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Education swirls around central Australia

By Harry Throssell - posted Monday, 5 June 2006


When Lawry Mahon made a trip to an Aboriginal community 240 kms north-east of Alice Springs in 1996 he made a striking discovery.

“When I first visited Atitjere”, the Victoria University education lecturer writes, “I noticed there was an absolute lack of Aboriginal faces in class books and kids’ stories. Most of the school books contained only white faces, white kids, white stories. They were all about non-Aboriginal culture, but in the middle of a remote Aboriginal community. That’s when I got the idea for SWIRL”.

His idea was to fill the cultural gap in school reading materials with what became the Story Writing In Remote Locations project.

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In a new report Supporting Indigenous Australians, Mahon tells of the school books with only white people, ignoring the kids’ interest in watching the sky which linked with their own mythology, how they saw the Southern Cross as an emu, their own cultural lore. He was not surprised they were not enthusiastic about attending school.

Few Aborigines were employed in Alice Springs or remote communities, a big problem being difficulties with spoken and written English. Mahon was also concerned about ear infections, which interfere with learning, so was campaigning to have salt-water swimming pools installed in every Aboriginal community.

Mahon returned to the region the following year with Aboriginal Field Officer Rodney Baird to work out a scheme in which children would describe their daily activities. From there he involved Victorian university students in helping the children record these yarns. It is now an annual event and there is an archive of many hundreds of local stories capturing events like building a garden, making a sculpture, playing sport, hunting and gathering, rock art and bush medicine.

When Mahon’s students took classes, which were based on the children’s own world, attendances leapt from 30 to 100 per cent. In one case 20 children registered for a course and 40 turned up. Youngsters could speak in their own tongue but later were encouraged also to use English, usually a requirement for employment.

Nicky, a primary school girl in Areyonga, is asked to say what she can buy in the local shop with a $5 note. She tells her story:

I could buy two packets of bangles for $5. The baby food at the shop costs $2.90. Canned vegetables, I can buy them for less than $5. I am holding the tray of vegetables, they cost $4.85 so I could buy them. I am pointing to the golden syrup at the shop, it costs less than $5, rice for less than $5. I am sitting on the floor with the five packets of noodles, they cost $1 each so I could buy five packets with my $5. Pancake mixture at the shop, I like to eat pancakes, I can buy this with the $5. I’m trying the dress on. It costs more than $5, I would need six $5 notes.

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Theresa and Daphne write about a small bush with a beautiful smell called "Irmangka-Irmangka", found in the desert near Areyonga. They explain the procedure for making it into bush medicine:

This what we do with it:

We gather just as much as we need to make the medicine. We take it back home and dry it out in the hot sun. When Irmangka-Irmangka is dry and crunchy we get the grinding stone ready. We place the dry Irmangka-Irmangka leaves on the large flat stone and grind them with a smaller stone until they turn into a fine powder.

We light a small fire and melt some butter in a tin. We need to get it boiling. We would rather use olive oil but the shop in Areyonga doesn’t always have olive oil.

When the butter or olive oil is boiling, we add the Irmangka-Irmangka powder to it and stir it in. We watch it boil for a few minutes, until the beautiful smells from the Irmangka-Irmangka powder soak into the butter.

We need to strain the solids from the mixture, and we do this through the nice clean paper cloth. Now we can pour the medicine into a jar, ready to use. It smells very strong - like menthol. Anyone with a cold or sore throat can rub some on their chest and soon be better.

Irmangka-Irmangka is Areyonga’s very special bush medicine.

Lucinda writes about rock art.

My name is Lucinda and I live in Areyonga and I like to make rock art. First, I crush some ochre on a large rock. Then I mix it with water to make it runny. I fill my mouth with the muddy water and place my hand where I want the handprint to be, and spray the muddy water over my hand and the rock. See! I have left a print of my hand on the rock. I showed all the SWIRLers how to make rock art.

