Resources - Discussion Papers

Australian Indigenous Peoples Leading Literate Lives

Davina Woods, Monash University

A keynote address presented at the 2001 AATE/ALEA Joint National Conference

Introduction

I wish to thank Christine Topfer and Ian Morgan for inviting me to address this the Joint National Conference of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English and the Australian Literacy Educators' Association. I applaud the commitment of your organisations to the teaching of English and literacy, and to the professional development of teachers, academics, students and others interested in education. Language as we all know is a major marker of culture. The focal language of Australia is English. An individual’s ability to use Standard Australian English either in its spoken or written forms is often used to judge were an individual sits within the social structure of a society. Knowing this and being aware that the eminent Aboriginal educator Professor Paul Hughes was your first preference for today’s keynote speaker I feel fully the burden of ensuring that you go away from my presentation feeling that you have learnt something new and that you have been to a certain extend entertained.

You know very little about me and I would like to reassure you that I have the formal knowledge, as well as life experiences to be speaking to you today about living a literate life from the perspective of an Australian Indigenous person. Please bear with me as I introduce myself.

Born in Brisbane Queensland I was raised being keenly aware of my identity as an Aboriginal person. However it was not until 1990 that I was told by Elders that our family is of the Kuku — yalanji people of far north Queensland. Always wishing to be a teacher, I graduated in 1979 from the North Brisbane College of Advanced Education with a Dip Teach. Since then, I have undertaken external part time studies to achieve a Bachelor of Education and a Graduate Certificate in Aboriginal Studies. I have taught in Queensland primary schools and was one of the founding group of Australian Indigenous teachers to be seconded from classroom duties to establish the Queensland Education Departments Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Branch.

In 1990, I moved from Gladstone in central Queensland to Melbourne where I had won the position of Federal Aboriginal Education Officer of the Australian Education Union. Employed by the AEU for five and a half years I resigned and took up the position of Project Manager for the development of a national traineeship for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Workers. After my experiences helping with the establishment of the traineeship, I moved to managing an Aboriginal education unit within the Vocational Education and Training sector.

Fortunately, for me, I am the first recipient of the Monash University’s Postgraduate Scholarship for an Indigenous student to undertake postgraduate studies in the Arts Faculty. The scholarship has been but one of a number of fortunate events which have occurred for me in this the beginning of our third millennium. Thus far this year two books for which I have been a contributing author have been published and a third is due to be launched in September. The books are " Aboriginal Women By Degrees" edited by Mary Ann Bin-Sallik and published by University of Queensland Press, and the Lonely Planet Guide to Aboriginal Australia and the Torres Strait Islands which was launched last Thursday in Melbourne. The third book being published by the Australian Curriculum Studies Association is due to be released in September this year. Its working title is "The Professionals working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people". My chapter focuses on employment and is title ‘We do not live on bread alone’.

I am enjoying a year of scholarly rigour, reading, researching and writing. However, as many of you who have had similar experiences would know, not all of the research one does during such a period is completely focussed on the subject of your thesis. In 1998, I registered the business name Clever Women Consultants and prior to taking up my scholarship, I was a free-lance education and training consultant. I have had two projects overlap with my year of study. Both of these projects will be of particular interest to you as one has a literacy and numeracy focus and the other has a significant element of literacy and English teaching of Australian Indigenous students.

However before I outline further what will be the body of my paper I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which you have been meeting these last few days. To the Ancestors of the local Pallaw people I give my thanks for their labours and to their descendents, I offer my strength to their works of today and the future.

I was unable to join you in your deliberations until last night as I have been engaged in celebrating NAIDOC Week. For those of you who do not know, NAIDOC week has grown from a day of mourning which was organised to coincide with the 26^th of January 1938. The original day of morning was to focus attention on the inequitable treatment meted out to Australian Indigenous peoples in the first 150 years since being colonised by the British. The National day of Mourning, has over the years, been transformed into, a week for celebrating Australian Indigenous cultures, knowledge, skills, achievements and aspirations. It is therefore appropriate that I am here with you today to speak to you about how to improve educational outcomes for Australian Indigenous students specifically in the area of literacy and the use of the language of power, which as we know is Standard Australian English.

