Narragunnawali News Issue 2

NEWS

Reconciliation in Schools and Early Learning Issue no. 2 2016

Narragunnawali: Reconciliation in Schools and Early Learning acknowledges and pays respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

NARRAGUNNAWALI UPDATE This special issue of Narragunnawali News has been designed to prepare schools and early learning services for a very important week of the year, National Reconciliation Week (NRW).

Narragunnawali News is usually distributed electronically to schools and early learning services that have registered with Narragunnawali, but because it’s NRW and there’s so much good news to share, we’ve sent a hardcopy of this special issue to every school and early learning service in the country.

Ancestors have walked this country and we acknowledge their special and unique contribution to our shared histories, cultures and languages.

We recognise the collective contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians in educating all people across this country.

NRW is held every year between 27 May to 3 June and is a time for all Australians to learn about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, the progress we’ve made in our reconciliation journey so far and how each of us can join the national reconciliation effort.

Schools and early learning services celebrate NRW in many different ways. One meaningful way of taking action during NRW is to register as a member of the Narragunnawali community. Narragunnawali assists schools and early learning services to bring reconciliation to life in classrooms, around schools and services and with the community all year round, not just during NRW. To find out more and subscribe to future digital issues of Narragunnawali News visit our website.

NATIONAL RECONCILIATION WEEK 2016 OUR HISTORY, OUR STORY, OUR FUTURE National Reconciliation Week (NRW) celebrates and builds on the respectful relationships shared by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians. It is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures and achievements and to explore how each of us can join the national reconciliation journey.

This year’s theme – ‘Our History, Our Story, Our Future’ – celebrates 25 years of formal reconciliation in Australia and the launch of the State of Reconciliation Report, which asks all Australians to reflect on our national identity, and the place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and rights in our nation’s story.

‘Our Story’ reflects the fact that the journey towards reconciliation forms a significant part of Australia’s story, as do the stories of both trauma and triumph told by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It also encourages each and every one of us to make reconciliation part of our own story.

‘Our History’ reminds us all that historical acceptance is essential to our reconciliation journey. Historical acceptance is about all Australians understanding and accepting the fact that past laws, practices and policies deeply affected the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, often having devastating immediate impacts and causing much of the disadvantage that exists today. It is also a commitment to ensuring these wrongs are never repeated in the future.

‘Our Future’ reinforces that reconciliation must live in the hearts, minds and actions of all Australians as we move forward, in the knowledge that we believe in fairness for everyone, that our diversity makes us richer, and that together, we are stronger.

Dive into the theme with students and children by organising events and discussions to celebrate NRW. And don’t forget to register your events, big and small, on the Reconciliation Australia website and share them on social media using the hashtag #NRW2016.

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ACTION IN FOCUS

Ideas for action

Celebrate National Reconciliation Week

Coordinate a Welcome to Country: Invite an Elder or Traditional Owners to your school or early learning service to welcome students, staff and your community to the Country on which your school or early learning service is located. A Welcome to Country is delivered by Traditional Owners, or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have been given permission from Traditional Owners, to welcome visitors to their Country.

Celebrating National Reconciliation Week (NRW) is an important action that schools and early learning services can commit to within a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). NRW is a great time to showcase your achievements and explore how you can continue to contribute to the national reconciliation journey. For schools and early learning services yet to develop a RAP there are also many ways to get involved.

Host a morning tea: Bringing your school or early learing service community together for a morning tea demonstrates that reconciliation is an important priority and will encourage participants to stop, reflect and take notice of its place in their own lives.

The beginning and end of NRW are marked by two key events in Australia’s history, which provide strong symbols for reconciliation: • 27 May 1967 – the referendum that saw more than 90 per cent of Australians vote to give the Australian Government power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and recognise them in the census.

Participate in local community events: During NRW, public events are being held across the country— in other schools, early learning services, community centres and local parks. Many of these events are free, and in the spirit of reconciliation, open to schools, services and community members interested in building new relationships based on respect.

• 3 June 1992 – the Australian High Court delivered the Mabo decision, which recognised that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a special relationship with the land. This paved the way for land rights known as native title.

Narragunnawali has developed a resource with curriculum and professional learning ideas focused on NRW.

