In the last issue, Dr. Collins and Mr. Fielding discussed the art education of fringe-dwelling Aboriginal children. Here, Mrs. Lendon provides insights into the art of a group of traditionally oriented children and assesses the impact that the European culture has had on their artistic expression.

In her letter, Mrs. Lendon particularly mentioned that she should be pleased to hear from any readers who have noticed interesting features in the art of rural or urban Aboriginal children.

Teachers of Aboriginal children have been concerned with the eventual end results of their teaching efforts for some time. We have probably all asked ourselves the impossible question, “Where are we going in Aboriginal education?” I remember attending a conference at which we were to discuss the topic, “Where are we going and why aren’t we getting there?” Needless to say, the discussions were as vague and undirected as the topic. Surely this will always be so whenever we attempt projecting our thoughts into the future of another culture. We simply cannot predict what the future holds for the children we teach.

I would suggest it would be more valid and beneficial to our students if we carried on more discussion about Aboriginal children’s needs and abilities as individuals, then design our programs to suit the child and his environment. I believe generalizations have helped in creating the situation of deprivation we see on any reserve or mission, town or city. Generalizations have probably helped in making the school day utterly irrelevant for many Aboriginal children. Specifically, this is more likely to be so wherever Aboriginal schools have either adopted in toto programs designed for other schools or have been instructed to follow a program written by educationists who have perhaps only a shallow appreciation of a particular area. It is probably true to say that in most areas people who don’t live on the reserves and missions simply do not know what is happening on these places. They cannot know of the personalities involved in the programs they write. One wonders if the Watergate scandal would be with us if Richard Nixon had spent more time than the reported three days a month in the White House. He simply didn’t know what was happening either. So then, we cannot afford to generalize in Aboriginal Education and we need the autonomy necessary to enable the staff on the particular mission or reserve to create what they consider to be a relevant program. And within that program, the optimum development of the individual student must be catered for.

The Cognition Seminar was held over two days in Canberra, May 27th. and May 28th.

A wide range of papers was presented by Australian psychologists. Also we were fortunate to have the stimulation of a number of overseas speakers.

The overseas visitors who are well known in studies involving various minority groups were Professor R.W. Brislin and Professor T. Ciborowski from the East-West Centre at Hawaii, Professor H.C. Triandis from the University of Illinois, U.S.A., Professor U. Pareek from India and Professor L.W. Doob from Yale University.

Teachers will, I think, be interested to see the variety of issues that were discussed at the two-day symposium. The program for the two days indicates this diversity

This paper is concerned with the art education of Aboriginal children. An attempt has been made to look at the situation as it exists, particularly in relation to fringe-dwelling Aboriginal children. This has been accomplished by means of a questionnnaire and direct teaching and observation of Aboriginal children on Palm Island and library research. The authors made a number of comparisons with data from research carried out overseas on similar groups, although they realise that no dogmatic conclusions can be made concerning Aboriginal children without further research in Australia.

On 25th September, a day long seminar was held at Maitland in South Australia as part of the Action Research Project for Secondary Education of Aboriginal Students. This project is being carried out within the Research & Planning Branch of the Education Department of South Australia.

The participants in the seminar were 27 past and present Aboriginal high school students, and the 10 current students were all senior students. Questionnaires were administered and answered individually by all students. Later in the day a discussion of some of the information collated from the questionnaires took place. After the meeting, the questionnaires were more thoroughly analysed, and the following report was written.

The questionnaires are reproduced in the Appendix following the report.

There were two main reasons for calling the meeting: firstly so that Aboriginals could give their views about school, and secondly so that the school and the Action Research Project could use the information given by the Aboriginals to effect changes. Three questionnaires were administered during the day. Part I was put on the overhead projector, and the students filled in answer sheets. Part II and Part III were on sheets which were filled in by individuals.

Some publications in the field of Aboriginal studies.

Worldwide, education authorities are concerned about the problem of relevance of courses for secondary school students. Many systems are trying to develop job-relevant experiences for youth.

Two recent reports have considered the issues involved in work experience courses. Extracts from the Queensland State Education Department ‘s Research and Curriculum Branch – Education Abstract (No.216, March 1974 & No. 217, April 1974) are reproduced below for your interest.

How relevant are the issues raised to the educational program you are seeking to develop in your school?