In speaking of Australian Indigenous cultures, knowledge, skills, achievements and aspirations I had best make sure that you and I have a common understanding of certain terms.

Indigenous Peoples

The general conference of the International Labour Organisation (June, 1989) stated that Indigenous peoples are peoples in independent countries:

• whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from sections of the national community and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations; and

• who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country or a geographical region to which the country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonisation or the establishment of present state boundaries and who irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions.

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Peoples

Self Identification as an Australian Indigenous person is fundamental to determining who are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples.

In Australia, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, peoples are the generic terms used to describe the two major categories of Australian Indigenous peoples. However, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people call ourselves by many different names including Anangu, Koorie, Nunga, Murri, Yamatji and Noongar.

Today the Aboriginal flag, which first came to international notice when flown at the Aboriginal tent embassy established on the lawns of the Australian Parliament on 28 January 1972, is a powerful uniting symbol for all Aboriginal peoples.

The black symbolises the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. The red is the land and the blood shed in the struggle. The yellow circle in the centre of the flag represents the sun. The sun is symbolic of the hope for the future.

During the United Nations International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the Torres Strait Islander flag was launched. The white Dari, which is traditionally worn by the men during, dances, is accompanied in the centre of the flag by a five-pointed star. The points of the star represent the major island groups of the Torres Strait. Strips of green, blue and black stand for the land, sea and people.

In Australia an Australian Indigenous person is one who is a descendant of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person, who identifies as an Australian Indigenous person and who is recognised as an Australian Indigenous person by the members of the community in which she or he lives.

We as Aboriginal people are examples of what has happened to us. We have always spoken many languages. Today we are reflective of the many colours of the strands of humanity, which are white, red, yellow, brown and black.

Synopsis

In this paper, I will investigate current theories and research concerning literacy and learning in Standard Australian English, specifically for Australian Indigenous students. A focus of my paper is understanding the Arts as forms of literacy. I invite you to celebrate Australian Indigenous creators of media, print, spoken and visual texts with me.

What is literacy?

Let us begin our analysis of the meaning to an Australian Indigenous person of leading a literate life by defining the term "literacy". Literacy commonly refers to the ability to read and write a particular language and the ability to use language proficiently. The next logical question then is; "what is language? " We know that our ability to use language distinguishes us from other animals and that Australia’s internationally recognised language is Standard Australian English. However, no one here would say that Standard Australian English is the only language of Australia. Our history is rich with stories of those who have come from non-English speaking countries to make Australia home. We are aware that there were hundreds of classical Australian Indigenous languages before 1788. Some classical languages survive with a few being revived. Aboriginal English and Torres Strait Islander Kriol are modern Australian Indigenous languages, which have come into being since 1788. Nevertheless, what is "language" in relation to "literacy"? Most here, would agree that language is a system for expressing thoughts and feelings by the use of spoken sounds or conventional symbols. The skill to read, which means to understand, such conventional symbols is therefore a significant strength of literacy. Writing is a means of communicating ideas by making such symbols stand for an idea, concept or thing. Thus, literacy is the ability to understand and make symbols, which express thoughts, feelings, ideas, concepts and things.

Please look at these overhead transparencies and make a note of their meaning to you.

The art of Australia’s Indigenous peoples is based on iconography. In the following summary of page 12 from Jennifer Isaacs book "Arts of the Dreaming — Australia’s Living Heritage" the symbolism, - the iconography of classical Aboriginal art and its relationship to language and literacy is stated.