Join the Narragunnawali community: Narragunnawali assists schools and early learning services to bring reconciliation to life in classrooms, around schools and services and with the community all year round, not just during NRW. Visit www.reconciliation.org.au/schools for more information.

Quick Facts It is 25 years since the establishment of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, marking 25 years of a formal reconciliation process in Australia.

NRW was first celebrated in 1993 and was known as the ‘Week of Prayer for Reconciliation’.

Promote NRW on social media: Social media is a great way to share your NRW experiences and to join in the national conversation about reconciliation between 27 May and 3 June using the hashtag #NRW2016.

During NRW in 2000, more than 200,000 people streamed across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to demonstrate their support for the reconciliation movement.

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RECONCILIATION IN THE MEDIA National Reconciliation Week (NRW) is a good chance for teachers and educators across all subject areas and year groups to talk about reconciliation with students and children in classrooms.

Building a respectful understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories among the next generation of Australians is critical to achieving reconciliation. But for some teachers and educators, talking about reconciliation in a real and relevant way can be difficult.

Current news stories are a useful way to connect the concept of reconciliation to everyday life in Australia. Use the below articles as conversation starters with colleagues, parents, students or children, to help think about what reconciliation means to you and your community.

Invaded not settled: An ‘Indigenous Terminology’ guide developed by the University of New South Wales in 2012 has been criticised by media personalities and newspapers, starting a wide-ranging public discussion. The resource was designed to assist staff and students to use appropriate terminology regarding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their histories and cultures.

Conversation starter: How does language and terminology shape our understanding of Australia’s history?

More First Peoples in parliament: In March, the representation of Australia’s First Peoples in Federal Parliament took a big leap forward, with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten announcing that two prominent Indigenous Australians are to join Labor’s ranks.

Aboriginal activist and father of reconciliation, Patrick Dodson, and Deputy NSW Labor leader, Linda Burney, will have a chance to win seats in the upper and lower houses of the Australian Parliament with the double dissolution election occurring in July.

Father of reconciliation, Patrick Dodson, is set to become a Senator in the Australian Parliament.

Conversation starter: Why is it important that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are represented in the Australian Parliament?

The Encounters exhibition: Encounters (National Museum of Australia, 27 November 2015 to 28 March 2016) featured rare Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects from the British Museum that were collected after contact with Captain James Cook in 1770 onwards.

The exhibition prompted an emotional conversation about whether the precious objects – some stolen from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on the colonial frontier in circumstances of extreme violence – should be permanently repatriated or displayed in a museum show at all.

Artefacts unearthed in Sydney: The construction of a section of Sydney’s new light rail line is in question after more than 22,000 Aboriginal artefacts were unearthed in Randwick. Heritage experts working at the site say the volume of artefacts is indicative of a ceremonial meeting place, and that it should be treated as a site of “state significance.”

Conversation starter: What are some of the potential arguments in favour of repatriating objects to the communities from which they came? What are some arguments in favour of the British Museum retaining the objects?

Conversation starter: Why is it important to learn about and look after sites of cultural and historical significance such as this one?

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Students are cleansed with smoke in a smoking ceremony conducted by Elder, Uncle Max Eulo. Credit: Yale MacGillivray

SPOTLIGHT ON St Brendan’s Catholic Primary School, Annandale Nestled in the vibrant and leafy streets of Annandale in Sydney’s Inner West, St Brendan’s Catholic Primary School is a small school of 230 students.

The school’s values of truth, belonging, success and relationships have guided their vision for reconciliation as a dedicated group of parents, teachers and community members worked together to develop the school’s first Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). The RAP was launched with an energetic celebration on 6 April 2016, 12 months after the first RAP working group meeting.

The initial drive to develop a RAP for St Brendan’s came from a parent, Francisca Peña, whose two children attend the school. “I had worked in organisations that had RAPs and I also personally acknowledged that I lived in this amazing place and I didn’t know enough about the history. I thought if this knowledge gap exists for adults in this country, what is happening with our children?” Francisca reflected.

It was this reflection that moved her to reach out to Narragunnawali and find out about RAPs for schools.

Captains and Cultural Ambassadors of St Brendan’s Primary School lead the flag raising ceremony at the RAP launch in April.

