This description is derived from notes taken during class, the university’s recording of the lecture and my memories of the session.

This week’s lecture has the topic “Education is political!!”. After noticing that there are considerably fewer students present today, L1 quotes Oodgeroo Noonucaal and Freire in order to stress that education is indeed political. She then talks about her own experience while working for the Department of School Education and gives examples of opinions of some of the teachers she met in this frame. Afterwards she reads out some statements from the slides, adding further explanations about the current and former situation in schools.

When talking about education influenced by prejudices, L1 tells the students about an incident, which happened to her daughter when she was in high school. After describing how her daughter argued with the teacher about the terms ‘invasion’, ‘settlement’ and ‘propaganda’, she explains that it was a good situation for her daughter because she had the character and skills to be able to debate about the topic. However, in L1’s opinion, this is not the case for most Aboriginal children. This shows how teachers even if they are very concerned about not being racist might still be unable to teach in an inclusive way, L1 says.

She then explains that teachers often use Aboriginal students as a resource. While again this was good for her daughter who had the knowledge, it can lower the self-esteem of those students who do not know the answer. She was able to witness such a situation herself when participating in a NAIDOC week event at her daughter’s school.

L1 interrupts the lecture briefly to answer a question which has come up although it does not directly relate to the topic. She again uses her own experience to explain the situation in depth. Afterwards, she returns to the actual topic and gives another personal example. When she was in primary school she was asked by the teacher which her favourite traditional bush food was and answered that it was a particular kind of worm. Although the teacher tried to calm down the class, she was picked on for a long time for eating worms. When asked the same question again years later, she answered “fish” and was this time told that this did not count as traditional Aboriginal food. In conclusion, teachers have to be really careful how they treat Aboriginal students in class, L1 says. {Click here for analysis}

L1 now returns to the slides, reading out another statement and explaining it. She then shows a Youtube video explaining why it is important that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture is included in the school curriculum and how this should be done. Afterwards, she explains the curriculum in more detail, before presenting a model of Aboriginal learning. While doing so, she often uses the phrase “you know”. The next point L1 addresses is again linked to an example from her own experience. While working at the Department of School Education, she was often told that texts which include Aboriginal English should not be used because it is important to use a variety of English the students can later use in the workplace, although this is not the case for Shakespearean English either. L1 then uses another example from her daughter’s education to underline that what can be learned from a story is not connected to how old the story is or how well it reflects reality.

Next, L1 picks up the holocaust and the question “Why didn’t anyone say anything” as an example from the Australian curriculum. Australia, she says, had the only private protest against Kristallnacht which was organised by an Aboriginal man named William Cooper. This highlights the nationally and globally significant contributions Aboriginal people have made in the past. L1 shows a Youtube video about William Cooper before moving on to the next point.

She reads out a statement saying that old mathematical methods are not useful anymore today. Well, she jokes, that would make her happy because it would mean that “Pythagoras must go” as well. After outlining the steps of the scientific method of problem solving, L1 tells the students about a particular problem her son has solved in kindergarten using his tracking skills.

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