EDUCATION POLICY
The value of
conversation
Improving outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
students is very high on the list of current national education
priorities, says DAVID McCRAE.
David McCrae considers what a co-ordin-
ated Commonwealth approach can
achieve when the mix of policy, funding
and people is right. Take the national
.approach to Indigenous .Education.
McCrae looks here at 'What Works? -
eighty-three Strategic Results Projects
worldngwithmore than 3,800 Aboriginal
"and Torres Strait Islander students that
(:\,~~ve\ generated .. good.. results with
.;'jr;voll'edteacherswhochose to generate
;f\~~~~s~~of~e.irstu~ents.Wbilesome of
};:thenews~good,non-Indigenouskids
:;1~~~~n.'oY~.represented ~ong.
:-~~'~~~:'\:'-;,:-,~'-':,'-:'-~:"'<::::..::/-.-.:.--'':',"'.-','::
*~~ents'S'rho\~Y.. Y~arFour ... are,~ell
~~~~~;:~i~~~er.tan~n~eracy
h atever you might think of
W.
David Kemp's work generally, in
terms of improving outcomes for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students
he was exemplary. I suspect that, with the
assistance of one of Australia's very good
public servants, .Peter Buckskin, Deputy
Secretary for Indigenous Education in Kernp's
former Department of Education, Training
and Youth Affairs, he might have had a set of
experiences when visiting Aboriginal' and
Torres Strait Islander communities, which
while never the same in their detail are always
similar in their impact. Initially, as a south-
erner, shock that there is so much which is
profoundly 'foreign' in one's own country,
immense curiosity in trying to understand
those at the other end of the divide, and
horror at the basic living circumstances of
some of these countrymen and women. Along
with many other non-Indigenous Australians,
he might also have been spurred into action
by what he experienced.
His legacy may become more apparent
over the next three years. He has left
a foundation for action that, with contin-
uing attention and nurture, may yield a
substantial harvest,
" ~':, -,"':::':':""'- : :':', ~,;': .:, : :-~_' ;j';/>'~:,:-;:~_:;}~?::'-;' ·~~:;~~~W::::~;~::~;W:~/t~·"
and continue!.. experieri.~dijIi
the . traDSiti6~i~:t~~~~~;~t~}.;>.<
McCrae argues. •. tha.t\Dll~~ •. ~~~,:,tli
previous Ministe~fo~E~~On,,~~y.~:~":',;?1.
be remembered forhisactivityitt;s~(Ji-t)'l
of Indigenous Education.th~~dige~~~t~
Education Strategic Initiati\re8~~~("
Kemp has left a foundationf~r act,i~n;"
McCrae says, that alongside Us~tU1.w()U.·
by the MCEETYA Taskforce in .nappfugj
out future directions, shouldrieId a'
substantial harvest: when Indigenous
and non-Indigenous people learn to
the undestand one another and live together
-'. -,' , '.:
productively in a spirit. of increasing
skills
mutual confidence and trust.
The programs operating under the tide
of the Indigenous Education Strategic
Initiatives Program (IESIP) are well-estab-
lished and, in particular, ATAS, the tutoring
scheme for secondary students, seems to be
having a significant impact. The general
trends in performance are up, especially in
the VET sector. The MCEETYA Taskforce on
Indigenous Education has done useful
work, if at a fairly elevated level, in mapping
out future directions, and several one-off
efforts have helped build a platform for
further action,
Between late 2000 and mid 2001, nearly
1,200 Australian school principals - more
than ten per cent of the total of principals -
attended the APAPDC's Commonwealth-
funded 'Dare to Lead' forums. These
produced a startlingly powerful response
from participants. One of the things they
heard about was what has become known as
the What Works? projects, eighty-three
Strategic Results Projects (SRPs) working
with more than 3,800 Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander students, aged from three to
over sixty in widely varied locations. I was
involved as a member of the team co-ordin-
ating and monitoring the work of these
EDUCARE ~llcWS JUNE 2002

projects and I vividly remember. the
moment, working back and forth across
their reports and their generally very good
results, trying to work out what had made a
difference, when it became clear that the
reason for these good results was that the
teachers involved had chosen to succeed. to
generate success for their students. The
formal version of this story is contained
in the report "What Works? Explorations
in improving outcomes for Indigenous
students (McCrae et al, 2000). More about
its consequences shortly.