Credit: Yale MacGillivray

Armed with more information on how Narragunnawali can guide schools through the RAP development and implementation process, Francisca approached school executive to encourage St Brendan’s to develop a RAP. The idea was wholly supported by the school Principal, Louise Maguire, and a working group consisting of Louise, two teachers, Francisca and another parent, Fiona McGrath, was quickly formed.

Strait Islander histories and cultures were being taught and compile a list of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resources for staff. Donna, originally from Ireland, said there was a huge appetite from all teachers for classroom appropriate resources.

“I didn’t have a lot of background at all, so it was huge for me—but even the teachers from Australia really wanted to know a lot more,” Donna said.

For the newly formed working group, ensuring the RAP included Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices was imperative. “Being a school with no Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students, our challenge was to find an Indigenous representative for the working group, so we reached out to our local council [Leichhardt] and the Community Development Officer, Aboriginal Programs, Deborah Lennis, was more than happy to guide us and join the group” said Louise.

As a celebration of the work that has been done to this point, and to take stock of the work still to do, St Brendan’s held a special event to launch their RAP in April.

Attendees were welcomed to Gadigal Country by Uncle Raymond Davison before being addressed by prominent Wiradjuri man and journalist Stan Grant and Mayor Darcy Byrne of Leichhardt Municipal Council.

The event included performances by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from surrounding catholic schools and the St Brendan’s choir, a smoking ceremony conducted by Uncle Max Eulo and a flag raising ceremony. The success of the St Brendan’s RAP launch demonstrated the community’s commitment to reconciliation, understanding that building relationships takes time and the respect held for Australia’s First Peoples.

Momentum built very quickly from this point, and 12 months on from beginning the process, the changes in the classroom and around the school are substantial. Staff and students have been inspired by what they have learnt so far and conversations about reconciliation can be regularly heard in hallways. Year 2 teacher, Donna Quilty, worked with her colleagues to reflect on how Aboriginal and Torres 5

RECONCILIATION RESOURCE REVIEW

petroglyphs or etched rock engravings, some of which are over thirty thousand years old. These ancient carvings are markings of food sources, ceremonial sites and spirituality.

Set over three episodes, the NEOMAD comic series follows the story of the Love Punks, a group of tech savvy young heroes from the Pilbara who speed through a digitised desert full of ‘spy bots’, ‘magic crystals’, fallen ‘rocket boosters’ and mysterious petroglyphs. They learn about their culture from the Murujuga Rangers and adults in their community. And when a gigantic tourist shuttle heads towards a sacred constellation, they save the world from intergalactic catastrophe!

NEOMAD comic series Created by Sutu, the Love Punks, Satellite Sisters, Big hART and Roebourne community (2013). Gestalt Publishing.

Comics are an effective storytelling medium that use the interplay between text and imagery to create a strong sense of place. The power of bold colour, body language and expression work together with the written word to bring characters to life. And when school children are involved in creating, recording and detailing their story—as was the case with NEOMAD—the result is a dynamic resource that has been described by the comic’s illustrator and interactive designer Stu Campbell (Sutu) as a ‘Mad Max for kids’.

NEOMAD was created as part of Big hART’s Yijala Yala Project, with the help of over 40 young people in the Leramugadu (Roebourne) community through a series of workshops in scriptwriting, literacy, Photoshop, filmmaking and sound recording over an 18-month period. Sutu spent over 500 hours teaching the young students to apply a complex colouring system to more than 600 scenes to create NEOMAD. These young people, aged between 7 and 14, star in the comic as the Love Punks and the Satellite Sisters and also assisted with the dialogue and live film segments.

Last month, NEOMAD - The Complete Series won the Gold Ledger award - the highest award that acknowledges comic art in Australia. A co-judge for the award and comic historian, Philip Bentley, said the panel had been “impressed by the work’s cross-cultural nature, visual verve and mix of ancient and modern elements”.

In celebration of National Reconciliation Week, the NEOMAD interactive comic is available as a FREE download for the months of May and June. Read more about NEOMAD, access a teaching guide and order your copy of the comics online.

NEOMAD is set around Murujuga on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia, home to approximately one million 6

Tessa: What does an early learning service engaged in reconciliation look like to you?

