Buckle Language Analysis

The discourse of whiteness has severely impacted on the educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (herein referred to as Indigenous Peoples). The discourse is based on an ontology founded on overt racism, discrimination, prejudice, exclusion and dispossession and towards all Indigenous Peoples. Subsequently, the history of Indigenous Peoples experiences in relation to education is extremely negative. They have been denied the right to the same education as non-Indigenous students, frequently expelled and continually forced to deny their cultural identity. The discourse of whiteness has resulted in pedagogies and pedagogical practices that are overly racist and not inclusive of Indigenous Peoples culture. To improve future educational outcomes it is necessary to decolonise Australia and rewrite the curriculum so that it is inclusive for all students.

More specifically in year 6, the curriculum looks at the roles and responsibilities of each levels of government, as well as the key institutions of Australia’s democratic system of government based on the Westminster system. The outcome ACHCK036, which focuses on the levels of government, can also be linked to the outcome GE3-3 in the NSW Geography Syllabus. The syllabus outlines that students should learn who organises and manages places, such as local and state governments, under the sub heading “humans shape places”. Furthermore, the content focus talks about students examining ways people influence the environment, including the management of places. This is all linked to how the different levels of government are delegated various tasks on management of land and the

The Australian Curriculum currently is struggling with incorporating indigenous perspectives as a key focus in the curriculum properly. It is lacking the ability to normalise indigenous knowledge and instead represents

Curriculum is designed to develop successful learners. Confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens (MCEECDYA, 2008, p.13). In 2008, the Australian Government promised to deliver a fair and equitable curriculum for the national’s educational system, taking the task away from the State and Local Governments. The purpose of this was to create an even level of education throughout the country whether in Hobart of Cape York, and to ensure our nations position into the 21st century. This essay will demonstrate the Nation’s curriculum, its structure and development ready for its initial implementation in 2011.

Mandatory, enforced schooling is common all over the world, and is generally seen as a public good, and a privilege of first world countries. However, author and teacher John Gatto argues that mandatory schooling destroys your ability to be free thinkers and therefore should not exist, in his piece “Against School”. Despite his effective use of ethos, Gatto’s argument fails to be convincing due to logical fallacies, and a lack of evidence or first hand experience.

In this essay we will try to provide a brief overview of educational issues of Aboriginal communities in Australia and Victoria and the elements that influence the educational outcomes of young Aboriginal people, such as culture and contemporary challenges. In addition to this, the inclusion of Aboriginal content in the Victorian curriculum and classroom practices will be explored as well as contemporary government policies.

The demographics of Australia are constantly changing and the rise in families from many different countries settling in Australia is continually increasing. This is evident in the growing number of students requiring English as an Additional Language (EAL/D) support throughout Australian schools. EAL/D students often struggle with adapting to the Australian school setting due to a number of factors including their lack of understanding in the English language and their own individual experiences such as culture, beliefs, values and experiences (Hertzberg, 2012, pp. 15-21). This essay will discuss different means of assisting students with EAL/D in order to establish the necessary English language skills to learn and understand what is being taught as well as key learning area vocabulary, content and language, based on the Australian Curriculum (Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2014, p. 6).

“Why should schooling change at every state border?”, was written by the Deputy Principal of Narrenwood Secondary College, Stephen Buckle, in response to the proposal for a national curriculum. Using a well judged tone, Buckle argues that Australia needs to have a “common curriculum” in order to achieve unity across the country as Australians are “one people”. Opposing this proposal an anonymous writer of, “A single curriculum is not the answer” published in The Age contends in a dubious tone that a “Canberra-controlled curriculum” does not support independence. A cartoon by Job also responds to the issue of whether Australia should have a single national school curriculum and is condemning of the idea. Throughout the three different articles there is a range of different tones used in order to create different perspectives on the issue according to the audience of the pieces which is aimed commonly at people involved in the education system as well the parents of the children mentioned.

Education is fundamental to growth, the growth of the individual, and the growth of a nation. Anthropologically this can be seen from the earliest of developments of human societies where practices emerge to ensure the passing of accumulated knowledge from one generation to the next. In the centuries since the invasion and colonisation of Australia in 1788, colonist authorities and governments have dominated the making of policies regarding most major aspects of Australian life, including the lives of Indigenous Australians. The enactment of these policies and legislation, whether targeted at society as a whole or directly at education, has had significant and most often negative causal impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, resulting in not only poor educational outcomes, but the loss of cultural identity, the development of serious issues in health and wellbeing, and the restriction of growth of Aboriginal communities. Moreover, there has been an ongoing pattern of the adoption of ill-informed policies in Australia, resulting in these poor outcomes and cultural decimation. Aboriginal people have developed a wariness, a mistrust, and even an attitude of avoidance to engage with non-Indigenous officials and those who they associate as their representatives, i.e. personnel working within

‘Australia’ also showed how the government controlled how children of Aboriginal descent were brought up with language used such as “The mixed raced children must be dislocated from their primitive full blooded Aborigine, how else are we to breed the black out of them”. This presented again the reason as to why the Aboriginal children were taken away from their own cultures to be raised in something completely different.

In exploring the Australian Curriculum, it becomes apparent that this curriculum was developed to encompass a wide range of skills and abilities that will be needed to enable young Australians to become productive and successful members of society of the future. The influence of a range of different curriculum models and education theories has bought together a comprehensive overview of what the Australian education system will deliver and how this can be accomplished.

Throughout the last fifty years two diametrically opposed views have played out. H.C. Coombs argued that the priority was to use the curriculum and teaching methods to rebuild and sustain traditional Aboriginal culture destroyed by colonisation, racism and oppression. He supported Moira Kingston’s view that all Aborigines had a “world view derived from the Dreaming and irreconcilable with the demands of a modern industrialised market economy.” Sir Paul Hasluck represented the opposing assimiliationist view that schools should give priority to literacy, numeracy and technical and scientific knowledge to asssist integration in the workforce.Many theorists and practitioners have focused on the one third of students in Aboriginal schools with a specifically Aboriginal education rather than the majority attending the same schools as non-Indigenous children. In either case major problems were indentified with Aboriginal education by 2000.

The Australian Curriculum for the Humanities and Social Sciences plays an important role in harnessing students’ curiosity and imagination about the world they live in and empowers them to actively shape their lives; make reflective, informed decisions; value their belonging in a diverse and dynamic society; and positively contribute locally, nationally, regionally and

Though this policy attempts to achieve a support of diversity and an increase of equity among the Victorian community, its affects are hindered by an education system that favours the middle class and above. As stated by Reid (2013, p. 13), the equity espoused within policy ‘is produced by policy processes which are counterproductive to the achievement of equity.’ This means that, in order to really achieve equity for all students, the education system needs to

Historically and Culturally within Australia, education has been viewed as a right, as previously discussed. Although Australia perpetrates the myth of an egalitarian society, it has been cultivated to conceal the unequal life chances of disadvantaged individuals (Jamrozik, 2009). This is central to the political and cultural differences/conflicts and the bases of knowledge in which our education system is being built upon. Within schools certain students are being labelled