Teachers
know that Aboriginal kids need reasons to stay at school.
There has to be something they can grab onto, something
they think matters to them, something that's real life,
where they can say 'that's great, I know why I'm doing that'.
Mostly
we work with Year 9 and 10 students, but some older ones
as well. They decide what modules they're going to do. You
give a certain amount of information and you give the parameters
of what you're able to do and then they decide.
It
seems to me that it's important that it's the school that's
offering them these courses. Whether somebody else delivers
or not, they see it as the school offering it to them and
so do the parents. Then there's a spin off because the parents
can support the school and the school is supporting the
parents. So that's a positive for the school.
Ways
of learning… we find you need hands-on work, group work.
You use diagrams and charts where you can and you keep the
book work to a minimum, at least at the beginning. Everything
has to be relevant and the kids have to know it's relevant.
It's
really important to have defined outcomes and to break each
skill down, break it into manageable chunks and deliver
one small chunk at a time. Now that won't always suit the
learners because they'll want to jump right in, they'll
want to get into the full blown thing straight away and
maybe they won't like the skill building process. But at
the end of the day when you evaluate it and ask 'what about
when we did the skill building in the morning?' they'll
say 'oh yeah, that was a good idea'.
We
measure success in terms of completion rates but in another
way, it's about whether they want to do more modules, whether
they want to come back after lunch! And sometimes, just
a little bit of practical training can be a big help to
a kid. One boy I remember, it was at [a rural town] he was
getting into trouble but he was able to focus on the training
and it just helped keep him on track. They said it kept
him out of juvenile justice. It's not the whole story but
it helps.
Anecdotal
evidence coming back from teachers seems to say that there
is often a change of attitude. It can be a fairly major
change… knowing that there's a program at the end of term
gives them something to look forward to, a reason to behave
better during the term.
One
thing I've found through working with Aboriginal people
is that they really relate to respect. If you respect them
for who they are then they'll respect you. And you have
to be yourself. Don't try to be somebody else because they'll
sniff it out very quickly!
