An 18th birthday cake made and eaten in two waves of kids, teenagers and young adults who washed over my little place in a tidal wave of enthusiasm. My home which I thought I had tidied up no longer is. But it was a fun day nonetheless.

It is interesting watching the kids with poor literacy use the internet. My local phone book is used to check the spelling of remote communities throughout Western Australia as they search the web for photos of people and places they know. Younger kids are given instruction in language by the older kids. They pick it up much faster than when I try to show them in English.

It makes a mockery of the Northern Territory plans to stop bilingual education in remote community schools.

And they are learning: words, spelling, reading. And learning with enthusiasm.

Yet I hear of area educators going to remote schools and saying to the community that unless more kids go to school they will have to close it down.

What they should be doing is offering staff who are willing to stay extended contracts, rather than moving them each term or not confirming contract extensions until the last minute. With continual changes the kids never settle with one teacher and soon stop attending. The education honchos rather than trying to blame the community should be looking at the kids in the community and asking what can they do as educators to make school for attractive and relevant for these indigenous kids.

But it is never the Education Department’s fault.

Anyway, here is some Aboriginal “stuff” that was looked at over the weekend.

• Red Dust
• Ngaanyatjarra Health Expo Theme Song
• Remote Fashion Parade
• Warburton Youth Arts Exhibition
• Warburton Youth Arts Blog

Mamu Place (‘Mamu’ means ‘devil’)

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Tagged as: aboriginal, bilingual education, Education, educators, Indigenous, language, literacy

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