Australia has a complicated history that historically has only been told taught and shared from the European perspective. We have not and I would challenge in many cases still do not do a good job of teaching Australian History to the generations that move through our classrooms.
There are parts of our shared history that we need to own and tell the story in the hope that the same mistakes are never made again and indeed stop being perpetuated in today’s Australia.
I attended a full day workshop with the team from Australians Together this week where we delved deeply into their culture framework and how to use that to authentically embed Indigenous perspectives across a range of subjects and year levels.
I can highly recommend that as part of any conversation you are having about scoping learning or developing units of learning that you point your staff to the resources that Australians Together are developing. Their work is rich and deep, and they have a solid framework that will make inquiry richer. They have developed learning resources to embed indigenous perspectives across each space in the Australian Curriculum that identifies a Cross Curriculum Priority for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. They have updated their website with resources from year 4-10 and will soon be releasing the resources for P-3.
The Australians Together philosophy is that teachers are uniquely placed to change the hearts and minds of future generations and their challenge to all of us in education is to engage educate to create a better future for all Australians not by feeling accepting responsibility for the past but by taking responsibility for the future.
The other valuable resource that they offer to schools is the opportunity for vicarious contact with Aboriginal people who are happy to share their culture and more importantly their story. They have recorded several high quality and moving videos that stop individuals being retraumatised by needing to share their story again and again.
Please get in touch with me if you would like to learn more or to organise some learning for your staff. Also please visit their website: www.australianstogether.org.au and register for free to access their resources.
