Comparisons...

This is a brief introduction to what might be a much longer post after I sit down and think about it in a little more detail. It might even be a series of posts that might just be the start of an eventual thesis style document. I have always been fascinated with education and disadvantage. After all, I am now working in the field where education and disadvantage are two of the most critical elements of what I deal with on a daily basis.

I was standing in the shower thinking about the similarities between the disadvantage that Australian indigenous students endure and the disadvantage that Native American students endure and thought that this is an area of research that I would like to explore some more. You can ask why, why would you be thinking such things whilst standing in the shower, but there is no guarantee of an answer.

It is also an issue that allows me to get up on my soap box and do a little preaching. Although, the reality is that too much soap box preaching might ruffle a few feathers and earn me a reprimand or more from an unhappy employer. Such is life as Uncle Ned is reported to have said.

A brief look shows that there are real similarities in areas such as income / poverty, literacy and numeracy, low birth weights, drug and alcohol (ab)use, and access to standard services. The idea that education is a gateway to greater opportunity assumes that there is a gateway that can be accessed and that the gateway, once opened, stays open in such a way that the most can be made of those opportunities.

Creating an opportunity is a whole lot more than some pencil pusher moving amounts between columns in a book and giving the money a name. Money is not opportunity. What is missing in most programs, no matter how noble, is compromise.

To Be Continued...

The Colly Crew on ABC TV's 7.30 Program...

The Colly Crew are moving onwards and upwards. The things that we do are being recognised as making a difference. They are being recognised as allowing for change. They are being recognised for creating opportunities. And, they are being recognised for opening doors.

The Colly Crew grew out of a program called "Step-By-Step". It is a hip hop based program designed to engage kids with school and their education. It is worth noting that Collarenebri is a small, very rural and remote community. The school is a central school and there is a significant local Indigenous community with a very rich history. Consequently, the program is often referred to as being an Indigenous hip hop program. For me, perhaps a community hip hop program is a more accurate reflection of what we are actually doing.

About the program. There are elements of literacy and numeracy, but it is more than just about literacy and numeracy it is about understanding how the choices we make impact upon our lives. It is about how we can take control of our lives and make smarter decisions and achieve those things that perhaps others in our families have never had the opportunity to do. Any teachers out there looking for a spoken word, performance poetry, rap unit of work that incorporates what we have done so successfully in this program let me know, we are always happy to share.

I am not sure how to embed just the video. Nevertheless, the link to the 7.30 Program and their report can be found here.

I encourage you to watch it.

All feedback is accepted. I am sure that there are those out there who love what we are doing and are amazed by it. I am also not naive enough to believe that absolutely every single person out there is in favour of it. Keep it civil though.

Australian Aboriginal Proverb...

"We are all visitors to this time, this place. 

We are just passing through. 

Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... 

and then we return home."

It is important to learn something new every single day. It keeps the mind fresh and active. I found this proverb on a bookmark. I post it here because it says a lot about how I want to live my life "to observe, to grow, to love" and perhaps I would add "to teach, to develop, to facilitate opportunities". Yet, the reality is that we all are just passing through and at some point we return "home".

Collarenebri Central School -- Generation One -- Closing the Gap...

If you watch one thing today, then watch this.



This is why I came back to teaching.

This is a rap that Collarenebri school students put together. It has become a very highly acclaimed piece of art. They performed it last year at the ARIA ceremony at the Opera House down in the 'Big Smoke' (aka Sydney). They have received numerous requests to perform it elsewhere.

My personal view is that these students need to be nominated for a ""Deadly". A Deadly is an award for excellence. In some forms of Aboriginal English the word deadly means excellent.

We are going to be working on a new rap this year. Hopefully, we will work on new raps every year. The students love getting involved and it has been a very positive influence on the students, the school, and the community as a whole.

The video is courtesy of Desert Pea Media.

All of these students remain in school.

Enjoy your weekend.

The 1965 Freedom Ride...

It is hard to believe that it is 46 years this month that the Freedom Ride of a group of young activists brought the cold, hard reality of racism, segregation, and the poor state of Aboriginal / Indigenous health, housing and education into the living rooms of ordinary Australians who had consciously or sub-consciously turned a blind eye to the challenges facing our indigenous brothers and sisters.

The Freedom Ride is being recreated this year. This Wednesday will see the 2011 activists passing through Collarenebri where the school will receive them and allow them to talk to the students about those times, the present and the future. I am really looking forward to it and I know that the students are looking forward to it to. It is more than just a period off to many of them.

An interesting factoid is that the group that organised the original Freedom Ride came about because of some stinging criticism of a protest that activists at the University of Sydney had held in support of US Civil Rights and the plight of African-Americans in the early 1960s. This criticism was essentially that it is all fine and dandy to be supporting those in the US in their struggle for equality, but how about you all devote some of that zealous exuberance of youth to advocating for those problems afflicting your own backyard.

From this criticism was born Student Action For Aborigines (SAFA). The group was led by Charles Perkins. Another notable face in the crowd was current Chief Justice of the New South Wales Supreme Court, Jim Spigelman. And, the rest, as they say is history. Hopefully, the students will soak up a great deal of this history through the process.

