Hughes Kimberley Calling

Myself and Brooke the hairdresser and bank telle with the girls (less 1)

It is the end of the first week of school holidays and for the first time this year we have spent the time at home. I still a have a gaping wound in my arm that needs to be dressed at the clinic every second day but the antibiotics have really knocked me around. I feel more debilitated from these than from the illness. I am used to bouncing out of bed at 5.30 am ready to greet the day. I am dragging myself out at 8.00 and have sometimes been back in by 10.00am. I have ordered some medication to help counteract the effects of all the antibiotics. Hopefully this will make me feel better as I still have 25 days of eradication antibiotics to go.

The wound is healing well though. Emma at the clinic is wonderful and training Juliette (who particularly likes the job of ripping off the old plaster) to be her assistant. I must say the healthcare I have received in the Kimberley is absolutely outstanding. Yes, I acknowledge that I have been much sicker up here, but the care is far better than anything I have received before, both at the clinic in Warmun and the hospital in Kununurra.

 Everybody in Kununurra is a “blow in” as the town itself was only established in the 1960’s. Almost all the nursing staff at the hospital had been there less than a year. Most were on a journey travelling around Australia. To me this explains why I find Kununurra so friendly, as almost everybody is new to town and there to make the best of their experience. I had great conversations with hospital staff: nurses, tea ladies and cleaners. They all had great stories to tell and I admired their courage. Some had been “superseded” by a younger woman in their marriage and so decided rather than stay around and be miserable, they took off on a great adventure. The nurses off duty even took me off to the movies on my last evening, complete with the canula in my arm as Sampson and Delilah was showing. It was a real privilege to watch this movie under the beautiful Kimberley night sky in the outdoor picture garden. This movie is set in an Indigenous community outside Alice Springs and although we do not have petrol sniffing in our community, the bleakness and marginalization of the main characters was very true to life. I could put easily 10 names to the lead girl from the girls I teach. They lead similarly disorganized and chaotic lives

The girls getting glammed up

At the end of term 3 I took my 4 best students to Kununurra overnight as a reward. Maybe I pushed myself too hard to get everything ready for the girls, maybe it was cultural differences, I am not sure. First of all, the Aboriginal Liason officer at school that was to come with me who is fantastic with the kids had got off the plane at Broome the week before when coming home from Perth and had not returned. The night before we were to leave I was desperately trying to find a community member to accompany us. In the end, I found a 22 year old woman who turned out to be a disappointment.

The girls left excitedly and I had worksheets on Maths to do that looked at distance and time during our journey. We started the stop watch as we left and timed the various legs of our journey and compared these with an ETA. They recorded distances travelled at significant places and calculated the distance remaining. Also as they were in the troopie I threw at them Maths questions relating to units of measurement. They were great at doing these in the car.

The journey to Kununurra is approximately 2 hours and 196 km. In the last 10km I was pulled over by the police twice. It seems they were doing a blitz. The second time I asked them to give me a break! Apparently the Kununurra, Argyle and Wyndham police were all doing extra patrols, but did not converse with each other what roads they were covering. The road from Warmun to Kununurra is the Great Northern Highway (it is also part of Savannah Way which goes all the way from Cooktown to Broome) so here was where the majority of traffic could be found.

We first headed to the supermarket to continue our lessons on measurement. Here we investigated the various units of measurement that were used on products. They completed their worksheets diligently though they had a great sense of shame that so many family members saw them completing their work. We then went to the accommodation which was 2 very nice apartments in Kununurra. As this was a reward I wanted the girls to stay somewhere really nice. In comparison to their homes, it was the Ritz I can tell you! Here they had a quick swim and some games in the pool. I must say it was just lovely to watch them just relax and have fun.

We then went to the bank where the girls were to open a bank account. They had been working to have some money to open an account. It was interesting that the student who was given $80 spending money by her mother, put only $5 in the bank, yet the girl who had absolutely no money available from her carer, wanted to use the $20 to pay for the excursion, leaving her nothing to bank despite her hard work. I decided that the school would pay her excursion fee as she had demonstrated the best work ethic and deserved a chance to get ahead.We take so much for granted. These girls had no examples of savings from their parents and the whole concept of delayed gratification simply does not exist in our community.

