This description is derived from notes taken during class and my memories of the session.

Today’s class starts with a discussion of an assignment which is due in more than a month’s time. Then L2 asks whether there are any students holding their presentations today. There are three.

After the first presentation, L2 explains to the class that there are two different types of boomerangs: the ones for fun which are returning and the ones for hunting which are not coming back. With a smile she adds that her grandson was very surprised when he found out that she knew how to throw a boomerang.

Picking up an aspect from the presentation, L2 goes on talking about another personal experience. When she was still working in a school, she says, she was asked by the headmaster to write the school’s report about its implementation of Indigenous knowledge but she refused because she did not actually know how it was implemented. This leads her to the conclusion that many of these reports are not checked. She also had a problem finding a school to do her practical experience in Aboriginal Studies in because many schools do not teach it.

Then, L2 gives some additional information on the AECGs (Aboriginal Education Consultative Groups). Although it is mostly teachers and principals participating in the meetings of the AECGs rather than parents, they are still a good institution, in L2’s opinion. They offer the opportunity to get in touch and discuss. This makes her think about what a “great teacher” should be like and she starts discussing this question with the class.

Afterwards, L2 talks about Aboriginal English and searches example phrases on the internet of which we are to guess the meaning. Some of them are quite easy while others cannot be understood without knowledge about the individual words. “I love Aboriginal English”, L2 says, “If I don’t know somebody’s name I just call them [Aboriginal English word]”. She also admits that she never thought much about the differences until someone told her: “You don’t sound like an academic” and she answered: “Well, because I don’t use all those big words”. “L2 is L2”, she adds.

When it is time for the second presentation, the presenter gets very nervous. L2 tries to reassure her but she leaves the room so that it is the third presenter’s turn. After this presentation, L2 praises the student’s choice of sources as she can tell from the author’s name whether he or she is Aboriginal. She also tells us more about her own teaching experience. In one school, the local elders were invited into the school to have a cup of coffee every week. It was good for the children to see them there, L2 thinks. In addition, the elders could get in touch with the teacher and take the pupils’ fear and distance away.

Meanwhile, the second presenter has come back into the room and is ready to start her presentation. When she stops again, everyone, including L2, gives her tips. L2 talks about the first lecture she was holding in which she was also very nervous. The only thing you can do to fight this insecurity is to keep going, she says. Therefore, she stands next to the presenter and helps her change the slides while the student is reading out her presentation. {Click here for analysis}

Afterwards, L2 says that many things which are taught in school are not relevant in the everyday life of Indigenous students. One day she was taking her children to the beach where they got in contact with local primary school children. Although this was years ago, her children still remember it because they learned more from this encounter than they learned in school. The children are grown up now, very tall and very skinny, L2 adds.

In spite of all problems and discrimination, the lecture is trying to teach Aboriginal history from a positive perspective and highlight the change, L2 explains, so that no one has to feel bad. She then tells the story of her ex-partner who had to walk several kilometres to school on a dirt road every day. When he fell into a puddle one day trying to jump over it, he couldn’t go to school because pupils were only admitted in class when they wore clean clothes. “He was a very stubborn boy”, L2 admits and tells us how he also broke his wrist three times. “I don’t know whether I have told you that story before”, she says at the end.

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