But not all the outcomes were good and
there is still a long hard road to travel. The
prominence of this issue is not yet cemented
in the mainstream. Indigenous students are
only a bit over three per cent of our total
student population and it is common to fmd
an idea in teachers' minds that most
Indigenous people, the 'real' ones, live in the
Territory, the Cape or the mysterious far
north-west. And they do live there - but they
also live· in Tasmania, in Canberra, in
Melbourne, in the suburbs of Perth. The
bulk of them are scattered in small numbers
in schools in the towns and cities of provin-
cial Australia, where their circumstances
and needs can be ignored.
They often start school without the
advantages that non-Indigenous kids have,
which means that they are over-represented
among the students who by Year Four are
well behind in literacy and numeracy skills.
Their transition to secondary school is more
problematic than it is for non-Indigenous
kids, and the more stringent and unfor-
giving demands - .social, cultural and
academic - squeeze them to the margins.
Everyone is just that little bit happier when
they fade from the roll.
But some go on, and some go on to
succeed. In Imagining Themselves,
Imagining their Futures (SSABSA, 2001)
Tony Mercurio and Linda Clayton have
collected the stories of sixteen of the forty-
six Indigenous students who successfully
completed their Year Twelve studies in
South Australia in 1999. What stories! What
struggles! What persistence!
One of the hazards of. working in this
area is the underlying sense (I'm speaking
here as the non-Indigenous southerner that
I am) that it's none of your business; that
even with the best intentions you're going to
stumble through this fragile environment,
plangent with such a dense and tragic recent
EDUCARE NEWS JUNE 2002
EDUCATION POLICY
history, like a blind-folded, three-legged
mule; and that, like other well-intentioned
souls, you'll leave having done more damage
than good. There are plenty of people who
will encourage this view, especially
Indigenous folk whose political and world
views were formed in the anger, pain and
unrealised hopes of the 1970s. It's not guilt
but something which might be more diffi-
cult to accommodate) personal discomfort,
which sends you back to the warmth of your
own home and hearth. You don't know what
it's like, you can't know what it's like, and
you've got no idea about what's best to do.
In the north and in more remote commu-
nities this is particularly true. Fly-in-fly-out
commentators are neither in short supply
nor of much value. Yet not even the most
remote communities are untouched by the
artefacts and values of contemporary
Western culture. The wish of the older
members. that their children be educated
successfully in conventional terms is clearly
apparent. Former Senator Bob Collins's
report on the education of Indigenous
students in the Northern Territory provides
clear evidence of this and has influenced my
thinking, as have Peter Buckskin, foe Ross
and Aunty May O'Brien - colleagues in
'Dare to Lead'and other processes. Paul
Hughes, another member of our team, who
One of the hazards of working in this area is the
underlying sense ... that, like other well-
intentioned souls, you'll leave having done more
damage than good.
has devoted a professional life in education
to the issues of his people rarely leaves room
for doubt. 'They've got to be taught well,' he
told hundreds of teachers during the course
of many meetings last year, 'and they've got
to turn up.'
But I keep coming back to the stories in
Imagining Themselves for direction. In this
arena, what non-Indigenous people can
offer Indigenous people, if they choose to
take it up, is a good education, not distinct
in any dramatic ways from that offered to
other students. There is a different article to
be written for teachers who never encounter
Indigenous students in their work -
building bridges through increased aware-
ness is an important and deeply rewarding
task for us all. But the primary concern is
helping .Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander students do well. Doing well
provides access to work, to self esteem and
to many of the choices which non-
Indigenous Australians take for granted.
