NAIDOC WEEK
NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities, but by Australians from all walks of life. The week is a great opportunity to participate in a range of activities and to support […]
Terra Nullius
It is estimated that over 750,000 Aboriginal people inhabited the island continent in 1788. The colonists were led to believe that the land was terra nullius (‘no one’s land’), which Lt James Cook declared Australia to be in 1770 during his voyage around the coast of Australia.
Greg Layton
Earlier this year we had our national election and emotion was at fever pitch. I saw friend pitted against friend. The toxicity, anger and messages of division were, at times, almost impossible to believe. I’ll be honest, at first I was angry about how it was all going down. The shouting was so loud […]
AUSTRALIANS ARE ANZACS
‘They’ve got their priorities wrong — the dead are dead. You can always remember them, but to carry on with the celebrations … and that’s what it is, celebration.’
Uncle Albert Holt’s WINU Doctorate Conferral @ Hymba Yumba
Last Thursday October 18th we celebrated alongside Goondeen Uncle Albert Holt another milestone that proves the impact he’s made on Australian Education and Cultural development of First Nation people. It was a double celebration marked by his Doctorate Conferral awared by WINU and also Hymba Yumba Independent School naming their main building after its founder […]
Gonski 2.0 misses education’s root problems
The latest Gonski review into the quality of Australian schooling recommends radical reform to our education system. The report highlights declining academic standards and sheets the blame on our schools’ inflexible curriculum and assessment which fails to tailor teaching and assessment to individual students. “Many Australian schools are cruising, not improving!” The solution is to […]
Past failures demand we open our hearts to Indigenous voices
Just over a year ago, 250 Aboriginal representatives from all parts of Australia met at Uluru and issued what they called the “Statement from the Heart”. At its core was the call for the Australian Constitution to be amended to provide for a First Nations’ Voice to Parliament. The Prime Minster, Malcolm Turnbull, subsequently remarked […]
Game-changer in indigenous education honoured
The former headmaster of St Andrew’s Cathedral School and now head of Barker College, both in Sydney, has achieved what many educators have failed to do – closing the gap in educational outcomes between indigenous and non-indigenous students. For this, Phillip Heath has been officially recognised with an AM (Member in the General Division in […]
Let’s re-shape schooling from the bottom up
In a powerful critique of institutional schooling, Pink Floyd once sang the lyric “we don’t need no education”. As an educator, I cannot endorse the sentiments of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In the Wall, but I do share the conviction that schooling needs to change. This can’t be done one brick at a time; in […]
Campaign to have Aboriginal flag fly on Sydney Harbour Bridge heats up
A virtual petition established a year ago to have the Aboriginal flag fly permanently atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge has entered the real world. The founder of the popular Change.org campaign, Cheree Toka, led a small protest group on Saturday as the activists marched across the Harbour Bridge calling for the Aboriginal flag to […]
