ‘flash’ is a strong factor in Aborigines maintaining their speech patterns.Once the young teacher ‘gets his ear in’ he or she will find communication becomes easier. To speed this process I suggest that for the first few weeks the teacher spends a considerable amount of time listening to his or her students. Drama games such as ‘biographies’ and class debates on various topics are useful. It is also important that during this period the beginning teacher be honest and forthright about his or her own background. I found my Year 8 class extremely interested in my family and their background. A family photograph album is a good resource to stimulate class discussion. The students should be encouraged to bring in their family’s photographs. (Children from particularly impoverished backgrounds can be offered the use of a camera if they don’t have any family photographs.) These photographs can lead to the development of environmental readers for remedial readers.
A Good Way to Teach Spelling
Authors: Christie M. 
Published: November 2015

Like most teachers, I started my career using the old method of teaching spelling. Each week I would make up or find in a book a list of spelling words to be learnt by the class or group. Each day a different learning activity would be employed and on Friday the children would be tested. There are lots of difficulties with teaching by this method – so many, in fact, that like most teachers I gave it up after a while and for a long time didn’t really work on spelling at all. Probably the main problem was the wasted effort. Despite the teacher’s efforts selecting appropriate words for the class, it was usually uncomfortably clear that the words which each individual needed to learn to spell were seldom included at the right time. It seems that for every ten words a child had in his list, four of them he already knew, four he didn’t know and didn’t need to know, one he learnt and forgot during the weekend, and only one survived. This is a perfect example of something being almost impossible to teach when it is divorced from the meaningful situation.So it became clear to me that, although it was important to teach spelling, the traditional formal methods seemed not to work very well. Another more serious problem that I noticed, especially with Aboriginal children, was their inability or unwillingness to make a reasonable attempt at spelling words they didn’t know. If they wanted to spell a word, most of them had efficient ways of finding it – looking at yesterday’s stories, asking friends or the teacher – but few of them would actually sit down and think about the problem themselves. It never seemed to occur to them that spelling could be worked out with a bit of thought; to them the answer was always out there somewhere and had to be located. Even traditional methods of teaching spelling do little to help children use their own imagination and thinking power in spelling because the words to be learnt are still provided fron an external source, the teacher.What I was looking for was a method that
Building a Bridge to English Literacy in Aboriginal Bilingual Education Programs
Authors: Graham B. 
Published: November 2015

The aim of bilingual education is to develop a person who can think, speak, read, write and act appropriately in the language and culture of both his home and the wider society. Therefore, although for sound educational reasons the first formal reading experiences of children in a bilingual program are provided in their mother-tongue and these activities are maintained and extended throughout the child’s school life, at an appropriate time a bridge to English literacy needs to be built. Once this is done the world of English literature should be explored as far as is possible for each individual child. Sarah Gudschinsky stresses the importance of the addition of English literacy skills for pre-literate groups within a wider society when she reminds us that
people who are deprived of this opportunity will find it difficult to take their rightful place in modern society. (1973, p.138)She has defined a literate person as one who
in language that he speaks, can read and understand anything he could have understood if it had been spoken to him and can write, so that it can be read, anything that he can say. (1973, p.5)
Aboriginal Schooling
Authors: Coker J.G. 
Published: November 2015

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?
Bellbrook : My Father’s Country
Authors: Quinlan M. 
Published: November 2015

Mrs Quinlan’s story has been transcribed verbatim from tapes recorded between October 1982 and February 1983.I first met Mrs Quinlan in 1981 when her daughter, Mrs P.Dixon became one of four Aboriginal people training at Armidale and New England Hospital. As I was involved peripherally in this training program, I was introduced by the trainees to their families and friends.Mrs Quinlan decided some time during the following months that she would like me to record her story. She had some doubts about how we might go about it, but she was definite that she wanted to make a statement to leave for her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Further, she wanted to establish her right to Bellbrook which she considers to belong to her and her surviving siblings because her father established the settlement.Mrs Quinlan also decided that I would need to see Bellbrook, that she wanted to “show me the place” so that I might understand better what she was talking about once we started recording. Consequently a group of us visited Bellbrook on October 8th, 9th and 10th 1982. Mrs Quinlan began telling her story at our camp site on Nulla Nulla Creek. She continued over several Sunday afternoon sessions at my home, a venue she chose.One of Mrs Quinlan’s greatest worries was “how are we going to put it all together”, the other “but is it going to be really important?”
Outstation Schools at Yirrkala
Authors: Yunupingu Bakamana 
Published: November 2015

During 1973 the outstation movement at Yirrkala was going in full force. Aboriginal people were moving from Yirrkala to start up their own communities consisting of numbers of their own clan.During that time Aboriginal people asked many questions about school. So in 1975 the outstation schools were established and were serviced by two visiting teachers from the central school.The names of the communities and the clans that established their outstations in terms of houses and school are these:Garrthalala (Djapu); Gurrumuru (Dhalwayu); Gangan (Dhalwayu); Baniyala (Madampa).Since the above places got established and had a school going the communities listed below got started and are presently operating.Dhalinybuy (Wangurri); Wandawuy (Djapu); and Bawaka (Gumatj) talking about starting a school; Biranybirany (Gumatj) talking about starting a school.
Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Teaching Styles at Milingimbi School
Authors: Deslandes C.S. 
Published: November 2015

Dr Ian Malcolm (WA) has shown in several papers the difficulties teachers have communicating with Aboriginal children in the classrooms. Dr Stephen Harris (NT), in his PhD thesis, defined some of the differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal sociolinguistic rules of communication.This study hypothesises that the rules of communication and organisation in the classroom used by Aboriginal teachers at Milingimbi will be different from those used by white Australian teachers.It concludes that the two groups are significantly different in teaching styles, each tending towards its own traditional sociolinguistic rules, with some integration of rules from the other culture.No conclusions are drawn as to the effectiveness of each group.It is stressed that this is very much only a pilot study to open the way for further research and discussion.
A New Course : Australian Race Relations
Authors: Stone S. 
Published: November 2015

Australian Race Relations is a new Group Two Year 12 subject recently accredited by the Victorian Institute of Secondary Education for teaching in 1984.Such a course is long overdue. It is necessary that all Australians understand the attitudes of the conquerors and the consequences of the manner in which this country was taken. Only then can Aboriginal land rights and other claims for compensation be properly appreciated.
The Inclusion of Studies about Aborigines in the Curriculum
Authors: Schmider J. 
Published: November 2015

In its first report to the Director-General of Education, QATSICC stated that -It is important the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be encouraged to develop and retain a pride in their own cultural heritage…There is also a need for the wider Australian society to be encouraged to appreciate and become aware of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage in this state.