Tag Archives: Australia

Mod 4:1 Max Fineday

Max Fineday is the first indigenous president of the University of Saskatchewan’s Student Union. In an organization that is 106 years old and a province that has a 50% First Nations population, this has been a long time coming. The news is momentous enough to have landed in the New York Times.

In the article is a short discussion on Residential schools and colonization. Overall the article sets a positive tone and gives attention to the work that universities across Canada are doing to support Indigenous students.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/world/americas/canadian-universities-strive-to-include-indigenous-cultures.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&src=recg

Module 4:4 – “Well, I heard it on the radio and I saw it on the television”

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“Well, I heard it on the radio and I saw it on the television: …

A free PDF of this 1993 essay by Marcia Langton is available on the archived website of Australian Film Commission. It is a discussion of the issues about Aboriginal representation and self-representation, in film and television particularly.

Since it is “unrealistic” to expect that others will stop portraying Aboriginal people in film and television, Langton says that it is important that Aboriginal people “control the means of production and make our own self-representations” wherever possible. She writes: “Freedom in the world of film and the arts can only thrive if there is also a strong critique, and in relation to Aboriginal matters, if the critique is anti-colonialist.”

Module 4:3 – Blinding the Duck

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http://www.duckdigital.net/FOD/FOD0781.html

Blinding the Duck is an online essay by an Australian academic, Simon Pockley, that “explores some of the complex issues arising from the use of digital images of Aboriginal people and material in The Flight of Ducks (a participatory online documentary built around a collection of objects from a camel expedition into Central Australia in 1933).”

The Flight of the Ducks was the author’s online PhD “documentary”. Images from the expedition, such as those of people who have since died, are displayed online, and have provoked shock and anger amongst Aboriginal people in Australia. Pockley tells the detailed story of this controversy – how some see the project as evil cultural appropriation, and how the University removed the project from its web servers.

Pockley says “This paper is a description of the methods used in The Flight of Ducks to accommodate Aboriginal cultural sensitivities…. It seeks to work towards the development of a protocol by which Australian historical material with Aboriginal references can be used online without…cultural conflict…”

Module #4-1: Board of Studies in NSW, Australia

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I have been searching through online materials about Indigenous education. One website I came across is for the Board of Studies in New South Wales in Australia, which has an Aboriginal Education section. Their website has many examples and resources of school-developed teaching and learning projects collaboratively developed by teachers, Aboriginal education workers, and local community members.

The website consists of different sections, such as languages, art, and support materials for primary and secondary education. The language section offers practical advice and lessons from various Aboriginal language programs developed in NSW since 2004, including examples of units of work, practical advice, and the experiences of schools and communities running these programs. The art section shows an Indigenous artists’ gallery of artworks, along with a Teacher’s Handbook that supports the teaching of the Visual Arts, a bibliography, and PowerPoint slide shows of Aboriginal artists’ works. In the support material section they provide examples of teaching, learning and assessment resources that demonstrate ways in which the Aboriginal and Indigenous cross-curriculum content. The website provides examples of processes that teachers might use to develop contextual classroom teaching units, which connect learning outcomes with the needs of students.

This website seems like a good resource for Indigenous education, especially for primary and secondary teachers and students. Teachers, schools, and communities can use the materials as a guide for their educational engagement to improve the educational outcomes of Indigenous students.

Module 4. Post 4 – “Werde! and Ya minyah.”

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This week we read Faye Ginsburg’s “Rethinking the Digital Age”. Within this article was a detailed description of a website called “US Mob“. The site appeared to be loaded with good material for my final project – I was immediately interested in finding out more about it’s interactive nature, how it represents Aboriginee culture in Australia, what affordances it presents to its audience, how it allows the user to move through it’s game-like interactivity and bring about increased knowledge of the indigenous peoples of Australia…

Alas, my hopes have been dashed.

This site, while still active, leads to many dead end links. In fact, I have clicked every single link on their homepage and none work. I get….”Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to www.usmob.com.au”

This experience is a powerful one when reflecting upon Ginsburg’s article. We often describe the internet as a place to represent knowledge and perhaps influence culture, yet, the sites which hold information can be removed without warning and poof! – knowledge, representation, revitalization efforts, are all gone.

It makes me wonder if this move to break all the links from this site was…
1. Purposeful? Was the site just not attracting enough attention?
2. Driven by corporate interests? Was funding pulled to maintain and improve upon the site?
3. Temporary? Is my experience due to maintenance on the site with all links to be re-established in a moment?
4. Software driven? Is my device too new? Too old? Not supportive of the media necessary to run the interactivites of the site?

This experience also makes me reflect on the idea of “permanence” on the internet. Some believe that what is posted online lasts forever. Perhaps this example is just one of many that what is posted online is subject to change just like the rest of our natural world.

In an effort to find the truth, I have emailed the contact reported on the site. I hope for news, but expect none – another pre-determined conclusion from past experiences of attempts to get in touch with “contacts” reported on websites….

Only to find my communication has been put into the proverbial “e-bottle” and cast out into the cyber-abyss.

Mel Burgess.

