Because of the increasing number of Aboriginals continuing on to high school (Lewis, 1974); because of the increasing urbanization of the Aboriginal population (Rowley, 1971; Gale, 1972; Pryor, 1974; Gale and Brookman, 1975); and because of growing interest among many Aboriginal adults in greater educational opportunities for their children (Watts, 1969b; Schools Commission Report, 1975), every Australian secondary teacher is potentially a teacher of adolescent Aboriginals. The purpose of this paper is to consider the personal and professional characteristics of teachers who would seem likely to effectively nurture the intellectual, emotional and social growth of adolescent Aboriginals generating in them an enthusiasm for learning, and inspiring them to strive for achievement and personal excellence.

Proposals for special training courses for Aboriginals in New South Wales have been made intermittently over the last few years. It has been firmly established that Aboriginals have not been acquiring trade skills, despite policies designed to provide equal opportunities for both Aboriginals and white Australians. Aboriginals have tended to gravitate towards unskilled, casual or labouring positions, while unemployment has been many times higher than of the general population. Although the educational system has attempted to prepare Aboriginals for a European life style, they have nevertheless tended to fall into the low income/unskilled employment class.

It is generally conceded that Aboriginals are disadvantaged in comparison to non-Aboriginals in regard to open employment. The disadvantages stem from remoteness from employment opportunities, relatively low levels of education, lack of work skills and cultural differences.

An Action Research Project into Secondary Education for Aboriginals in South Australia was initiated in 1972, and the appointment of five research teachers (project teachers) was approved by the Minister of Education at the end of 1972. In February 1973 the five project teachers took up their positions at Ceduna, Maitland and Meningie Area Schools and Glossop and Port Augusta High Schools. (In South Australia, “Area” schools cater for both primary and secondary students and “High” schools cater for secondary students only.) Those five schools were chosen because they had the highest percentage of Aboriginal students enrolled when the project began. Project teachers were appointed for a period of two years and their main task was to develop suitable strategies for increasing the achievement and motivation of Aboriginal students in secondary school.

Victoria River Downs (VRD) is an area of prolonged contact. Early contact, in particular, was marked by fatal violence and disease. The effect of this time is still apparent in the stories of atrocity told by both whites and Aboriginals. If you believed everything you were told there would be a skeleton per square mile. In time the gunsmoke settled down. The people now at Yarralin are survivors. The Karanga tribe is represented by three old men and about seven other linguistic groups are there.

The Aboriginals came to live in camp at VRD, “the station”. They were employed as domestics and stockmen in a paternalistic situation. Why they eventually left the station in the Wattie Creek Walkout I don’t know. In doing this, however, they placed themselves beyond redemption in the eyes of many of the Europeans. When they then left Wattie Creek, they returned to VRD, but to set up an out-station at Yarralin, about twelve miles from the homestead. Some returned for work, others to be near medical treatment. One man was expelled from Yarralin for trouble-making.

Many of the children had been to school at VRD and then at Wave Hill. While at Yarralin they received no schooling.

It is difficult for a teacher who is non-Aboriginal to understand what the Aboriginal people expect from their school. One welldocumented fact is that eyery Aboriginal community so far approached in the Northern Territory has stated that the children of that community must be taught English.

This paper examines a proposal that there is a need for a reappraisal of community education as the term is understood and applied in schools on relatively remote, tribally oriented Aboriginal communities.

A fairly detailed examination is made of the current realities involved in teaching in such localities in order to develop an alternative approach to this concept. Implicit in this alternative is a rejection of the stratagem whereby an Aboriginal council or board acts as a rubber stamp in an a priori decision making process. The principles involved in compensatory education are also rejected as being singularly inappropriate to the needs of Aboriginal communities.

A number of ‘radical’ overseas educationalists, whose comments and ideals seem appropriate to developing cross cultural perspectives, provide much of the material used in support of this plea for a new alternative in Aboriginal education.

The Victorian Education Department is philosophically opposed to the unnecessary segregation of children. Consequently, and with the approval of the Victorian Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, the two special schools for Aboriginal children at Lake Tyers and Framlingham were closed some years ago.

During the existence of the Victorian Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs it had been traditional practice for that Ministry to undertake special projects, after consultation with the Education Department, to alleviate educational disadvantages of Aboriginal children. Generally this support took the form of funding specific school projects or school equipment. However, in relation to other states the Victorian funding for education was at a low level.

The transfer of responsibility for Aboriginal Affairs from the Victorian State Government to the Australian Government on 1st January, 1975, made it imperative for the Victorian Education Department to assume full responsibility for the administration of all funding pertaining to the education of Aboriginal children. This step was necessary because the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs does not seek to provide educational services for Aboriginal people. They believe that the provision of such services is the responsibility of existing State Government educational authorities. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs seeks to stimulate, co-ordinate and if necessary, support the extension, and where appropriate the accommodation of existing services to Aboriginals, and to ensure that special measures are taken to overcome any particular handicaps which Aboriginal people may suffer.

The teaching of mathematics to Aboriginal children poses many difficulties for teachers. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal teachers agree that many Aboriginal children are not making adequate progress in their development of mathematical understanding. The teaching of mathematics in Aboriginal communities is discussed in the Northern Territory Infants Curriculum (1974 : 119–123). After reviewing the outcomes of a desirable mathematics course the curriculum writers conclude that “many Aboriginal children do not manifest many of these outcomes at a level comparable with that obtained by European children”.

John Gay and Michael Cole have written a very valuable book, The New Mathematics and an Old Culture, which examines the teaching of mathematics in a cross-cultural situation. They state that

Towards the end of last year I wrote a somewhat optimistic article for the West Australian Newsletter of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, under the heading, ‘A Plea for Alternatives in Aboriginal Education’.

The preparation of this paper has been stimulated by the table appended to the article “Parental involvement: endeavours to improve communications between Meningie Area school and the Pt. McLeay community in the period 1973–4” (A.M. Nankivell, The Aboriginal Child at School, Vol. 3 No. 1, 1975 pp. 48–55). The table, headed “Summary of Main Points Arising from Group Discussion of the Eight Major Problems at Meningie”, is a report of some conclusions derived from a seminar conducted with “Aboriginal and white parents and representatives of the various administrative and ancillary bodies concerned to discuss mutual problems”.

The article and table describe a number of ‘facts’ and make deductions, based on the unchallenged wisdom of psychologists, which purport to ‘explain’ problems in Aboriginal education. Indeed, the table is a succinct statement of the kind of explanatory system which has been used in Aboriginal education; an explanatory system which deserves close examination in the light of the failure of Aboriginal education over the last 130 years. The comments which follow, then, are not directed exclusively at the paper under discussion; they refer to general problems of explanation in Aboriginal education.