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Crombek

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My then year 4 child (public school) was told to write from the first fleet perspective, no options. That school was classed as fully inclusive and gloated about how progressive they were. Changed schools (private) and child was fully encouraged to write from the Aboriginal point of view - school does not boast about their inclusive practices.


I did mention this to a public school educator who thinks that only public school education is worthy. Did not go down well at all

 

I think that writing from an Indigenous perspective comes perilously close to Indigenous-splaining and I can see why schools would shy away from that. (Doesn't mean there shouldn't be a thoughtful, empathetic approach though or that Indigenous history should be ignored)

 


We are Aboriginal, so the child might have more indepth knowledge from all they have learnt and being taught from the elders

 

Thank you [mention]Pip[/mention]


Having options is not just for the benefit of white kids.

Making children write from the perspective of people who kickstarted great harm and trauma to generations of their kin is gross and harmful.


This may not be the case for OP's child, but I think it's a relevant point for any parent to make to a teacher. Share the load for this 1 thing from the people who have had the load of it all thrust upon them.


Ed: hope I'm not out of line, please tell me if I need to get back in my lane.

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And as another aside, how many of the convicts would have been able to read and/or write?


Honestly, it just sounds like a lazy AF assignment based on the stereotypical posh white colonist male view of history.

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I imagine the teacher wants to avoid the icky area of cultural appropriation.


I read a little piece recently on the early accounts of the indigenous people. I think it was Joseph Banks? And he was complaining that the indigenous people didn't really want the clothes they gave them (not sure how fresh they were) and they also didn't help them carry a bunch of heavy stuff up the beach, so they went down in white history as not very helpful.


They sounded really smart to me.

Edited by pelagic
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Sugarplum Poobah

My then year 4 child (public school) was told to write from the first fleet perspective, no options. That school was classed as fully inclusive and gloated about how progressive they were. Changed schools (private) and child was fully encouraged to write from the Aboriginal point of view - school does not boast about their inclusive practices.


I did mention this to a public school educator who thinks that only public school education is worthy. Did not go down well at all

 

I think that writing from an Indigenous perspective comes perilously close to Indigenous-splaining and I can see why schools would shy away from that. (Doesn't mean there shouldn't be a thoughtful, empathetic approach though or that Indigenous history should be ignored)

 


We are Aboriginal, so the child might have more indepth knowledge from all they have learnt and being taught from the elders

 

My apologies -- I didn't realise this from the way you wrote your post and I'm sorry if I was insensitive (I was concerned about the appropriation of Indigenous voices and not considering that was what I might be hearing).

Edited by Sugarplum Poobah
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Sugarplum Poobah

I imagine the teacher wants to avoid the icky area of cultural appropriation.

 

You've put that considerably more succinctly than I managed to! (in terms of non Indigenous children writing about Indigenous experiences)

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Sugarplum Poobah

And as another aside, how many of the convicts would have been able to read and/or write?


Honestly, it just sounds like a lazy AF assignment based on the stereotypical posh white colonist male view of history.

 

More than you might expect -- many of the first European teachers in the colony were convicts (in fact one of the first was a woman convict). Unfortunately details about convict literacy weren't taken until the 1820s. The base measure for literacy (reading and writing) was the ability to sign one's name on a marriage register -- but more people could generally read rather than both read and write (as the latter is a specific learnt skill). Literacy rates did rise with the progression of the industrial revolution though -- and the early years of colonial Sydney are actually pre-industrial in nature.

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Susan StoHelit

I imagine the teacher wants to avoid the icky area of cultural appropriation.

 

And this is always the hard part. I think it was done in an age-appropriate way for my daughter's assignment (they examined some sources - details escape me but included some story books- which included both white and indigenous voices surrounding first fleet arrival) before doing the task.


It's something I struggle with myself as a (white) teacher, and I know many of my colleagues do as well. You certainly don't want to be the person appropriating the stories of another culture, but it is hard to walk the line between doing that and ignoring it completely.


I think the teacher in the OP has opted for the later, rather than try and find a way to include both perspectives.

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I initially would have felt exactly the same way as you OP. But then I read the history curriculum for year 4. It is quite prescriptive. There is a big section on the first fleet. This is what it asks children to learn/know:


Stories of the First Fleet, including reasons for the journey, who travelled to Australia, and their experiences following arrival

- investigating reasons for the First Fleet journey, including an examination of the wide range of crimes punishable by transportation, and looking at the groups who were transported


- investigating attitudes to the poor, the treatment of prisoners at that time, and the social standing of those who travelled to Australia on the First Fleet, including families, children and convict guards


- investigating daily life in the Botany Bay penal settlement and challenges experienced by the people there and how they were managed


So I guess the teacher is using the assignment to cover that part.

The Year 4 curriculum also includes the following re indigenous perspectives:


The nature of contact between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and others, for example, the Macassans and the Europeans, and the effects of these interactions on, for example, people and environments

-investigating contact with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples before 1788 (for example, the repulsion of the Dutch at Cape Keerweer in 1606 and the trade between the Macassans and the Yolngu people)


-comparing the European concept of land ownership, including terra nullius, with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples' relationship with the land, sea, waterways and sky, and how this affected relations between the groups


-exploring early contact of Aboriginal people with the British including people (for example, Pemulwuy, Bennelong) and events of conciliation and resistance (such as the Black War)


-exploring the impact that British colonisation had on the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (dispossession; dislocation; and the loss of lives through conflict, disease, loss of food sources and medicines)


-considering whether the interactions between Europeans and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples had positive or negative effects


-examining paintings and accounts (by observers such as Watkin Tench and David Collins) to determine the impact of early British colonisation on Aboriginal Peoples' Country


So there's lots there to cover. I imagine the teacher will cover the indigenous perspectives in another assignment?

If I were teaching it I would absolutely want to include both perspectives in the one assignment and allow children to take assignments in their own directions. But maybe with AC there isn't that flexibility, or within your school there isn't that flexibility?


I do think the history curriculum in the AC very much had the hand of John Howard on it, wanting to instill pride in white settlement.


On another note, I find it hard to see how trying to understand the perspective or experience of a different group is appropriation. I thought appropriation was trying to BE them or pass yourself off as them, or to use components of culture such as dance or language for trivial or unrelated purposes. Surely the act of imagining another's experience is central to the study of history? How can children (or adults) genuinely learn without acts of imagination?

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I imagine the teacher wants to avoid the icky area of cultural appropriation.

 

And this is always the hard part. I think it was done in an age-appropriate way for my daughter's assignment (they examined some sources - details escape me but included some story books- which included both white and indigenous voices surrounding first fleet arrival) before doing the task.


It's something I struggle with myself as a (white) teacher, and I know many of my colleagues do as well. You certainly don't want to be the person appropriating the stories of another culture, but it is hard to walk the line between doing that and ignoring it completely.


I think the teacher in the OP has opted for the later, rather than try and find a way to include both perspectives.

 

It's a problematic issue, the more sensitivity is required the harder it becomes, and at a certain point the 'too hard basket' ends up doing more damage than a few clumsy appropriative attempts might have.


I know going through my postgrad, research involving ATSI populations required so many more layers of ethics approvals that people just steered clear unless it was a special interest area of theirs. It probably preserved us from a lot of clumsy attempts without a good understanding of research, but the other side of the coin was even less ATSI representation in psychological research. Not a great outcome either.