'The (successful) Indigenous students we
interviewed,' write Tony and Linda, 'have a
dear idea of what it means to "do" school, of
what it takes to be a successful student.'
These students were clear about the impor-
tance of goals and priorities, commitment
and persistence, organisation and time
management. Although many of them have
struggled with issues of identity and most
have had experiences of overt and
confounding racism from teachers as well as
students, 'they do not seem to be concerned,
or do not expect, that their school subjects
are inclusive of the experiences of the lives
of Indigenous peoples,' although they are
grateful when that occurs. (49-50)
Now these are successful students and so,
by definition, they have accepted not just
the discipline required for success in formal
education but also many of the more
oblique and pervasive assumptions that
underpin schooling. What about the others,
the ones who don't make it? One powerful
lesson to be learned by teachers is the need
to abandon the security of generalisations.
In Howard Groome and Arthur Hamilton's
excellent report, Meeting the Needs of
Aboriginal Adolescents (NBEET, 1995), it is
suggested on the basis of strong evidence
that: '(Aboriginal students) are not isolated
from their peers, be these Aboriginal or non~
Aboriginal. .. Although they do have a
distinctive sense of identity as Aboriginal
people, these adolescents share the aspira-
tions and world-views of their non-
Aboriginal peers and have to pass through
the same stages of development.... This
should not be interpreted as an argument for
assimilation, for both students and their
wider families remain committed to their
Aboriginal heritage. However, it does mean
Artide continued on page 48
47

Artide continued from page 47
that those of us involved in providingeduca-
tional services need to develop more integra-
tive processes that can accommodate the
range of identities and values in today's
contemporary student society.' (i-ii) It is the
range of identities and values that need to be
investigated.
And just how do you do that? The first
step is to approach the issue as a learner.
Tidy up all the bits and pieces of third-hand
information and the way the media treats
related issues; put away as many of your
prejudices as you are able; open your mind a
little wider; and find out. That consists of
abandoning assumptions which mayor may
not be warranted, and getting to know your
students and their families. That is the
essence of the fundamental principle of
'doing with' rather than 'doing to,' the
essence of genuine reconciliation, and
because of our shared and separate histories
it is not always a straightforward task.
Although it can be.
\ That's the nub of this article. But I want
"
to shift the direction of approach. This past
year the work in which the team has been
involved has included developing What
Works? - the Work Program: support
materials designed to help with the work of
improving educational outcomes for this
group of students. At the time of writing it is
not in circulation, but it will be shortly. The
Work Program has three components. 'The
Guidebook' is a genial but firm reminder of
our shared responsibilities. In all its divided
glories Australian school education is gener-
ally very good. It is humane, it has substance
and it is conducted by people who, in the
main, believe that their work is full of
purpose. Nonetheless, the education of
Indigenous kids is the most obvious arena of
failure and, if only for reasons of profes-
sional efficacy and pride, that must be
corrected. 'The Workbook' will take its users
through a step-by-step process which is a
basis for effective action. It says, categori-
cally, that forging partnerships between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians
is the hardest but most enriching part of
that process. It suggests that the way you go
about this is not to target the local Land
Council, but to start by getting to know your
students and their families. You don't have
! to read any books or go to any seminars -
that will come later, if at all. The third is a
digital wonderland of people telling their
48
EDUCATION POLICY
,~ __<;'",., ~
-~;,.
.""i,
stories - interesting and useful stories - and
all flavoured with both reality and success.
The theory underlying each element is
derived, among other things, from the
experience and results of the SRPs. A
common set of themes have emerged:
becoming aware of the issues; forming
partnerships; and working systematically -
sometimes in that sequence, but not always.
It is clear that the vast majority of teachers
have the technical skills to educate their
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander
students. Despite what some books say, the
issue is one of relationships, not formal
learning processes or strategies.
