INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
Indigenous Education is an important subject to include in the curriculum as it ensures that Australia's cultural heritage is celebrated and remembered. While I completed Australian History as a part of my VCE which provided me with an extensive knowledge about Indigenous Australians and their culture, my knowledge and understandings have grown from university and my time in schools.
As a part of the subject Indigenous Education at University I conducted research around Ebenezer Mission in Antwerp. In order to do this I worked alongside the Barenji Gadjin land council. This project gave me a great insight into the local Indigenous culture and history of the area in which I grew up.
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In 2014 I was an AIME Mentor which meant that I was able to be a part of a mentoring program in which university students work with Indigenous students from local secondary schools. This assisted me in gaining an understanding into the Indigenous culture and to the many issues that Indigenous Australians are faced with in today's world.
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During my placement at Essendon Primary I conducted a small reading group on the text 'Early Settlers' which among many things outlined John Batman's treaty with the Aboriginals. This assisted them in understanding what life was like for the Australian Aboriginals at the time and how the assimilation and accommodation had to occur between the Indigenous and the settlers.
As an introduction to an inquiry lesson I showed this image of white settlers and Indigenous Australians and got students to complete a 'See, Think, Wonder' activity of what they thought was happening in the picture. Students were then to decide upon a time in Australian history in which they wanted to learn about. Some of these that related Indigenous Australians included What did Aboriginals hunt? Did the Aboriginal people invent anything? How did the Aboriginals survive? Why did Aboriginals die from cold and flu? What did Aboriginals make their huts from? Who created the Aboriginal flag? In pairs students where then to research their chosen question and share the information that they learnt with the rest of the class.
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Students watched this short clip and had to write down some of the effects that of settlement that may effect the Indigenous Australians. They were then to use each of these things identified and brainstorm what the impact would have been on the Aboriginals.
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An inquiry into Indigenous Australians was also conducted as a part of weekly homework tasks for students in my class at Essendon Primary. These tasks included things such as researching a famous Indigenous Australian, finding out what Indigenous words mean, making an instrument that reflected the Indigenous culture, writing a journal entry in the perspective of an Indigenous Australian when the First Fleet arrived and many others. While correcting these pieced I was able to identify what students had learnt about Indigenous Australians as a part of their homework Inquiry.