Aboriginal Education in Europe Essay

The Aborigines Protection Act 1909 (NSW) was a law that changed Indigenous Australian lives forever. The act enabled the New South Wales Board for the Protection of Aborigines to essentially control the lives of Aboriginal people. It was the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 (NSW) that had major provisions that resulted in the containment and suffering that Aboriginal people endured. This suffering included the practice of forcible removing Indigenous children from their families. These major provisions help us understand what the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 (NSW) involved and the impact it has had on the daily lives and cultures of Indigenous Australian peoples today.

The discourse of whiteness has severely impacted on the educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (herein referred to as Indigenous Peoples). The discourse is based on an ontology founded on overt racism, discrimination, prejudice, exclusion and dispossession and towards all Indigenous Peoples. Subsequently, the history of Indigenous Peoples experiences in relation to education is extremely negative. They have been denied the right to the same education as non-Indigenous students, frequently expelled and continually forced to deny their cultural identity. The discourse of whiteness has resulted in pedagogies and pedagogical practices that are overly racist and not inclusive of Indigenous Peoples culture. To improve future educational outcomes it is necessary to decolonise Australia and rewrite the curriculum so that it is inclusive for all students.

In this essay we will try to provide a brief overview of educational issues of Aboriginal communities in Australia and Victoria and the elements that influence the educational outcomes of young Aboriginal people, such as culture and contemporary challenges. In addition to this, the inclusion of Aboriginal content in the Victorian curriculum and classroom practices will be explored as well as contemporary government policies.

The National Inquiry into the separation of the children concluded that 'between one-in-three and one-in-ten Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 until 1970' (Wilkie, 1997). It was the 1960s, at the earliest, when the various 'protection' Acts were either abolished or discontinued.

Throughout the early 20th century, the Australian public was led to believe that Aboriginal children were disadvantaged in their communities, and that there was a high risk of physical and sexual abuse. Aboriginal children were being removed in order to be exposed to ‘Anglo values’ and ‘work habits’ with a view to them being employed by colonial settlers, and to stop their parents, families and communities from passing on their culture, language and identity

Government policies authorising the removal of Aboriginal children have caused extensive and unrepairable damage to every aspect of Indigenous culture. It could be argued that the emotional turmoil which occurred as a result of this policy, is greater than any physical abused ever faced by the Australian Aboriginal people. The act of child removal would be a scarring experience for parents and children of any race or culture. This policy had a particularly damaging impact on the Indigenous people as their identity is based within a set of strong traditional guides and teachings. These lessons are not recorded, but can only be taught through speaking with elders and learning through a connection to others within the mob, connection to art forms

Through my life, I have seen several different approaches to Indigenous people’s rights and importance in Australia. I have been fortunate enough to visit Ayers Rock and undertake a tour which allowed me to see Aboriginal culture in art and drawings as well as hearing Dreamtime stories from guides. I have also witnessed family friends who have been severely racist and disrespectful of Indigenous heritage and history. I also was lucky to work with some Indigenous students who were in Reception during my Professional Experience 1, and I was able to see first-hand how a culture clash can affect a student’s behaviour. I feel that even before entering this course, I have had the privilege of being able to observe both positives and negatives

Education is fundamental to growth, the growth of the individual, and the growth of a nation. Anthropologically this can be seen from the earliest of developments of human societies where practices emerge to ensure the passing of accumulated knowledge from one generation to the next. In the centuries since the invasion and colonisation of Australia in 1788, colonist authorities and governments have dominated the making of policies regarding most major aspects of Australian life, including the lives of Indigenous Australians. The enactment of these policies and legislation, whether targeted at society as a whole or directly at education, has had significant and most often negative causal impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, resulting in not only poor educational outcomes, but the loss of cultural identity, the development of serious issues in health and wellbeing, and the restriction of growth of Aboriginal communities. Moreover, there has been an ongoing pattern of the adoption of ill-informed policies in Australia, resulting in these poor outcomes and cultural decimation. Aboriginal people have developed a wariness, a mistrust, and even an attitude of avoidance to engage with non-Indigenous officials and those who they associate as their representatives, i.e. personnel working within

‘Australia’ also showed how the government controlled how children of Aboriginal descent were brought up with language used such as “The mixed raced children must be dislocated from their primitive full blooded Aborigine, how else are we to breed the black out of them”. This presented again the reason as to why the Aboriginal children were taken away from their own cultures to be raised in something completely different.

Throughout the last fifty years two diametrically opposed views have played out. H.C. Coombs argued that the priority was to use the curriculum and teaching methods to rebuild and sustain traditional Aboriginal culture destroyed by colonisation, racism and oppression. He supported Moira Kingston’s view that all Aborigines had a “world view derived from the Dreaming and irreconcilable with the demands of a modern industrialised market economy.” Sir Paul Hasluck represented the opposing assimiliationist view that schools should give priority to literacy, numeracy and technical and scientific knowledge to asssist integration in the workforce.Many theorists and practitioners have focused on the one third of students in Aboriginal schools with a specifically Aboriginal education rather than the majority attending the same schools as non-Indigenous children. In either case major problems were indentified with Aboriginal education by 2000.

The native Aboriginal peoples of Australia have inhabited the island for at least 50,000 years. European colonization did not occur until the late 18th century, which brought diseases that ravaged the indigenous populations throughout the continent. Aboriginal children were removed from their homes from the beginning of the British occupation of Australia. These children, as shown in the film, were sent to a sort of “boarding schools” to be trained to serve British colonists. Like in the U.S.A, certain land areas were “reserved” for the aboriginal peoples. A Chief Protector was designated for the responsibility and defense of the aboriginal peoples. A more accurate title would have been the “Chief Discipliner” whose job was to “indoctrinate the aboriginal children” so as to use them for the service of the British citizens.

Finally, the Aboriginals were treated with vast amounts of social inequality. In particular, the idea of social stratification is largely visible when it comes to looking at how the Aboriginals were treated in the school system. Social inequality occurs when a person’s attributes affect their access to socially valued resources (McClinchey 2012). Social stratification is a hierarchy that exists among social classes of people (McClinchey, 2012). Obviously the background that the Aboriginals have is the reason for them being discriminated against by the Caucasian people, and the Caucasian

Furthermore, when the fundamental ideology behind residential schools is deeply analyzed, the core idea behind these schools can be partially justified to a very limited extent, as the idea had made sense and may have even benefited the aboriginals, had it been executed differently, and not as extreme and radical as the way it was. Humanity at the time was rapidly developing socially, economically, and technologically, along with mankind entering a new millenium, as the majority of the residential schools were built in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Especially during this time, as advancements and inventions were being made in all areas of civilization, residential schools in essence can be interpreted as a way to help aid the aboriginals with the transition into this new era. This is because the inevitable truth

The assimilation however devolved into relentless emotional and physical abuse of the Aboriginal children if they were caught practicing any traits from their culture, with accounts of sexual assault documented. Students lived in inhumane conditions and were segregated from

Throughout history Indigenous nations have always been neglected in obtaining a fair and equitable education. During colonisation the Australian colonies had the perception that Indigenous nations were “inferior” to the Europeans (McGregor, 1997 p.4). Due to this perception the policies formed during the protection, segregation and assimilation periods neglected to present Indigenous nations with an equitable education opportunity. Furthermore, these policies directly violated the declaration of human rights which states that everyone is entitled to a fundamental and elementary education (United Nations, 1948, Article 26.1). Although, the department of Education, science and training