NAIDOC Poster 2010

The 2010 NAIDOC Poster is available from www.naidoc.org.au. The poster was created by Sheree Blackley and is titled Unsung Heroes - Leading Through Example. 

Description of work: The artwork depicts an Aboriginal mother who is an 'unsung hero' leading her children through example, showing that actions can speak louder than words. The dot work illustrates nurturing and teaching from birth, always guiding our children towards 'closing the gap', towards 'success' for those who choose to stay on the path.

You can order copies of the poster from the National NAIDOC organisation at www.naidoc.org.au.

The Stronger Smarter Institute (SSI) is also holding a NAIDOC Poster competition for 2010. Check out the details here. Entries close 25th June. There are prizes for individuals and schools.

ACT Schools teaching Aboriginal landcare knowledge

This article this morning announced that all ACT schools with be teaching Ngunnawa landcare knowledge. Wow!

What a fantastic initiative. The biggest hurdles I would anticipate would be ensuring that schools are provided with the budget to ensure that Ngunnawa teachers are paid appropriate wages and ensuring that there are enough teachers to be able to provide all ACT schools with the service.

Looking forward to hearing how this initiative pans out.

The Bama Way

A new commercial website enterprise, The Bama Way is now available. While specifically targeting the tourism market, there is a deadly map that features information about Bama country.

Great for geography, and history.

Echo Adventure & Cultural Camp

Found this today, via an Education Qld staff member. Its Echo Adventure & Cultural Camp in North Queensland. South of Cairns and West of Tully, this is Jirrbal country.

So if you're a staff group seeking cultural awareness training, or even with your own students, consider this one.
Looks deadly!

Aboriginal Place Names of Brisbane

Using Google Maps + Tom Petrie's Reminiscences of Early Queensland: Dating from 1837 by Constance Campbell Petrie (1904), I've started creating a map of Aboriginal Place Names of Brisbane. Its in its earliest of days yet as I add in a couple of names each week.

I'm also looking for other sources I can use (aside from Campbell Petrie's) including local community people.

If you've never used Google Maps before, just go to http://maps.google.com.au/. If  you get stuck (which I often do if its been a few weeks since the last time I worked on the map, just click "help" in the top right hand corner. There are short videos as well as questions & answers from other people.

Extending your Google Map - here is an article about how to work further with Google Maps. I'll be looking for more ideas over time.

Don't forget you can embed the map into your wiki or class blog as well.

(This post also published on www.teacherswhotweet.com)

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students studying business?

Yes? Why not check out my other blog "On The Ground" which is business from an Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander perspective. There are a number of entrepreneur profiles with links (a growing list). I've currently organised the site into:

9 CORE TOPICS

1. Indigenous Business
2. Being in Business
3. Marketing
4. Business Planning
5. Copyright and Intellectual Property
6. Law & Taxation
7. Accounting & Finance
8. The Creative Business
9. Society and the Economy

There are then numerous sub-topics including social media, having fun in business, pricing, innovation.

The blog is accompanised by the wiki - artist-as-entrepreneur (which is on wiki spaces) which is a second semester course I teach to Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art students at Queensland College of Art - Griffith University, Brisbane.

Avatar - watch with one eye closed

29 January - Update - for more analysis, commentary & opinion on the gender/race/colonising politics/themes of the film, go to Sociological Images (Thanks SRP for the link)
Update 2 - Another analysis on Avatar on the blog - As The Teaching Drum Turns blog.


Just a quick blog to start myself blogging again. Went to see Avatar on Christmas Eve with the kids. It was good. Everyone loved it. Everyone seems to love it. I guess I liked it. But there's a couple of ways I'm reading it - or maybe there's a few different perspectives I'm viewing it from.

The first view is that it was visually very good. You couldn't tell where the animated beings started and human beings ended. The "real landscape" which must have been animated because there are no landscapes like that on earth - was completely convincing.

The second view is that its probably a good text for students who are wondering about the experience of Indigenous people. There are two completely different world views/systems fighting for the same piece of land - they're are and always be completely incompatible. Yes, Invasion Day is coming up soon in Australia - so its kind of fitting - not a bad text for stimulating discussion.

The third and problematic view however is that, do we really need a whiteman to fix the problem again? Just like Dances with Wolves and a host of other movies I've seen. Or its like the movie where despite there being much more capable women & men in the landscape - apparently only this new dude is capable of saving the day? Its actually pretty offensive, though a popular Hollywood/Western theme.

