Sharing and growing together

When you first hear someone talking about “EATSIPS” as part of the new national curriculum, you might think it’s got something to do with morning tea. But in fact, it’s a terrific way to help all Australians understand the history and heritage of our first people, and help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids to achieve their full potential.

EATSIPS stands for Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives in Schools. Launched in 2006, it’s now starting to become part of more and more kids’ classroom experiences around Australia, from kindergartens right through to high schools.

Sharron Lindh works with kids to help them share and appreciate Aboriginal Culture in fun and creative ways.

“I’m a proud Gamilaroi Wiradjuri woman. My people come from Moree and Cootamundra,” she explains.

“Gamilaroi and Wiradjuri Country are two of the biggest nations in New South Wales. I’ve always been brought up to believe in myself and be proud of being Aboriginal. I have always felt and known that our people are very spiritual, positive and come from a beautiful place. But I guess as I got older, I found out not everyone had the same views. For me, that challenge became a positive; now I can share with people a way that they can embrace Aboriginal Culture.”

Turning around negativity

Having spent time studying education and working in C&K (Creche & Kindergarten Association) Centres as an assistant and teacher aide, Sharron now spends two days a week as an Aboriginal Education Support Officer in a school, and spends the rest of the week visiting various kindergartens, preschools and Prep classes to introduce young children to Aboriginal Culture, (she also works as artist, painting and making jewellery). “We do painting, music, dancing, talking about plants, animals, bush medicine and foods, about how we need to take care of the environment - it’s a mixture of everything.

“I say to the kids, ‘this Aboriginal culture is a part of every single one of you, because you’re all Australian. This was our first history…and by that, I mean all of us here together, as one people. You live, breathe, work and play on this land, and this land was and is loved and cared for by our first people, who are the Aboriginal people’. It gives everyone a whole new way of looking at it.”

Sharron’s positive attitude is infectious, and she doesn’t like to dwell on the incident that eventually led to her chosen career. But for those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, especially in regional Australia, it’s an important reminder of the attitudes that prevailed at the time.

“I had, I guess, a bad incident when I was in high school, when I was thirteen or fourteen” she says, when I press her about what made her want to work in Aboriginal education.

“The teacher pointed at me (the only Aboriginal person in the classroom) and said we were savages who didn’t know how to live properly. He said our people weren’t evolved and challenged me to stand up and share with him how I thought they were. I knew that our people had an amazing culture, but at that moment I felt like he was calling my Mum and Dad liars for having brought me up to believe in that,” she says.

“It just devastated me. I grabbed my bag and I ran. My desk fell over, my chair fell over. I ran for miles, blocks and blocks away from school. After that day, Mum and Dad had all hell trying to get me to go back to school. I just totally disengaged. I didn’t want to be there. But even though it was a bad thing to happen, it’s ended up bringing so much positivity,” she says. “I thought, well, we need to do something about this.”

Embracing Aboriginal Culture

Sharron now helps teachers embed Aboriginal perspectives into their learning, and loves working with younger children especially. Not only because they’re great fun, but because, as she says, “if we get in and share with our little people, when they’re young, hopefully they have good positive attitudes to start with”.

“With the older kids, at school, I’m there to support the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, through literacy and numeracy and also to help them with their self-identity and self-awareness. Whether they’re Aboriginal or not, if kids aren’t confident about who they are they’re not going to learn for themselves, no matter how much you try to pump reading and writing into them. For a lot of our people, our self-esteem is low because of what happened in the past.

“Once people get to high school it’s like: ‘oh quick, we need to do something, these kids aren’t doing well’. We can still help those kids, but it’s much better to be proactive when they’re younger and give them some techniques to understand their feelings and develop self-worth.”

In the classroom

Year 2 teacher Greg Pickering says a classroom needs to be a welcoming community where all students feel safe, valued and wanted, and explains how the EATSIPS approach has helped achieve that.

For example, young kids can be offered beginners’ storybooks with a variety of settings, including Indigenous children, families and communities. Stories might take place in central Australia, and show landscapes of red dust or lush green trees or houses beside rivers. The books don’t need to specifically say ‘this is an Indigenous setting’ but they give an understanding that not everyone lives in a city or on the same part of the land. When Year 2 and Year 4 classes looked at how the Australian continent is broken up into different ‘countries’, it led on to discussions about differences within Aboriginal culture.

“When I grew up we had a picture of one Aboriginal person [and some] Aboriginal tools and weapons and that was it,” says Greg.