Jess: I think it’s about the whole team valuing reconciliation, which is challenging as we all have different experiences and levels of knowledge. One of the services that I’m working with, Explore and Develop Lilyfield, are doing it well—you can see reconciliation embedded across all the rooms, and as a team we’ve created a shared knowledge and understanding of culture and how that translates into practice. Once we embarked on having those critical discussions as a team and reflecting on our practices, we broke it down more and thought about how we could connect with our local community. We were able to connect with our local council liaison officer and discovered an Aboriginal Worker’s Circle that was running close by that meets once a month.

TEACHER FEATURE

Tessa: What advice might you have for early learning services and educators who are starting out on their reconciliation journey?

Jessica Staines, early learning educator

Jess: Connect with community—sometimes it can be a struggle because you don’t know where to go or who to ask. It’s not necessarily about getting community to come to your centre and having performers come in, but you as a service, as a professional, as an educator, investing your time and doing the legwork and going out to community events, meeting Elders, talking to organisations, being part of the community, so you’re able to understand the values and beliefs. As you go back time and time again, those relationships strengthen and people are more willing to have a chat and share their perspectives. Take children outside of the centre walls and involve them in community.

I guess that’s what I would do, that was the starting place for us.

Jess Staines is a Wiradjuri woman and educator from New South Wales who has worked in early learning services throughout Sydney’s Inner West. Jess talks with Tessa Keenan from the Narragunnawali team about her passion for supporting other educators to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into early learning programs.

Tessa: Tell us a little bit about the work you do in the early learning sector?

Jess: I became passionate about embedding Aboriginal perspectives in early childhood programs when I started taking care of a little girl in respite care. I started questioning a lot of the experiences that I was providing in early childhood settings and thinking about what kind of meaning that held for her. I thought, for her and then for me, how do we really connect with our culture? For her as a two-year-old, it was things like sourcing books that reflected herself and her family, for example dolls that had the same skin tone as she did. There wasn’t anything. So I began to try to source things from community and connect with community, and the further along I went in my journey, I realised that other educators in other services were having the same sort of challenges. Together over time we built up resources, and now we want to share that as widely as we can.

Tessa: How do the early learning services that you work with celebrate National Reconciliation Week?

Jess: We try and do things every day with our kids so it’s no different from any other day. What we do try and do is release our staff to go to events in the community so they can form relationships. Last year we had a parent gathering and invited an Aboriginal performer to come in and play the didgeridoo and talk to us about reconciliation and what it meant to him. We started to talk about developing a Reconciliation Action Plan with our families and encourage them to share their insights about their understanding of reconciliation. This year during NRW we are repeating this gathering with our families to talk about how far we’ve come in the last year, and what they would like to see continue.

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EARLY CHILDHOOD AUSTRALIA RECONCILIATION SYMPOSIUM

ideas and actions that will make a difference within their educational settings and communities. Attendees will learn about a culture dating back more than forty thousand years, and facilitated table discussions will lead to an atmosphere of dialogue, understanding and engagement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants.

13-14 May 2016

Keynote speakers include Justin Mohamed (CEO Reconciliation Australia), Dr Tim Soutphomassane (Race Discrimination Commissioner), Tyson Yunkaporta (Aboriginal Education Specialist at The Aurora Project and Programs), Chloe Wighton (Recognise Campaign) and Professor Manjula Waniganayake (Macquarie University).

As part of an ongoing commitment to acknowledging reconciliation in the early years, Early Childhood Australia (ECA) will be hosting the national Reconciliation Symposium at Sydney Olympic Park on 13–14 May 2016 to explore reconciliation within the sector.

For more information and to register, visit Early Childhood Australia’s website.

The symposium will provide an authentic experience for educators to discuss reconciliation issues and create new

HAVE YOU GOT A STORY TO TELL?

Narragunnawali (pronounced narra-gunna-wally) is a word from the language of the Ngunnawal people meaning peace, alive, wellbeing and coming together.

The Ngunnawal people are Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land and waterways on which Reconciliation Australia’s Canberra office is located.

We love hearing about the fantastic things happening in your schools and early learning services to increase pride in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures!

Please send stories about reconciliation in your school or early learning service to schools@reconciliation.org.au.

www.reconciliation.org.au/schools

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As Australians, we are all here, woven into this country As part of our reconciliation journey, there are truths to tell, stories to celebrate, and relationships to grow Reconciliation is at the heart of our nation’s future Join us on our nation’s journey at www.reconciliation.org.au/nrw and make reconciliation part of your future.