Therefore, what is the meaning to an Australian Indigenous person of leading a literate life? For me as an Australian Aboriginal woman it is being educated and knowledgeable of the cultures of Aboriginal Australia. It is about being able to use a computer to process my thoughts and ideas into words and being able to navigate the World Wide Web. Taking the term "literate" further than just being able to read may include having knowledge of cultures and being educated in the learning offered by the experiences of every-day life. Leading a literate life then includes being able to read the road when driving, being able to read the other persons non-verbals in a meeting, being able to read between the lines and understanding the double entendre. Leading a literate life for me is also about being able to read everything from my childhood favourite of C.S Lewis, my adolescent companion Lee Harper, my mature aged escapes with Marion Zimmer Bradley, through to my thought provoking encounters with Paulo Freier and Edward de Bono. It is also being able to view a piece of art. The art may be a live performance or a three-d sedentary sculpture, a movie or words sung or written in a genre such as haiku. For our world contains many forms of literacy. Traditional, - classical forms of literacy stand side by side with the contemporary and futuristic.

The literacy of the artist

Australia’s Indigenous creators and makers of media, print, spoken and visual texts have for many years received much recognition amongst the art circles of Europe and the United States of America and Canada. In more recent years, such recognition has begun to also come from Australian art circles. In wishing to cover the spectrum of art as Australian Indigenous people have used it as an avenue for expression, I will not speak further on the brilliant works of artists seen as ‘traditional’. My reason for doing this is simple. I wish to emphasis that those Australian Indigenous peoples who live beside you in suburbia are as much an Australian Indigenous person as those who live in Arnhem Land or the tri-state region.

David Unaipon, who today is depicted on the Australian $50.00 note, was born at the Point McLeay Mission, in South Australia, on the 28^th of September 1872. He died on the 7^th of February in 1967. Unaipon was an Aboriginal preacher and inventor, and one of Australia's first Aboriginal writers. He developed and patented a modified handpiece for shearing in 1909 and made predictions about the development of polarised light and helicopter flight. He worked as a servant from 1885-90, at the Point McLeay Mission. In the lat 1890s, he learned boot making and became a, storeman for an Adelaide boot maker. Unaipon later became the bookkeeper, at the Point McLeay store.

In the early 1900s, he began collecting subscriptions for the Aborigines' Friends' Association, combining this work with lectures and sermons. He spent 50 years of his life, studied, lecturing and published Aboriginal legends from the early 1920s. In 1924, he began writing articles for the Sydney "Daily Telegraph". He assisted the 1928-29 Bleakley inquiries into Aboriginal welfare. He received the Coronation medal in 1953. Today he is commemorated by portraits in the South Australian Museum, the national David Unaipon award for Aboriginal writers, established 1988, and the annual Unaipon lecture in Adelaide, established 1988. On the fifty-dollar note an extract from his writing reads as follows;

" As a full blooded member of my race I think I may claim to be the first — but I hope not the last — to produce an enduring record of our customs, beliefs and imaginings."

David Unaipon has most definitely not been the last Australian Indigenous person to record of our customs, beliefs and imaginings.

If you go to the OzLit Writer’s Database which can be found on the Internet at the URL http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozlit/abowrits.html you will find almost 150 Australian Indigenous writers listed.

Tracey Moffat is not listed there as a writer simply because the form of communication she uses to express herself is film, - both still and moving pictures. Rather than just tell you about Tracey Moffat let her tell you about herself by me reading to you and extract from a letter she wrote to Lynne Cooke, curator of Dia Center for the Arts, New York, in advance of her show "Free Falling" which was exhibited during 1997. The letter has been published on the web the URL is included in my paper if you wish to read the full text from there. http://www.diacenter.org/exhibs/moffatt/project/traceymoffatt.html

The extract begins;

Moffat is admitting here in her 1999 letter to Cooke that she is not only literate in the sense of being well read but that she is also knowledgeable of other forms of literacy such as motion pictures. Moffat enjoys using her literacy to access books and expand her knowledge of her own passion, which are the visual arts. It is through the visual arts that Moffat expresses herself, as an Indigenous woman of Australia.