“Even if kids just learn that Aboriginal people can look and sound different depending on where in Australia they come from and not just that one stereotypical image, that’s a start,” he says.

“I think as Australians, we need to know about our history and embrace Indigenous heritage and perspectives. I know I’m proud to teach it,” he adds. Greg says he also noticed the positive effects of an activities program designed to help Indigenous children value their culture and themselves. He says students who’d been hesitant presenters in class became proud and enthusiastic when performing at a special assembly to showcase what they’d been learning about, and their families felt more welcome at the school.

“It lifted their self-esteem, made them prouder of who they are and where they come from,” he says.

Skin deep

“Little kids don’t see colour, they don’t see difference,” says Sharron Lindh.

“A long time ago, when my daughter was little, we were out shopping she said ‘Look, there’s a doll who looks like Jemma.’ This was her friend Jemma, who was a beautiful very dark skinned Aboriginal girl. There were two dolls, a fair skinned one and a darker skinned doll. And I thought to myself: ‘Gee, that doesn’t look like Jemma at all’. Then she pointed out the fair skinned Barbie and said: ‘See, she has the same eyes and hair as Jemma’. The skin she didn’t even see. I got tears in my eyes, then another woman who I didn’t even know asked me was I alright, and I told her, and there we both were in Big W holding hands and crying. I just thought: ‘how beautiful is that?’ It’s just that whole purity and innocence that these little children have and we can all learn so much from their openness and their acceptance.”

Sharron explains that when she leads teachers in professional development workshops, she establishes up front that dealing with the past is not about blame, guilt or shame, or wanting to make others feel bad:

“It’s about understanding and having knowledge about what’s happened. We need to know our past to live in the now to move forward in the future. For our people, everything was hidden and shoved underneath the carpet, and the carpet got lumpier. Terrible things happened. We need to know what happened so we can help make the carpet a smoother road for all, then we have solid ground to walk together on, only then can we move forward. Acknowledgement and understanding is the key to unlock a brighter future.

“I’ve never had any really negative reactions, no-one’s ever said to me: ‘oh this is a load of garbage’. I’ve had people that you can see might be thinking something negative, but, you know, I don’t know how they’ve grown up, I don’t know what’s happened in their life and how they’ve perceived Aboriginal people in their life, and that’s coming from their past, their grandmothers, or great-grandmothers or uncles or whoever, and that’s okay, because all it takes is just a little seed that can be planted somewhere. This is a new generation, experiencing something different.

“Change brings a lot of fear to people. I try to embrace change because it helps my brain stay active and not just do the same old, same old. With the embedding Aboriginal perspectives, when I go into do a workshop with the preschool teachers and the kindy teachers, I say to them: ‘It’s about focusing on what you do already. Stress less is best. Every day, you sit in circle. Sitting in circle is something our people have done for thousands and thousands of years. This is our time when we come together and share. You call it group time – you could change the name to Yarning Circle, and talk about it.’ Empowering our educators and enhancing the already established day-to-day routines at your centre is a positive way to share an Aboriginal perspective. It’s not about you teaching Culture; we have our people – the experts – for that. And that’s what I love – it’s not about changing the entire system, it’s bringing a new way for all to take part and enjoy.”

Making it happen at your child’s kindy or preschool

Sharron’s suggestions for introducing and embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives include:

• Find out who are the Custodians of the land where your centre is based. The local council will usually know, and there may be a Circle of Elders within your community.
• Show you welcome everyone. Have some Aboriginal artwork around your centre. Display all three flags – the Aboriginal flag, the Australian flag, and the Torres Strait Islander flag.
• Have an Aboriginal map and Australian map both on display. (For copies of the Aboriginal Australia map, go to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies: www.aiatsis.gov.au)
• Learn a song like “Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes” in an Aboriginal language.
• Display and read books with Aboriginal and Islander language and stories.
• Have an open mind – don’t believe everything you see on TV. If you have the opportunity to go to an Aboriginal festival, don’t be fearful, go and be involved, you’ll be surprised at how welcome you’ll be.

Sharron can come to visit centres on the Sunshine Coast. She can be emailed at: slindh@optusnet.com.au Dare To Lead is a Commonwealth funded national project with a focus on improving educational outcomes for Indigenous students. For more information go to: www.daretolead.edu.au For more information on EATSIPS, go to the Qld Education Dept website (www.education.qld.gov.au/schools) and select Indigenous, then services, then EATSIPS