Most school students are in primary school, some in secondary, and there are now also programs for pre-school children. Elders and parents perform an important function by contributing their knowledge and experience. The exercises are documented in English and the child’s own language, recorded with computer, digital camera, video, audio recording, artwork and clay animation. Each child thus has his or her own story as a printed, laminated and bound book. This can be shared with family and friends, and with a copy in the school library. In 2005 80 books were produced.

Supporting Indigenous Australians is published by IBM which over the past 10 years has provided over 100 personal computers, ThinkPads and printers to SWIRL communities, the equipment housed at the local school and available for use by the whole community.

“Over the past ten years, 300 education students from Victoria University, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, La Trobe University and various European and American educational institutions - including Harvard - have taken part in SWIRL”. More than 30 students have returned later as teachers.

It was common for teachers in remote communities to stay only seven months or so, but after the SWIRL experience a dozen stayed for three years, and two have become principals in remote schools. Plans are under way for members of the Atitjere community to attend computing courses at the University in Melbourne.

Originally workshops were held in school holidays, but in 2004, with funding from the Northern Territory Government, they were held during term time in the afternoons, SWIRL student teachers cover not only the Alice Springs area but they also visit the Barkly Tableland.

One community involved from the beginning is Areyonga, 240kms west of Alice, where 200 people, mostly from the Pitjantjatajara tribe with a few Arrente and Walpiri, live in an area reserved for Aboriginal people: others need a permit to visit.

SWIRL teachers are aware Australian Aborigines are the custodians of the world’s oldest living culture dating back many thousands of years, well before human written records began. Bearing in mind written records have not been kept, stories are told to educate youngsters on expected behaviour, survival skills, the tribe’s history and spiritual beliefs. The SWIRL team therefore takes care to encourage community elders to be involved in the programs on bush trips. This stamps SWIRL with the blessing of elders, who see their traditional stories respected.

One trainee teacher, Dani, expressed some apprehension before going up country. “I expect it to be a culture shock … some of the community may not see education in the same light as we do … I hope we do meet the community’s needs”.

Megan described her experience. “Team members are fully integrated into their host community, camping in the school grounds and spending every day with local people. They are welcomed by the children and their families and are often invited back … Most of all, they have fun”.

Tracy: “I really miss the children … I am seriously thinking about living in an Aboriginal community when I finish my degree ... I absolutely love Aboriginal culture”.

Naomi: “Trips like this one should be made compulsory for all training teachers! … Ignorance is often a result of lack of understanding. If we can influence people through sharing our experiences … then perhaps Australia would be a lot better off”.

Daniella Eddy participated in the first SWIRL program, has returned to the Northern Territory six times, and is now acting principal at Harts Range School in Atitjere. “I got a real sense for the communities … Having been with SWIRL a number of times to each location has helped me understand the culture and given me links to the community. It’s also provided people to guide me through the protocols in an Aboriginal community”.

Ben Knowles was a SWIRL participant in 1999 and 2000, and has now taught at Ti-Tree School, north of Alice Springs, for two years. He also organises the annual Ti-Tree sports. “I work with senior secondary children”, he reports. “They have been through ‘business’, meaning they have been initiated into adulthood. The school’s principal is Aboriginal and easily finds a healthy balance between local culture and productive working staff relations.”

Megan Evans, one of the first SWIRLers, now teaches in Victoria, but every year takes students to a school in the Northern Territory. “We get into a classroom and help with literacy [and] also have a reciprocal trip where students from a remote community come down and spend time with us.”

Lawry Mahon is heading off again in this June, 2006, with 40 students, and will be including some places recently in the news.

His email address is lawry.mahon@vu.edu.au.

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First published in Issue 4 of Journospeak on May 26, 2006.



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About the Author

Harry Throssell originally trained in social work in UK, taught at the University of Queensland for a decade in the 1960s and 70s, and since then has worked as a journalist. His blog Journospeak, can be found here.

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