I had thought when originally planning my paper that I would speak to you about a large number of Australian Indigenous artists such as visual artists Albert Namatjira and Bronwyn Bancroft, writers like Jack Davis and Oodergeroo Noonuccal, singers such as Harold Blair and Mandwyu Yunupingu, performers like Justine Saunders and Ernie Dingo. However, I believe that the essential qualities and extent of their works are reflective of each other. In speaking of the contribution that one Australian Indigenous artist has made to the cultural life of Australia I have spoken of many. The inspiration and essence for each is their Aboriginality and the unique vision that their Aboriginality brings to their work. Australian Indigenous artistes are expressing themselves, creating meaning using their Aboriginality. The audience must decode their meaning. Such decoding or reading can only occur when the audience understands the Australian Indigenous perspective. It is the Aboriginality of your students, which you must respect and have knowledge of to ensure you are equipping them with the skills to decode and read, to be literate in today’s society. I would like now to speak to you about the latest research undertaken in the area of literacy for Australian Indigenous peoples.

Latest research

Education Strategic Initiatives Programs (IESIP) Strategic Results Projects (SRP)

In December 1997 Dr Kemp asked all Australian providers of education and training for students K to 12 and VET; " What changes to education, training and student support delivery practices will result in improved Australian Indigenous student learning outcomes within a relatively short period of time?" The outcome of the question was 83 submission-based nationwide projects collectively referred to as the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Programs (IESIP) Strategic Results Projects (SRP) or simply the SRPs. The SRPs covered

• arts education
• Australian Indigenous languages
• building skills in early childhood education
• home to school transition
•  literacy in Standard Australian English
• numeracy
• older students re-entering education and training
• student mobility
• supporting students in secondary schooling
• training in the justice system.
• transition from primary to secondary
• using information and communication technologies
• vocational education and training (VET) in Colleges, and
• VET in schools.

The SRP results were

• 60 IESIP SRP submitted final reports
  
• 20 projects were completed but did not submit final reports
  
• 3 were not completed

• 70% achieved or exceeded their targets
  
• 20% partially achieved or exceeded their targets
  
• 10% did what they set out to.

The reason why the SRPs worked is people chose to make them do so.

The results were achieved by people working more intensively with strategies that:

• are widely familiar,
  
• could be described as conventional good practice, and
  
• are readily portable to other similar contexts

The results were achieved by people working with:

• clear targets and monitoring processes.
  
•  adequate resources.
  
•  and a firm belief in the prospect of success and a will to make it occur.

The National Consultation and Evaluation Project (NCEP) Team of which I was a member reported to DETYA on the SRPs and concluded that there are three pillars for improving educational outcomes for Australian Indigenous students and they are

• cultural support, recognition and acknowledgment,
  
• skills and
  
• participation.

 In the context of effective school-community partnerships and holistic approaches cultural recognition, acknowledgment and support works with the pre-conditions of

• good personal relationships and mutual trust,

• flexibility and

• localisation.

If outcomes for Australia Indigenous students are to be improved the students must

• be given respect,

• see culture and its relevant implications being respected,

• be taught well and

• attend consistently.

The first pillar for improving outcomes for Australian Indigenous students is cultural recognition, acknowledgement and support. School must be a safe welcoming place. It must be a supportive and inclusive place. School must be inclusive of its community’s cultural needs and the community needs to be supportive of the school to achieve this. We as teachers need to ask, " How aware are we really of Australian Indigenous students?" and " What policies or attitudes do we have for inclusivity?" In investigating and implementing development of requisite skills, which literacy definitely is; teachers must teach well and be inclusive of their student’s cultural needs. Teachers must work at being good practitioners and being inclusive of Australian Indigenous perspectives in their teaching. Processes to encourage adequate participation and develop good relationships with caregivers must exist and be acted upon.

The majority of Australian Indigenous people are urban dwellers and our first or second language is Aboriginal English or Torres Strait Islander Kriol. It must be acknowledged that those who have not managed the language of learning will be disadvantaged. In Australia, the language of learning - the language of power - is SAE. Australian Indigenous peoples have said for many decades that we wish our children to be proud and expressive of their Aboriginality — their Indigenous identity. However, we also wish them to be able to function in the dominant culture. Language as a marker of culture and a factor in educational success is thus a key to both our Aboriginality and successful learning.

