Would you like a hot dog? The Aboriginal man, who was on his first visit to a city and to whom the question was addressed, looked amazed and then responded, “Can I come and have a look?”. He soon discovered that ‘hot dogs’ were not what his grasp of English and the mental picture it had conjured up – of a cooked canine – had led him to believe. A rather relieved young man enjoyed his first ‘hot dog’. An amusing incident at the time, but how often do the words used in Aboriginal schools – particularly in maths lessons – evoke mental pictures or concepts that differ markedly from those of children who grow up speaking English and with a conceptual view of the world related to the western system of knowledge? What is perhaps even more alarming is that teachers are often unaware that this is happening, and when the child fails to act intelligently in certain situations the teacher often despairs and then gives up trying to teach maths effectively and concentrates on teaching ‘sums’, at which Aboriginal children, with their strong aural and visual memories, gain some measure of success. But such an approach, though measurable in school, fails to equip a child to operate mathematically in the real world where, for example, we meet our subtraction operations not clothed in the language of ‘take away’ and certainly never ‘minus’ but in comments like: “Red Cravats scored 32 and Waratahs finished 6 goals behind them,” or “Nhulunbuy are at the top of the ladder with 34 points and Yirrkala are second with 29”.

In many aspects of formal education we expect Aboriginal children to think, learn and behave as white children. This is an unreasonable expectation because Aboriginal children in their home lives are seldom equipped with those skills which are necessary at school. Worse, teachers often don’t understand what skills are required in school learning because they are so fundamental to the task, and because white children display these skills so easily.

This paper looks at the reading process from this point of view and identifies areas where Aboriginal children need to be taught specific skills before they can read with purpose. Suggestions as to how to teach these skills are included.

The major aim of this paper is to look at ways in which teachers of Aboriginal children can improve reading ability. I believe that our teaching methods could be improved by concentrating on what I see as being the crucial difference between Aboriginal and White Australian (yolngu and balanda) children in the formal school setting. That is, that yolngu children do not expect to and do not participate in the school program in an active purposeful self-conscious way, but rather participate passively in the school learning process in the same way as they participate passively in their day-to-day home life. What I intend to do is talk first of all about this particular idea and then later about things that I hope or believe teachers can do about it.

Given the nature and development of Australian society, it is important that we reassess the place of mathematics in the school curriculum, and particularly its place as one of the basic shared student experiences.

It is in the national interest that school programs promote adequate levels of competence within good mathematics programs, and that as many people as possible achieve at those levels. It is also in the interests of Australia and its people that individuals reach as high a level as possible in the subject. Mathematics is important chiefly because it can help in understanding and interpreting many aspects of the world. It can help a person make a significant contribution to a technological society.

So when we address basic skills in mathematics, it is important that we address them within the context of a total mathematics program. Basic skills involve more than arithmetic skills, and understanding of mathematical concepts and processes is more important than knowledge of isolated facts and skills. The following should not be read or interpreted as a list of differentiated topics but as a list of different facets from which the mathematics curriculum may be examined.

This is the first national statement of basic mathematical skills and concepts for effective participation in Australian society. It has been prepared for and endorsed by the Standing Committee of the Australian Mathematics Education Program and is offered as a statement of informed professional opinion.

“Aboriginal Studies is essentially a study of the cultures and history of the indigenous peoples of Australia. Such studies also involve those issues which are of contemporary or historic interest to Aboriginal society and consequently to the total Australian community”.

Well, to begin with, I wasn’t accepted into teacher’s college because of the grades I scored in the Higher School Certificate. In point of fact, I failed this examination miserably. I’ve always had a great fear of examinations and as a result of this I’d usually do poorly.

Before I was accepted into teacher’s college, I had to write an essay on a topic of my choice. This in turn was followed by an interview at the college. I would not have graduated from college this year if I had not been supported by the Aboriginal Study Grant, because my family just couldn’t give me this financial support over the three years.

I’ve always had the ‘dream’ of becoming a school teacher. I come from a large family and have had children around me constantly. I love spending time with children because they’re so innocent. I enjoy watching them as they gradually take one step at a time and come to learn about life and what it’s all about.

When I was a child I would play ‘schools’. You couldn’t have guessed but I was always the school teacher and my sister and cousins would be the children in my class. I’d never really thought of pursuing any other career but a teacher’s.

I worked through my college years because I had no choice! I came to realise that if I was to succeed, I had to put a great deal of effort into these three years and it didn’t take me very long to reach this conclusion.

With regard to the editorial in the October/November 1981 issue of The Aboriginal Child at School concerning successful approaches to the education of Aboriginal children, I thought it may be of some interest to readers of the journal (especially those teachers transferring to schools serving significant numbers of Aboriginal students) to read about The Home School’s approach to education. This approach does not cater for any special needs of Aboriginal (and Islander) students – indeed all of its students are treated and taught in the same way – but for some reason Aboriginal children appear to be happy at this school, want to continue their education there next year and/or in years to come, and are generally motivated enough to achieve at least a pass level in most of their subjects.

The Home School is a small, non-denominational, private, secondary boarding school and it has had fifteen students of Aboriginal descent enrolled as full boarders since 1978. They have mostly come from Aurukun, Laura and Mornington Island, and a grant from the Commonwealth Government covers their school fees. Eight of the 1981 Aboriginal students intend to return to this school in 1982, two of them to do Year 12 and four to do Year 11. All of these students are quite definite and enthusiastic about returning in 1982, which, in itself, is a success story, especially as many of them have been ‘cast-offs’ from the large state secondary schools in the local area. Either they had been truanting (in one case two girls had been at a local hostel for eight weeks before the hostel management found out that the girls had never attended the high school in which they had been enrolled) or they had been problem students and The Home School had been approached as a last chance for their successful education. (One boy who had been expelled from one of the local state secondary schools gave, a year later, The Home School’s major speech at the annual Speech Night, and a very impressive speech it is reported to have been.)

Yirara College, for the past five years, has given students in their final two years (Years 10 and 11) the opportunity to prepare themselves for entry into employment or further education. This is called our Pre-Employment Course.

Every Wednesday we have a training program for Aboriginal educators in Swan Hill, which is situated on the New South Wales and Victorian border near the Murray River. The Aboriginal educators involved in this program are: Jon Kirby, Caroline Steel, Lynette Bugeja and myself. This program is co-ordinated by our resource teacher – Jill Pattenden.

In 1981 we covered such subjects as reading and writing skills, communication, teaching techniques, lesson planning, Aboriginal history, child psychology, counselling, lessons in organising, oral history, community and alcohol, public speaking, submission drafting, study of Aboriginal spirituality.

All these subjects were studied with the help of people in the community, both Aboriginal and European. These resource people included local elders, field officers, counsellors, psychologists, an alcohol counsellor, teachers, and people with tribal experience.

As part of the program we did activity days at local primary schools. These days are called Jemauraji days (which means “today’s dreaming”). They consisted of different activities such as ground drawing, damper making, corroborée, totems and fire making. Everybody in each school was involved in these activities.

The University of Adelaide has taken a unique step in Aboriginal relations by establishing a Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (C.A.S.M.) in Which Tribal Elders have been given the status of visiting lecturers. (Uni. of Adelaide, 1975) A Committee, headed by the Deputy Vice Chancellor, in 1976 summarised the results of their discussions on the position of the C.A.S.M. program in the University of Adelaide as follows: