Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture in HASS curriculum

Geography in the Curriculum – Aboriginal perspectives

Geography is one of the Humanities and Social Science subjects outlined in the Australian Curriculum. As a subject, geography ‘nurtures students’ curiosity about places and the differences between them’ and as students learn and investigate geographical concepts they develop a ‘geographical imagination that enables [them] to relate to other places and people, and to appreciate the cultures and perspectives of others’. The curriculum outlines seven geographical concepts that children will learn about and investigate over their schooling years however, only four of these are focussed on in the Year two curriculum – change, place, space and interconnections.

Learning about Place

Over the past couple of weeks we have been learning about place and how we are all connected to places. The children have been sharing about places that they are connected to and we have had a specific focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ connections to Place. As the children learn about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experiences, perspectives and beliefs they are developing an intercultural understanding and respect for Indigenous Australians. Craven says that ‘Australia will never matter as a nation unless we know what our roots are. Our roots lie firmly in Aboriginal culture.’. It is crucial that we are providing a school environment that includes and respects Indigenous perspectives.

How we’ve been learning

‘Aboriginal perspectives are not found in Aboriginal content, but Aboriginal processes’ and we have therefore been using Aboriginal ways of learning to develop our understanding of Aboriginal perspectives and cultures. Children have been engaging in story sharing with their peers as well as other people from our local community, including local Aboriginal Elders. One of our local Aboriginal Elders came to share his story with the children recently and talked about Aboriginal peoples connections to Country/Place.

(Picture retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-06/tasmanian-aboriginal-people-seek-practical-change-not-symbolism/6598948)

The children watched this Dust Echoes video clip which tells the story of a song man who visited a waterfall and lived with mermaids there – we discussed why he missed his family and how he told his story when he returned to his family.

We have also looked at how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples share about places that are important to them through dreaming stories, dances, art and cultural representations. The children have experimented with representing their own stories about places they have been through drawing and have displayed these drawings in the local Deloraine Deli.

(Image retrieved from https://europeanchildrencelebrate.wordpress.com/activities/the-newspaper-how-we-celebrate/szkola-podstawowa-nr-4-prof-wladyslawa-szafera/cildrens-drawings-mothers-day-and-most-picturesque-places/)

We plan to finish this unit of work by evaluating the importance of looking after significant places, discussing if we should look after places that are important to others and investigating how we can do this.

What YOU can do

• Be informed about and respectful of Aboriginal Culture

• Choose some Aboriginal children’s books to read with your child and discuss Aboriginal experiences, perspectives and beliefs
• Discuss what places are important to you/that you feel connected to and take your child on a 'day out' to one of these places

References

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA]. (2011). Shape of the Australian curriculum: Geography. Retrieved from http://www.acara.edu.au/_resources/shape_of_the_australian_curriculum_geography.pdf

Craven, R. (2003). Mandatory indigenous teacher education courses. In D. McInerney & S. Van Etten (Eds.) Sociocultural influences and teacher education programs. (pp. 165 - 172). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Gilbert, R. & Keeley, K. (2014). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures. In R. Gilbert & B. Hoepper (Eds.) Teaching humanities and social sciences: History, geography, economics and citizenship. (pp. 344 - 369). South Melbourne, VIC: Cengage Learning Australia.

8Ways. (n.d.). 8 Aboriginal ways of learning. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20100810154020/http://8ways.wikispaces.com/