Armed for success - Page 3
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 11: Getting Smart
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Chris Sarra
OUR EXPLICIT EFFORTS TO EMBRACE OUR ABORIGINALITY and our blackness were a truly positive process and did not involve rejecting other people's whiteness. What is truly significant about such simple yet complex strategies is that they gave me enough leverage to challenge and influence the way our children were thinking and behaving. Put simply – if children were screaming to me from the bottom of their guts that they were strong and smart, and young, black and deadly, I could challenge them by saying things like: "It has to be more than words coming out of your mouth ... the things that come out of your mouth have to match the way that you behave ... so you can't say to me that you are ‘strong and smart' and then go missing from school ... You can't tell me that you are ‘young and black and deadly', and then play up and give the teacher a hard time."
I challenged the children to improve their behaviour and their attendance at school and they did. With a program designed to reward improved attendance at school, unexplained absenteeism dropped by 94 per cent within eighteen months. This influenced real attendance at school. In term four of 2005, real attendance had improved dramatically to 93 per cent.
Improved attendance influenced student performance. The Year 2 diagnostic tests for reading saw the school shift within two years from having all the children well below expected reading levels to less than half identified as below expected reading levels. Year 7 student performance levels also improved dramatically. In 1999, all Year 7 children were significantly below the state average band for literacy. In 2004, seventeen of 21 students were within the state average band for aspects of literacy.
AS THE LEADER OF THE SCHOOL, I FELT IT WAS important to help our children understand better the social and cultural environment in which they were. This was crucial to help them understand the contradictions that existed for many children, although not all, between the strong and smart sense of being Aboriginal that existed within the school compared with that sense of being Aboriginal that existed outside the school gate. We did this by developing and implementing a local Aboriginal Studies program.
This program addressed the broad range of issues related to Aboriginal people and Aboriginal communities in its discussion of significant local sites, family connections and important Aboriginal identities from Cherbourg and throughout Australia. I insisted it take on the hard issues as well and stare in the face the unpalatable issues of domestic violence, alcoholism and child abuse. Our children had to understand that, while such ugly issues were prominent in indigenous communities, including Cherbourg, they were unquestionably the legacy of historical and sociological processes and not the legacy of being Aboriginal.
The Aboriginal Studies program was a key element in developing a strong and positive sense of what it meant to be Aboriginal. I wanted transformation and I wanted to facilitate the process of identity creation from inside. When one's identity is brought out from the inside, then nothing can take it away. Whilst I look back with satisfaction on the efforts of the school team, it should be noted that we didn't go there and give the children a strong and smart, young, black and deadly Aboriginal identity. It existed all along. In fact, it exists in every Aboriginal child. All we did was believe it was there and do whatever it took to bring that identity and feeling of pride out so we could see it, and more importantly, so the children could see it for themselves.
This is the most beautiful thing about the teaching and learning relationship. Nothing matters beyond the confines of the teacher-student relationship as long as the teacher believes in the child. Regardless of the child's social and cultural environment, if the teacher believes the child will learn, then the child will learn and be receptive to the teacher's belief in them. After seven years at the school and watching some children confronted by disastrous events, I am certain of this.
My experience at the school has also affirmed the need to confront the useless, yet sometimes powerful forces of libertarian leftovers who speak in weasel and romantic words, professing to care, but tolerating – even expecting – failure.
My views here are somewhat conservative, not controversial. I, and the Aboriginal people who supported me at Cherbourg, seek to recover and preserve what is the best of our indigenous past. I am deeply opposed to the brand of libertarianism that promises much with its talk of rights and democracy, yet delivers nothing to the youth who are sniffing petrol and stealing cars – who need to learn the boundaries. Such rhetoric is pedalled by those who blow in and blow out and then retreat to their own cosy confines to write such interludes into flashy CVs.
As principal of Cherbourg, I was there alongside my colleagues, totally and absolutely for the children, day in and day out. When they hurt, we at the school hurt. When they lashed out, we had to help them contain their anger. When they chose to be stronger and smarter, we helped them to understand what this meant.
There are questions for all of us here. As educators, our job statements say things like "provide leadership and direction ... to challenge children to be the best that they can be ... to deliver quality educational outcomes for all students". There are no brackets afterwards saying "unless they are black".
It is absurd for us as educators to sit inside the "comfort zones" of our schools and say things like "Aboriginal parents don't value education". There is nothing to be comfortable about in indigenous education. We would never accept existing student performance levels in white communities, so why should they be accepted in Aboriginal communities? If some educators are frustrated that indigenous parents are reluctant to engage in positive educational relationships then we must stop and realise the importance of our part in these relationships.
We must also realise that we are actually being paid to be in these relationships, and we are accountable for the delivery of positive outcomes. If we are not prepared to contemplate this, then we should not be considered educators. I resent the harm that such people do to our great profession.
Of course, there are questions, too, for us as Aboriginal people. Some of these questions are basic. Do I spend my money on alcohol or do I spend it on food for my children? Do I spend my time drinking or do I spend it at home making sure my children are tucked in bed, safe and protected from any unscrupulous predators?
While it seems absurd that the answers to such questions might seem so obvious, we must understand that the colonial forces that shaped them have tampered with the lives of Aboriginal people so much that some are not even aware of the questions. If the answers seem difficult and at times beyond some Aboriginal people, then we should let ourselves be inspired by our children. I have seen children who have been confronted by extremely nasty situations, yet they come to school the next day. They refuse to lie down or become victims. Instead they work harder at being stronger and smarter ... it is that clear.
Within three years, the team at Cherbourg State School, including the Aboriginal people who stood beside me, transformed the school into an institution in which children were hungry to learn and take pride in themselves and their school. They learned to respect their elders and value the positive and sophisticated aspects of what it truly means to be Aboriginal. Now they act like Aborigines, not delinquents.
I have sometimes been criticised for explicitly motivating children by reflecting on their Aboriginal identity. It is in Australia's interest, I believe, to have young Aboriginal people with a strong and positive perception of what their Aboriginal identity means to them. All schools should play a part in getting Aboriginal children to reflect positively on their identity so that being Aboriginal is seen as something truly great. The reality, if we do nothing, is that the society we live in will imply that they are inferior, and the greatest tragedy is that many indigenous youth will believe this.
I am reminded of the intense frustration, anger and aggression I saw manifested during the Redfern riots in Sydney in 2004. Aboriginal people in this country know that such highly charged emotion exists in many places. It is a reminder that indigenous youth have a journey to make, and that they must be armed for that journey, not with rocks and sticks and petrol bombs, but with intellectual, psychological and spiritual integrity. ♦