Indigenous Education Irony
Aboriginal Education Failure Due To Non-Indigenous Management - Aboriginal Leadership Needed
We are facing a crisis in Indigenous Education that can only be resolved through Aboriginal sovereignty.
Old-School Disadvantage
Australian Indigenous students currently eleven years of age will be leaving school or continuing education in 2010. The decontextualised, deficit literacy and numeracy teaching that is currently being shoved down their throats is not going to prepare them for the future worlds of work referred to in the 2010 strategies and policy documents of the Education department.
The irony is that these documents state that the future workplace will require many of the qualities that Aboriginal kids already have - (independent learning skills, learning by doing, trial and error problem solving skills, etc), and yet current practices would have these students abandon these strengths in favour of outdated industrial era learning behaviours. In four years it may be possible to "catch up" Indigenous students with current standards, but by then the goal posts will have been shifted again, and the students will then be in a position where they are expected to "unlearn" and begin at the bottom once more.
Inclusivity Is Against Dominant Interests
Reform in Indigenous Education is impossible, despite the best efforts of many good people, because all the decisions are made by non-Indigenous people who have a vested interest in the status quo, in keeping their jobs simple and secure. Effective practice and programs are inevitably sabotaged or demolished by those in power, and by the teachers themselves.
These teachers rigorously defend their archaic teaching practices using deficit logic. They are supported by the media, which launches ongoing attacks on inclusive teaching practices and social justice frameworks that some have attempted to implement, with the far right screaming for a "return to the basics".
The irony here is that "the basics" have never stopped, as there have never been enough change-oriented educators to effect a paradigm shift. So what we're facing now is buttressing of entrenched practices that have failed Indigenous students for decades.
Hammond and Derewianka, in "ESL And Literacy Education : Revisiting The Relationship", respond to this with the following. "While few would disagree that literacy in school education is of crucial importance, many question the purpose of the rhetoric of crisis that has been generated within the community. They also question the extent to which the resultant emphasis on teaching the basics in 'literacy', and on being more 'accountable', can genuinely assist these students to function fully and productively in the increasingly complex world of the twenty-first century."
Genuine Autonomy The Only Answer
The only possible scenario in which the Indigenous education crisis could improve involves Aboriginal people taking charge of education in their communities and having a say in curriculum design and staff selection. This has been proven to work in the few isolated examples around the world where it has been allowed to happen. But this level of power being handed over to Aboriginal people on a large scale is not really a very likely scenario - it's tantamount to sovereignty! Therefore, the inequities in education will never be addressed until the inequalities in the community are resolved. Indigenous education failure will continue to ravage our communities until Aboriginal sovereign rights are recognised.
As B... B... (deceased, so name omitted) said, we are convinced that given the right environment in a situation where we can employ teachers of our choice, where our children can be taught traditional pursuits in dancing, singing, cooking, fishing, hunting, etc. as well as normal subjects then we know they will respond. B... B... was the warrior who planted the Aboriginal flag on British soil and claimed England on behalf of our people. So if anybody understood irony, it was him!