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The situation is complicated and mistakes have being made but owning mistakes is a huge step in the right direction. In all honesty way back when colonisation occurred there was little or no knowledge that other races were equal. Was it right? NO But it was fact. We move on and continue to learn from our mistakes and hopefully make a better world

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The situation is complicated and mistakes have being made but owning mistakes is a huge step in the right direction. In all honesty way back when colonisation occurred there was little or no knowledge that other races were equal. Was it right? NO But it was fact. We move on and continue to learn from our mistakes and hopefully make a better world

 

For sure. We can't apply today's values to another time. We'd all like to think we'd have behaved differently if we'd been in places at times when the vast majority of the population had what we now consider unacceptable views, but it's highly unlikely.


The same will apply to today's population in another 100 years, as we (hopefully) continue to progress.

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Sugarplum Poobah


On another note, I find it hard to see how trying to understand the perspective or experience of a different group is appropriation. I thought appropriation was trying to BE them or pass yourself off as them, or to use components of culture such as dance or language for trivial or unrelated purposes. Surely the act of imagining another's experience is central to the study of history? How can children (or adults) genuinely learn without acts of imagination?

 

Oh I agree that you certainly need to be able to imagine another person's experience to begin to understand it. However you also need to be able to recognise just how much your own life experience and culture frames and limits that imaginative process. Given how poorly (broadly speaking) adults do this, a child is even less likely to grasp those limitations.


For me the issue then comes with taking on the voices of a marginalised group. I don't have an issue with a 9 YO writing a diary as a servant or a convict (for example) -- particularly if they are imagining themselves in a role rather than as a member of a different culture. They are also roles that no longer exist in the same form as 200 years ago. However Indigenous voices and experiences are still marginalised in Australia which makes this different from my perspective. I don't think we're doing our children any favours to say it's ok to take on the voices of people whose life outcomes are (to use a very wide brush here) more disadvantaged than the majority of Australians. Even if it is just for a year 4 assignment. There are other more sensitive ways of approaching this.


But it's very fraught, and also comes with the danger of being so worried about doing the wrong thing that we fail to engage and voices and experiences are even more marginalised as a result.


Appropriation of marginalised voices has (for example) been an issue with the appropriation of non Anglo migrant voices in fiction writing too. Hell, it's why Tony Abbott thought it was ok to appoint himself as minister for women!

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On another note, I find it hard to see how trying to understand the perspective or experience of a different group is appropriation. I thought appropriation was trying to BE them or pass yourself off as them, or to use components of culture such as dance or language for trivial or unrelated purposes. Surely the act of imagining another's experience is central to the study of history? How can children (or adults) genuinely learn without acts of imagination?

 

Oh I agree that you certainly need to be able to imagine another person's experience to begin to understand it. However you also need to be able to recognise just how much your own life experience and culture frames and limits that imaginative process. Given how poorly (broadly speaking) adults do this, a child is even less likely to grasp those limitations.


For me the issue then comes with taking on the voices of a marginalised group. I don't have an issue with a 9 YO writing a diary as a servant or a convict (for example) -- particularly if they are imagining themselves in a role rather than as a member of a different culture. They are also roles that no longer exist in the same form as 200 years ago. However Indigenous voices and experiences are still marginalised in Australia which makes this different from my perspective. I don't think we're doing our children any favours to say it's ok to take on the voices of people whose life outcomes are (to use a very wide brush here) more disadvantaged than the majority of Australians. Even if it is just for a year 4 assignment. There are other more sensitive ways of approaching this.


But it's very fraught, and also comes with the danger of being so worried about doing the wrong thing that we fail to engage and voices and experiences are even more marginalised as a result.


Appropriation of marginalised voices has (for example) been an issue with the appropriation of non Anglo migrant voices in fiction writing too. Hell, it's why Tony Abbott thought it was ok to appoint himself as minister for women!

 


Thank you for this, I was also wondering this and you have provided a good explanation of why it is problematic. A task that focused on what indigenous people have to say about the landing of the first fleet could provide the same learning experience while avoiding the assumptions which may come from a privileged white cultural imagining.


On a separate note, the National Museum has a great exhibition on the endeavour voyage which includes some fantastic insights from our first peoples addressing precisely this issue.

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