However, the language, which supports Aboriginality, does not necessarily support successful learning. SAE literacy and the speaking of SAE needs to be supported by learning strategies and teaching methodologies which respect the culture and history of the individual person.

Professor Paul Hughes AM, FACE was also member of the National Consultation and Evaluation Project (NCEP) Team and in the foreword to Langwij[1] comes to school (McRrae, 1995), Professor Hughes states:

"The language our students bring to the classroom is a valid form of communication and needs to be valued linguistically if they are to acquire a deep knowledge and understanding of the English language in all forms. This publication (Langwij) can provide ideas and inform teachers about pedagogy they might use to provide the best in language acquisition."

During the mid-1990s, the project team of Howard Groome and Arthur Hamilton, who is the former manager of Aboriginal education here in Tasmania, researched the needs of Aboriginal adolescents in schools. A major outcome of the research was that if Aboriginal students have a strong identity as an Indigenous person, their ability to succeed in their schoolwork was increased.

This is not to say that a simple ‘one size fits all’ approach is possible. The Groome-Hamilton report (1995), which relates to the current discussion on cultural identity and SAE language and literacy acquisition, found that:

"Aboriginal people in Australia today are constructing extremely diverse cultures under the umbrella of Aboriginality. These cultures reflect the varying histories of individuals and groups, and different aspirations and strategies within contemporary experiences of Aboriginality. The constant background and modifier to this process is the individual experience of racism. Aboriginal adolescents are as fully engaged in this process of cultural construction as their older relatives". (11)

An example of such regional diversity is the Koorie English Literacy Project funded by the National Professional Development Program in 1994, which is Victorian specific. An outcome of the project was the development by the Goulburn Valley Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Incorporated, of a kit. The kit is titled Deadly Eh, Cuz! — Teaching Speakers of Koorie English.

So, how are these complexities to be tackled? Eight of the SRPs investigated a variety of strategies to develop effective bi-lingualism and bi-dialectalism. One central strategy has been to define and teach differences for example between light Kriols and Aboriginal English on the one hand and SAE on the other. Programmes designed to promote parity of esteem between languages have also been implemented with efforts made to develop text material in each relevant language/dialect. A particular SRP developed and delivered a course in vernacular and SAE literacy. The course had a comparatively high completion rate with excellent employment rates for graduates.

The maintenance or revival of classical Australian Indigenous languages has also been a concern of about 15% of SRP Projects. One project developed course materials for the teaching and learning of two languages, which are currently in decline. A component of one project has provided teaching of two home languages — five of which are in active use, two less so. These materials are all to support teaching and learning. The provision of a cultural record and a purely linguistically defined purpose are both catered for.

Many involved in Australian Indigenous education and training believe that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages need a strong, stand-alone focus not just an assumed inclusion in Studies of Society and the Environment (SOSE) under the euphemism "culture". Fortunately, there are some examples of Australian Indigenous languages being included within LOTE. However, language maintenance and revival, bilingual education as a choice and a right, the importance of Aboriginal languages in LOTE programmes for language status must all take a higher priority with the policy makers, practitioners and the providers of funding and other resources.

Although Australian Indigenous languages and SAE are essential given particular contexts, teaching methodology differs from one to the other. Research into the methodology of vernacular literacy teaching needs to be done so such work can be improved. It is estimated that more then 15% of Australian Indigenous, people do not speak English as their first language, and for many others SAE in the form required by formal education and training is a second or third dialect.

For further information on the findings of the SRPs with regards to literacy go to the National Consultation and Evaluation Project (NCEP) Team’s publications, What Works: Explorations in improving outcomes for Indigenous students, and What Has Worked (and will again). Published March 2000 by the Australian Curriculum Studies Association and National Curriculum Services the publications are copyright to the Commonwealth.