In one section of the digital materials
(which will be available on a website, as well
as a CD-ROM for those whose preferences
run that way) there are what we have called
'the doors,' six descriptions of ways into the
issue. A common shout can be heard in six
different registers from six radically
different circumstances: Elders from a
community in the Kimberley, a primary
school principal in rural New South Wales, a
secondary school principal working in
Canberra, a South Australian independent
schools consultant in Adelaide, for example,
who get to know each other!
I have met some teenage Aboriginal kids
in a northern NSW town who didn't know
that police had any function other than to
chase them. I have met some teachers in the
same town who believe that all Aboriginal
people are drunkards. (There is a higher
proportion of teetotallers among Indigenous
Australians than within the non-Indigenous
community.) There is room for expansion of
the horizons of all parties, and a terribly
urgent need.
Some snatches of the text from behind
these 'doors': 'The way it works for a great
many teachers I deal with is that they first of
all get up the courage to invite an
Indigenous speaker into the school .... This
is in itself a bit of a challenge in that many
teachers have never spoken to an Aboriginal
person before, and have no idea how to
approach one or who to approach to ask
them to talk to a group of students .... The
teacher suddenly realises that there is a
whole group of articulate, experienced and
successful, as well as appallingly treated
(this usually comes out in the session with
students), people that he or she knows very
little about and with whom we share a
country which was, not so long ago,
theirs .... The teacher is usually confronted,
and disturbed, by the depths of their own
ignorance. Most people decide to take steps
to correct this. Teachers don't like being
ignorant wilfully:
'Before new teachers walk in a classroom,
I tell them that Aboriginal kids have a sixth
sense when working with non-Aboriginal
people. If the kids don't perceive them to be
fair dinkum -up front, you knowI'm here
to do a job for you and in a nice, quiet
supportive way - those teachers will lose
ninety-five per cent of the Aboriginal kids
instantly. When they first walk into that
classroom, they must be seen as a human
being, somebody who's here to teach, and to
help kids in any way, shape or form. . .. The
model we use here could be put in place
anywhere. It just so happens that fifty per
cent of our kids are Aboriginal. We've
proved that you can get equal outcomes for
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal kids in the
same environment by just treating them as
kids. However, as far as Aboriginal kids are
concerned, they've got to know that being
Aboriginal is wonderful:
EOUCARE NEWS JUNE 2002

'what I try to do is get non-Indigenous
teachers to go through the culture shock
process. It doesn't matter what you're like as
a person, if you go into an area where there
is a different culture there is that culture
shock .... It's not a quick process and some
people take a year to work through it or even
a couple of years. And some take decades, or
never get there.... Often the stereotypes
come first: they're poor, their families are
dysfunctional, that sort of thing. That
becomes our armour .... Then you've got to
work through the, "I'm going to save the
world" syndrome, and that can be hard.
People come some terrible croppers. But
in the end you've got to recognise
Aboriginality. They're Aboriginal people!
Once you get it, you can treat people as
people while never ever forgetting there are
black cultures .... So I try to get teachers to
get to know Aboriginal people as people.
Once you start to be able to relate as adults,
person to person, you can develop better
relationships with the kids as well. It's so
important because otherwise you're scared
of everything: scared of the Aboriginal
Elders and scared to do anything with the
kids. That makes you defensive and you
can't do your job properly. There are better
ways, and actually they're as easy as making
proper acquaintances.'
These texts are preceded by the short-
ened but verbatim record of a long conver-
sation between two colleagues, Western
Australian consultants. They may have had
this conversation many times before, or they
may not. I don't know. But in important
respects it was a review of the way they had
managed to operate together as two
workers, one a 'wadjela' (non-Indigenous
person, 'whitefella') and a Noongar Nyungar
person from Kondinin, near wave Rock in
the south-west of WA. (That detail will be
most important to many Aboriginal
Australians. )
They talk about the project work they
have done together, focused ostensibly on
issues related to Aboriginal English and its
place in the classroom, but always about so
much more. The conversation begins with
defining the 'key issue.' It wasn't 'those day-
to-day practices and literacy teaching strate-
gies. The key issue was the 'teachers really
getting to know their kids, knowing where
they were coming-from, ,and valuing their
culture. And the reason it wasn't being valued
is because it simply wasn't understood.'