Module 3 – Post 4 – Language and Interface

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One question that may have come to minds of those examining technology and Indigenous education is the language barrier. Do the tools that are used to facilitate contemporary online interaction restricted in their ability to interface with traditional languages?

http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~tetaka/PDF/IndigELearn.pdf

This very interesting paper from New Zealand documents the adaptation of interfaces towards Maori language. This paper outlines some of the fundamental challenges that need to be overcome in any such adaptation. Some basic ideas that are assumed to be ‘universal’ in fact do not have a role within traditional indigenous cultures and needed to be considered in any redesigned technology interface.

Module 3 – Post 3 – Transforming the Teacher

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As we examine the roll of traditional knowledge, the role of the elder/teacher plays a special significance. Such an individual represents a connection not only with knowledge but with history, the land, culture, and the future. Can non-Indigenous people learn from this understanding?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMfBeotD8gc

In this TEDTalks, Chris Gamer explores the way Indigenous knowledge (Australian) can be used to redefine what we consider success in education. The educator becomes something more than only a teacher.

Module 3: Post 2 Aboriginal Opera

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As I was reading the Guardian today, I unexpectedly came across an article on Aboriginal Opera singer, Deborah Cheetham. Cheetham is an accomplished opera singer who has performed across Australia and at major events such as the opening ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics and the rugby World Cup. She is believed to be the only professional opera singer of Australian Aboriginal descent.

The article notes that Cheetham was frustrated by the lack of Aboriginal voices in opera so she decided to write an opera for and about Aboriginal communities. Opening in 2010, Pecan Summer has been successful across Australia. The opera tells the story of the 1939 Cummeragunja mission ‘walk off’ where 200 Aboriginal peoples living in the Cummeragunja mission left the mission in protest of the poor living conditions and strict control. The seemingly simple step of walking away from the mission is an important step in the struggle for Aboriginal rights.

I was also interested to see in this article that Cheetham is part of Australia’s Stolen Generations. She was adopted at three weeks old and later told that her birth mother had abandoned her in a box in a field. It wasn’t until she was 22 that she discovered that she wasn’t abandoned and that she was able to find her birth mother.

I find this article very intriguing as it’s current, related to the topic that I am researching (Stolen Generations) and so interesting to see an Aboriginal woman bringing Aboriginal people and stories to opera.

Module #2-2: Foundations for Indigenous Literacy in Australia

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Over 50% of Indigenous families in very remote areas speak their Indigenous language
Only 40% of Aboriginal children remain school until year 12
Only 1 in 5 kids in a Northern Territory remote community can read at an acceptable level
Less than 36% of people in a remote community have access to a library and books

These are the facts in Australia as indicated on the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) website. In Australia there are a few large foundations and organizations making efforts to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous young people with regards to literacy and numeracy. The ILF is one of the largest; they work to provide access to books and literacy resources to over 200 remote Indigenous communities, and have already donated nearly AUS$494,000 (CAN$485,000) and 100,000 books in 2013. The Australian Numeracy and Literacy Foundation (ANLF) is another big foundation working to improve Indigenous literacy. Their Wall of Hands Project raised AUS$320,000 in donations to improve language, literacy, and numeracy standards in Australia.

About a week ago, OOdals, a new UK-based Amazon-like online store selling Books and Movies, announced that they will donate 10% of all their profits to support Australian literacy charities (article), including ILF and ANLF.

Literacy is one of the most important tools for improving Indigenous life, especially among young learners. It is not only about literacy in English but also literacy in their native language because language is a vital part of their culture. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial to improve literacy in their own language as well as in English. Their language and culture cannot fade with this generation.

Government Interventions with Indigenous Peoples

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At this point in the course, my interest lies in Government ‘interventions’ with Indigenous peoples. Specifically, I am considering residential schools in Canada and Australian intervention with mixed-raced Aboriginal children being removed from their homes and put into state institutions. I am intrigued by the governments’ rationale and thinking behind these policies as well as the length of time that they were enacted. I am curious as to how policies that today seem to be oppressive and against human rights were enforced by a government under the premise of being in the best interest of its citizens, for over one hundred years. As a historian, I am interested in the historical context and societal beliefs that fostered these policies for so long. Personally I am interested in residential schools as one of the largest/most notorious schools was in my hometown.

I am not quite sure just yet how I will narrow the topic, but am hopeful this will naturally become apparent in the early stages of my research.

Some resources I think will be useful are:

– Cassidy, J. (2006). The stolen generations – Canada and Australia: The legacy of assimilation. Deakin Law Review, 11,1, 131-177.

– Indigenous Foundations – Comprehensive website from UBC that considers varied Indigenous topics (government policy, culture, community and politics, global indigenous issues)

– Jacobs, M.D. (2005). Maternal colonialsim: White women and Indigenous child removal in the American west and Australia, 1880 – 1940. The Western Historical Quarterly, 36, 4, 453-476.

– Miller, J. R. Shingwauk’s Vision. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.

– Milloy, John S. A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986.Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.

– Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, Indian Residential Schools: The Nuu-Chah-Nulth Experience. Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, 1996.

– Report of the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples – Report created by the department of Indian and Northern Affairs

– Where Are the Children – An interactive website that looks at the residential school experience, by Library and Archives Canada.