Victoria River Downs (VRD) is an area of prolonged contact. Early contact, in particular, was marked by fatal violence and disease. The effect of this time is still apparent in the stories of atrocity told by both whites and Aboriginals. If you believed everything you were told there would be a skeleton per square mile. In time the gunsmoke settled down. The people now at Yarralin are survivors. The Karanga tribe is represented by three old men and about seven other linguistic groups are there.

The Aboriginals came to live in camp at VRD, “the station”. They were employed as domestics and stockmen in a paternalistic situation. Why they eventually left the station in the Wattie Creek Walkout I don’t know. In doing this, however, they placed themselves beyond redemption in the eyes of many of the Europeans. When they then left Wattie Creek, they returned to VRD, but to set up an out-station at Yarralin, about twelve miles from the homestead. Some returned for work, others to be near medical treatment. One man was expelled from Yarralin for trouble-making.

Many of the children had been to school at VRD and then at Wave Hill. While at Yarralin they received no schooling.

The teaching of mathematics to Aboriginal children poses many difficulties for teachers. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal teachers agree that many Aboriginal children are not making adequate progress in their development of mathematical understanding. The teaching of mathematics in Aboriginal communities is discussed in the Northern Territory Infants Curriculum (1974 : 119–123). After reviewing the outcomes of a desirable mathematics course the curriculum writers conclude that “many Aboriginal children do not manifest many of these outcomes at a level comparable with that obtained by European children”.

John Gay and Michael Cole have written a very valuable book, The New Mathematics and an Old Culture, which examines the teaching of mathematics in a cross-cultural situation. They state that

Miss Ungunmerr has graciously consented to our publication of the following extracts from “Nature of Aboriginal Children”, the manuscript of which she is preparing for publication by the Northern Territory Education Department.

In Vol. 4 No. 1, Ms Binnion discussed teacher-parent communication with particular reference to the Action Research Project into Secondary Education for Aborigines which was initiated in S.A. in 1972. During the course of the Action Research Project teachers in many other schools with Aboriginal secondary students were asked, via a questionnaire, for their opinions about a large number of factors relating to Aboriginal education. Consequently, this article reports the opinions of teachers in both the project schools and other schools with numbers of Aboriginal secondary students.

A common complaint from teachers of Aboriginal children in rural/remote schools goes something like this: “I teach them Standard English and they use it in the classroom and when they speak to me. But they don’t use it in the playground. They revert to Aboriginal English or the vernacular. So why waste time teaching Standard English?”

So, what is the problem? More importantly, is there a problem?

There is little doubt that the teaching of English is one of the most difficult areas in classroom work with Aboriginal children. And the frustration felt by teachers when they hear children speaking other than Standard English is, in one sense, understandable. However, in another more important sense, it reflects a lack of appreciation for the different ways that people use language, either varieties of the same language or different languages.

It is unfortunate that so many people, teachers included, still think in terms of Standard English being ‘right’ and anything else being ‘wrong’. There are many varieties of English. Standard English is one, Aboriginal English another. There is not, and never can be any justification fbr calling one ‘right’ and the other ‘wrong’. They certainly cannot be judged in this manner in linguistic or scientific terms. Standard English and Aboriginal English are different dialects of the same language, each having its own phonological and grammatical system and each being a separate and equal entity in its own right. There is no linguistic basis whatsoever for saying that one is better than the other.

Despite recent developments in Aboriginal education very few Aboriginal high school students in Queensland are in academic courses that will enable them to matriculate with the possibility of entering into tertiary institutions. Instead, the majority of Aboriginal students are in lower level industrial and commercial courses and consequently leave school ill-equipped to enter into a competitive job market. Of those students who do find employment, few are in jobs commensurate with their ability.

Educationalists such as McConnochie (1973) have pointed out that the failure of Aboriginals to succeed at school is primarily a result of factors associated with our social institutions, particularly the schools, rather than with the Aboriginal child himself. McConnochie suggests that our institutions tend to debase the black child’s concept of himself and the group with whom he identifies, and it is the child’s consequent lack of self-esteem that contributes significantly to his low vocational aspirations and academic achievement. However, low vocational aspirations and achievement themselves interact, reinforcing the child’s negative self-concept and he becomes caught up in a self-sustaining cycle of increasing school failure and worthlessness.

Teachers might like to consider the implications this article has for their teaching strategies and for the mannpr in which they interact with their Aboriginal students.