Of course, most Indigenous people are still fighting have their sovereignty recognised and unlike the Avatar ending - there is no happy ending.

I supposed I liked it - but only with one eye closed.

Essential Reading

Here is another selection for the other resource for the non-institutionally-affiliated-student or Life-Long Learner.

The Australian Critical Race & Whiteness Studies Association examines Whiteness in an Australian context, exploring the racialised nature of our country.

They hold regular conferences with a regular journal published that you can access from the website.

10 Incredibly inspiring self-taught learners

Amber from Online Universities Weblog sent this link to 10 Incredibly Inspiring Self Taught Scholars this afternoon.

It made me think about how we as adult learners/teachers fail to engage with what we're learning/teaching and we underestimate the role of self-teaching. I gave a guest lecture yesterday at QUT for pre-service teachers. It was in one of those gigantic lecture theatres (you know the ones that are kind-of cost-effective because they fit all your first years, but don't really allow you to really connect?).

What I noticed though, is that the majority of the students were sitting up the back of the theatre and there were many not even present. What I wondered today as I was reflecting on yesterday, is "what kind of teachers will these learner make?"

If you're learning something because you "have to", because the university is "making you do it", then that's one heck of an uninspiring place to engage.

I've been guilty in the past of prefacing an upcoming lecture with a 'you just have to learn this because the course outline says you have to' statement. Thinking about that today, I can't believe that I would say something like that. How dare I influence another person's engagement with a topic simply because I've not bothered or had the energy to find a point of engagement.

I think that's the task - find a POINT OF ENGAGEMENT. A place where you can connect with the subject.
When I was teaching Indigenous Art, Protocols and Practices at Queensland College of Art, I would have many international students in my class struggling to understand concepts of appropriation of Aboriginal iconography and cultural knowledge. But I tried to relate it to their own culture. Many of the "Asian" students could understand cultural appropriation because they could see it in every second Hollywood blockbuster - where every leading man is a martial arts expert who had appropriated the surface of the art, removed it from its context and altered it.

This, relating the learning to your context is a POINT OF ENGAGEMENT. The students, many of whom would return to their countries and more than likely never engage with Indigenous Australians again, were able to connect with the course.

We can take a lesson from the inspiring self-taught scholars - find a POINT OF ENGAGEMENT. Something that draws you in to a subject and allows you to develop an intrinsic motivation to learn.
That's the kind of learner-teacher I'm trying to be.

Knowledge & World Views in the Critical Classroom: A journey of on-going inquiry

These notes are to accompany a lecture given on 31st August, 2009 for pre-service education students enrolled in EDB007 Culture Studies: Indigenous Education (mid-semester) at Queensland University of Technology. This post can be conjunction with the slides on slideshare.net/leesawatego

So far in this semester, students have explored concepts such as standpoint, epistemologies, the power & privelege of knowledge.

In this lecture we expand these concepts, but also include the idea of the critical classroom & inquiry to highlight the importance understanding & incorporating different knowledges and world views into your practice.

In the past I've regularly used a quote by Gale about the impact of book on Indigenous readers. She states:

"books can be dangerous to Indigenous readers if they

• do not reinforce our values, actions, customs, culture and identity;
• when they tell us only about others they are saying that we do not exist;
• they may be writing about us but are writing things which are untrue; &
• they are writing about us but saying negative and insensitive things which tell us we are not good."

Re-reading this quote this morning, I've realised that above is most certainly true, but less true in a critical classroom. In a critical classroom, you're not just interested in "what the knowledge says" but "how did we get that knowledge in the first place".

A critical classroom expects a constant tenor of inquiry that questions and reflects on what is written/said, who wrote/said it and why.

Many parents of Indigenous children in Australian clasrooms do not see this idea of the critical classroom in practice. For many parents, the singing of the national anthem & the flag is problematic. In addition, many schools in Australia still only have a single flagpole (for the Australian flag).

What impact (for better & for worse) does our world view have on our education practice? How can we "alter" our practice to make it more effective?

Two examples in the key learning areas of art/SOSE and science show that it is possible to incorporate different ways of seeing into the everyday classroom, not just at NAIDOC week.

Some links for your PLN

(Originally published on InquiryBites blog on August 31, 2009)