The reports were distributed widely throughout Australia. However limited copies are still available by contacting Ms Pat McDermott at the Indigenous Education Branch DETYA or can be accessed via the following URL http://www.acsa.edu.au/indigenous/index.html

The Ambassadors Program

Community groups and individual Australian Indigenous people who appreciate the importance of achieving in literacy and Standard Australian English are working as volunteers with the Indigenous Education Branch of Commonwealth DETYA to be ambassadors to school students and professional groups. When with students, the ambassadors emphasise the importance of doing well at school and when speaking to professional groups such as your own they ensure that you understand that Australian Indigenous people can achieve in formal education and to the greatest part want to achieve well.

ACER Longitudinal Study of English Literacy and Numeracy Development in Indigenous Students

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) Longitudinal Study of English Literacy and Numeracy Development in Indigenous Students was commenced in 2000 and will conclude in 2002. The researchers are tracking Australian Indigenous students in the first three years of their formal schooling.

It has been found that schools where the whole staff, - classroom teachers, teacher/librarians, principals and other administrative staff as well as teacher aides and AIEWs (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Workers), make literacy in Standard Australian English a priority, students are much more likely to achieve the set standards and benchmarks. Teachers who work to align curriculum with the standards to ensure that all students receive instruction that matches the set requirements, are more likely to have students succeeding.

Schools were higher literacy standards are achieved are synonymous with schools where the leadership skills of the principals and literacy resources teachers as well as year level coordinators are aptly applied. Schools that provide substantial, prolonged professional development in reading, writing and all other aspects of literacy and the teaching of English are also more effective. Effective teaching practices, classroom management, classroom organization, and ongoing assessment are topics which must be included in professional development aimed at better equipping teachers for the task of teaching English and enabling students to achieve literacy benchmarks. Exemplary teachers participate in programs, which facilitate situations where they can share their competencies with their fellow teachers.

Education Departments, which embrace leading edge initiatives in the area of literacy and English teaching that distribute and demonstrate such strategies via traditional professional development and using the most up to date information communication technology, are far in front in the race to achieve national literacy standards.

Schools, which have a two-hour literacy block per day, are being successful. The literacy block includes: Guided Reading, - activities that teach reading skills; Selected Reading students make their own selections beyond the assigned reading; Writing; and Word Study, a new term for spelling. Each student should write every day and are strongly encouraged, to read to their caregivers, at least five books outside of school during a term.

I encourage you to be on the look out for the final report of the ACER Longitudinal Study of English Literacy and Numeracy Development in Indigenous Students when it is due in 2003.

Conclusion

Rather than simply bore you with a report about research, I have wanted to expand your thinking on what literacy is and to ensure that in doing so I have given you an insight into contemporary Australian Indigenous life. I have chosen to do this by looking at literacy through the lens of art in its many forms. For a literate life is more than simply reading and writing and using language proficiently. It is being willing to, and open enough to read the symbols of other lives, and of other cultures. People who live literate lives, live lives filled with meaning and purpose. They live lives based on education, knowledge and culture. By way of concluding, I invite you to have a more meaningful and purposeful life. I invite you to make having a better understanding of Australia’s Indigenous literacies a part of your educated, knowledgeable and cultured life.

Thank you

Davina B Woods

* Langwij is one orthographic rendering of 'language' in Aboriginal English or Torres Strait Islander Kriol. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people often use the word ‘language’ to mean something like ‘our language’, or ‘the language we use’.

References

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members of the Australian Education Union; and Maori members of NZEI: Te Riu Roa; Status report on Indigenous education in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand - Report to: Education International Congress17 - 22 July, 1995, Not published publicly

Goulburn Valley Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Incorporated, 1994, Deadly Eh, Cuz! — Teaching Speakers of Koorie English

Groome, H. & Hamilton, A., 1995, Meeting the Educational Needs of Aboriginal Adolescents, Commissioned Report No 35 of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training, AGP, Canberra,

Horton, David; The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia. Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press for Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 1994

Isaacs, Jennifer; Arts of the Dreaming - Australia’s Living Heritage. Sydney, Lansdowne, 1984

McRae, D., 1995 Langwij comes to School, Social Change Media and the Curriculum Corporation, AGP, Canberra.

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