I just remembered, it is also Black History Month in the US...

A Referendum To Recognise Indigenous Australians...

In a lot of ways it is pretty sad that Australia is about to embark on a process that might culminate in the long overdue recognition of our first peoples in the Constitution. Yet, perhaps it is a case of better late than never. Nevertheless, referendums are notoriously difficult to get done. In fact, since federation, Australia has only managed to pass eight out of forty-four.

The referendum reality is that to be successful there is a need for a majority of votes throughout the country and a majority of states to mark the YES box.

There is no doubt that our indigenous brothers and sisters hold a very unique place in our collective history as a nation. The Prime Minister does not really need to tell us that. In any event, it would seem that the governmental bureaucratic answer to formulating a referendum question needs an expert panel. This is a sure-fire way to either kill an idea altogether or produce a question that does not reach the outcome that started the process in the first place.

Hopefully, Ms. Gillard has her finger on the pulse and is right when she claims that there is bipartisan support for the move to get a referendum passed on recognising indigenous Australians.

It is expected that the 'expert' panel will do the consultation thing throughout 2011 and report back to parliament by the end of 2011. It will be interesting to see whether the government goes to a vote on the referendum as a stand-alone exercise or wait till the next federal election and provide an additional piece of paper for people to fill in when they are in the ballot box. On a personal note, a separate ballot would work for me as this would translate to an extra day's worth of income.

I am hopeful that if as a nation we can vote to give our indigenous brothers and sisters the right to vote as we did back in 1967, then we can surely get ourselves sufficiently organised to make it possible to recognise that the first peoples of our great nation were not the convicts and their masters that wended their way here in 1788.

"Negro", "Black", or "African-American"?

This blog of mine generally focuses on issues relating to Australia and Indonesia. However, the whole point was that the blog was to be a place that I could write about anything that piqued my interest or that I wanted, or felt the need, to pass comment on.

Politically correctness and racism are issues that pique my interest. They do so because I sometimes feel that the drive towards politically correctness is a hindrance to full, frank, and open debate about issues. In this case, the issue is race. Race is an issue that is highly emotionally charged, and is one where there are quite divergent opinions amongst those who are subject to the terms that politically correctness generates for us.

This brings me to the substance of this post. I read an interesting article today over at Slate today. The article was discussing when the word "Negro" became taboo. The taboo came soon after the book Black Power: The Politics of Liberation was published in 1968 (cover of the 1992 version is above).

The purpose of the Slate article seemed to be exploring the drive to political correctness in making the term "Black" taboo in preference to the use of the term African-American. I would encourage those with an interest in this sort of subject matter to read the article.

The parts of the story that I found most interesting related to how organizations deal with the changing dynamics, and the drive, to replace certain words with new words while simultaneously stigmatizing the previous term. Also interesting to me was that the move towards the term "African-American" does not have universal support as a majority of people are seemingly non-plused one way or the other with respect to African-American or Black.

With regards to organizations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has not changed its name but uses the word 'colored' in very limited contexts. The United Negro College Fund tends to go by the initials, UNCF, rather than the full name. Seemingly, this is an exercise in re-branding a familiar and ongoing concern that helps a lot of young people achieve their goals. Indeed, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Bringing this back home for me got me to thinking about how we refer to Aboriginal Australians. There was a time where the were referred to as Blacks. There was also a time where the preferred term was Aboriginal, and seemingly of late there has been a move towards the term "Indigenous Australians". I am sure organizations in the Australian context would encounter similar considerations in relation to names. For example, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) before it was dissolved.

I do not know about anyone else, but I find this sort of 'stuff' interesting.

Sorry for What?

It was not so long ago that the Australian Prime Minister stood before an expectant and silent crowd and uttered a word that many had longed to here, SORRY!

Yet a couple of months on the horrors that afflict our indigenous communities continue unabated and despite a last ditch intervention totalling some AUD 1.5 billion.

This is truly one of those WTF moments! Saying sorry is and was the easy part! Now it is time for the hard yards to be hoed and if we as a community are not prepared to do that then the uttering of an empty sorry should and must be derided for what it is a political gesture without the necessary testicular fortitude to make it real or to make it meaningful.

A story in The Sydney Morning Herald caught my eye for a number of reasons. Where is the 1.5 billion dollars going to? What was the government sorry for? And why isn't anyone doing anything about this.

The title of the news piece:

"Sordid sex trade thrives after $1.5b intervention"

And the opening couple of paragraphs go like this:

"ABORIGINAL girls as young as 13 have been given cash, drugs, alcohol and taxi rides in exchange for sex in the Northern Territory mining town of Nhulunbuy.

Indigenous elders have asked police to investigate a group of non-indigenous men in the town who they say have been sexually abusing Aboriginal teenagers for years.


A group of four young indigenous women gave the Herald details of abuse by men they were prepared to identify to police. They said at least three Aboriginal girls were sexually abused at the age of 13."

The "culture of silence" has to end! The sexual abuse of children (and adults) is wrong, plain and simple!