EDUCARE NEWS JUNE 2002
EDUCATION POLICY
The non-Indigenous consultant notes
with something like horror: 'My first
extended conversation, with an Aboriginal
person, about Aboriginal culture or about
Aboriginal views or values or anything, was
through this project. And I thought, hell's
bells, I should have learned all this stuff. I
should have had these opportunities when I
was at' school. And then I've looked around,
and I've got two little kids at primary school
right now, and I've thought, they're not
learning it either, and that really scared me.
That's what really got me going, and realising
that there's this incredible culture and it's
not the culture. that I'm reading about in
books. Ifs the culture that people live every
day, round here in the suburbs. People think
Aboriginal education happens out in the
sticks; but it's happening here in Perth and in
every city and most towns in Australia.'
They were asked to come up with a setaf
strategies for teachers. 'So we sort of set
about that task, compliantly - wadjela way,
doing - coming up with a set of strategies.
What we found though, is that we look
around for what teachers need; and there's a
wealth of strategy there already. Teachers
are sort of buried by books that have strate-
gies they can use. But at the end of the day,
it wasn't so much the strategy, what
teachers did, that made the difference, it
'At the end of the day, it wasn't so much the
strategy, what teachers did, that made the
difference, it was what they believed.'
was what they believed. And the way to
change what wadjela people believed was to
get them to engage in conversations with
Aboriginal people and get the AEOs
(Aboriginal Education Officers) to engage
in conversations with the teachers, get those
cross-cultural conversations happening.
That is actually what changed where people
were.' One of the reasons for the inclusion
of this conversation is that these two people
model working together so ably, butdespite
their. obvious close friendship it hasn't
always been easy. One says: <It's actually
really hard because the sort. of stuff that
we're dealing with goes to the core of who
you are and the assumptions that you've
grown up with.' "The other: 'And if you
didn't have an argument, or disagreement,
something would be definitely wrong: The
first: 'One of the things that we came away
saying is that, if working in this two-way
fashion is easy, then someone else is doing
your share of the hurting. And it's usually
been the Aboriginal people who are doing
the hurting because they're bending to fit
the wadjela way. I like to think that what we
did was far more of a meeting in the
middle .. .' The other chips in: ~ .. and I've
tried, as an Aboriginal person, as a Noongar
woman, I've. tried really hard. And I've
given the wadjelas a hard time .... But I've
done it, not because I wanted them to
suffer, but because I feel there's no other
way for anything to happen .... So I've had
to stand strong.'
It's a remarkable conversation not least
because it is such a frank and direct account
of working together across a cultural divide.
Tough, but optimistic; so like many other
experiences that people will talk about, if
not necessarily on the record, where success
is being achieved
We need many more such conversations;
ongoing, continuous conversations, perhaps
with the building of relationships in all their
bumpy to-ing and fro-ing as the only
product in mind.. We need to get used to
them because, as the Introduction to What
Works? suggests: <Reconciliation is a process
based on getting to know each other better,
with respect, as differing equals. The SRPs
have consistently had effects of. that sort,
and it is correct to make much of that
experience. A report like this can never
capture the glow of the classroom, the
meeting room, the community centre, the
training site. And that is a shame, because it
should taste vividly of people learning to
understand and enjoy one another, learning
to live together productively in a spirit of
increasing mutual confidence and trust.'
(2000: 2) And when that is more widespread
we will have to worry far less about
outcomes in education and training for
Indigenous students. They will follow. •
David McCrae is an independent education
consultant based in Melbourne.
49