If we, as a community, are truly sorry then we cannot stand for this kind of treatment and abuse any longer in any community...

Australia Says "Sorry" to the Stolen Generations

Today hopefully marks a turning point in Indigenous relations in Australia with the Government finally recognizing the wrongs of the past and apologizing for them. What will become of these words in the future? Only time will tell but if you have to start somewhere then this is as good a place as any to start the journey to full reconciliation and healing.

The Apology:

"I give notice that, at the next sitting, I will move:

That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia."

An Apology At Last

The road to reconciliation has been long and it has been tortuous but with the imminent apology to be offered by the current Australian government to our indigenous brothers and sisters is long overdue, yet it will shorten the road to full reconciliation. My only hope is that the apology includes the word successive governments have opposed for so long, SORRY!

As a nation we must be sorry for the policies of forced assimilation, as a nation we must be sorry for the policies that led to forced removal of children from their families, as a nation we must be sorry that since that light came on an our indigenous brothers and sisters gained their rights as citizens in 1967 that they have never really been afforded the same access as others. Simply, we just must be sorry.

The issue has never really been one of compensation for past wrongs. You can never really compensate for the losses endured. However, as a nation we must acknowledge that we got it wrong. Perhaps the principles of what occurred were blurred by a desire to do good. There are legitimate arguments that the underpinnings of the initial policy was to make positive changes but the systematic implementation of the policy resulted in the degradation and in many cases destruction of a vibrant aboriginal culture. We must, as a nation, be ashamed that many of the indigenous languages that so widely populated our nation have disappeared and are never to be whispered again.

A poll conducted by the Sydney Morning Herald suggest that a slim majority are for an apology but there is no question in my mind that one is necessary. Once sorry is said then we can move on to recognising our rich indigenous culture through a constitutional amendment to the preamble. Amending the Constitution is going to be far more difficult proposition than saying sorry. Constitutional amendments in Australia are notorious for failing to gain sufficient support from the community to pass. The above poll suggests that when push comes to shove that amending the Constitution is not going to be an easy ask.

The apology is scheduled to be made on 13 February 2008 with the opening of Parliament with a brief ceremony of welcome to be held by the Ngunnawal people.

It is important to recognize past wrongs because without this acknowledgement there can be no justice, without justice there can be no closure, and without closure there can be no 'true' reconciliation.

Revisiting the Past - Making it Right

Australia has a rich and proud history and just like any other country we have issues in our history that must never make us proud. But historically these dark moments have always been swept under the carpet or hidden out of sight, yet always haunting us and preventing us from moving forward as we might have done as leaders in reconciliation. The cold hard reality of Australian history is that it does not start in 1788 with the arrival of the first fleet and a couple of boat loads of criminals.

This arrival perpetrated another myth in Australian history that the British were simply off-loading their petty criminals to a desolate land many thousands of miles away; another out of sight out of mind scenario. Yet, another reality that Australia is only now beginning to talk about more openly is that many of these transported criminals were not petty thieves stealing bread and lace handkerchiefs but hardened murders and rapists. So, this badge of honor that many Australians claim of being descended from convicts might also be revisited just to make sure your famous ancestors were in fact petty criminals and not the more-hardened version.

Australia's history started many, many, many millenia before the arrival of the British folks from across the vast seas. Australia may in fact claim to have one of the longest continuing living indigenous cultures in the world. The history of Australia's indigenous population in the post-1788 period is anything but rosy. This tragic past includes the extermination, perhaps even a holocaust in the terms of the outcome, but in any language it was the complete annihilation of the indigenous aboriginal population from Tasmania. When one considers this event it is hardly surprising what was to follow.

It was not until 1967 that Australia's indigenous population were even recognized as citizens, which not only allowed people to vote but also to own property and the like; those things that everyone else always takes for granted. Yet, this is not the start or finish point of this tragic story. The story is also way more than a single blog entry. The policies of successive Australian governments was always characterized as protecting the indigenous population from itself, the underlying premise was very much one of assimilation and not multiculturalism, simply an ill-conceived attempt to make black into white.

These policies included removing indigenous children from their families and fostering them with white families. It is not rocket science to imagine what sort of confusion this is likely to do to a child who is destined to never fit in anywhere and never have a full understanding of their cultural identity and underpinnings. This governmental stupidity spawned the stolen generations and it is only now that the broader Australian community is getting a sense of the tragedy that was allowed to occur under our collective noses.

Once again there is too much to this story for a single blog entry. So, to the point! Can we make the past right? Probably not and probably never. However, we can try. The Prime Minister, although unlikely to be re-elected for another term has indicated that the current government would hold a referendum to insert specific wording into the Australian Constitution to recognize indigenous Australians. Perhaps too little too late, but it is a start. This aside the most appropriate response is a full-fledged apology. This apology must not be short on substance. It must recognize that the policies of the past led not only to mistakes but to tragedy and it is these tragedies that must be recognized. It really is a simple word - Sorry! Let us all move towards reconciliation not only in words but in content. We might not be able to make it right but we can commit to not making the same errors of the past.

Sorry!