They spent an active afternoon in the hotel pool which probably was the problem. They were then very hungry and ate too much afternoon tea despite my warnings about dinner. They all then  wanted to have a nap just as the hairdresser was due to arrive. They were excited to get done up but their eyes were really sore from the pool and the girl who looked the most beautiful cried and wanted to go home just as we were about to go to dinner. The hairdresser had come after work and did their hair for free but the welfare mentality kicks in, their is no thanks, just an expectation that all is done for them.

Their eyes were streaming as we went to dinner but for the first 20 minutes they enjoyed using chop sticks and trying new foods. I had ordered a banquet, but after entre they were begging to go home as they were tired. I was so disappointed but must remind myself that to Aboriginal people dinner is just viewed as a necessary body function, similar to going to the bathroom. It just does not have the same cultural significance as it is to us. So we left very early with most of the food uneaten but luckily one of their grandmothers saw them in the restaurant and we were able to give them the food to share with their families who were sitting under the trees. When we got back, one said she was hungry and they came to life and wanted to watch DVDs together. I requested that they just go to sleep as I was disappointed.

The next morning I asked one of them to assist me to prepare breakfast but she ignored me and stayed watching TV.  After 5 minutes, I said I was not the maid and so cooked brekky for myself and the lady accompanying us. I left each of them to cook their own. I sat them down after brekky and told them that I was so disappointed, it was not that I expected thanks (no Aboriginal language has the word thankyou or its equivalent), but that their constant complaining had worn me out. I know what their living conditions are and this really was a treat! All day long at school it is the same, never positive just negative.

 Maybe they felt shamed and that were not worthy but when we went to the day organised for young aboriginal women on the Thursday it was very telling. By far and away my girls had the lowest self-esteem and were the most damaged. They clung to the back wall, were too shamed to get sandwiches off the table for morning tea and would not talk to any other students. Their heads were down and they were hugely embarassed. Kalumbaru girls are from a far more isolated community than ours, it cost $10000 for them to charter a plane to be able to join in the day. The difference is alcohol!!!. We are in a community awash with alcohol and the kids have the demeanour of those who live with high levels of various trauma in their lives.  I felt so sorry for them that they are going to miss out on so many of lifes experiences because of their feelings of unworthiness. It didn’t help that the adult I took kept asking when we couldgo home. 

Not one of them said thankyou as I dropped them home (again this can be blamed on their living circumstances) and I wondered if they enjoyed it at all. I spoke to one of their mum’s next day (the girl who asked to go home) and she said she talked from 5-11pm with excitement about her experience. I would never have guessed it. I can only think of what my experience would have been like if I had taken the remainder of the class, who are my difficult students.The girls loved the clothes and felt very dressed up in them. I just feel desperately sorry for them, when your spirit is that crushed or you have absolutely no example of socially appropriate behaviour and so little that is positive, how are you going to participate in life?

As part of my strategy to encourage good behaviour and school attendance I had put in place a reward system. Each student could gain a possible 25 points for each day. 5 of these points were determined by the time they arrived and began working at school. Although they were getting better, some students still arrived 1 ½ hours after school had started. As a result I had a few students consistently arrive early to begin their Mathletics computer work. On one occasion they arrived as early as 6.30 am. The other 10 points were awarded according to their level of cooperation for the day. 

I had talked about goal setting and had a very honest talk with the girls about how I cannot force them to learn. I can do my best to provide engaging tasks within the constraints of the syllabus, but ultimately there are some things they must do. Aboriginal students do struggle with the level of direction school gives. Some of my students have absolutely no direction given to them at home so it is inevitable that conflict arises. I maintain though that if we are to prepare them for the realities of work and to produce functioning members of society, they do need to learn to take some personal responsibility for their learning. At times some of the girls who did not regularly attend did perform well and score points. At other times though, as soon as it was time to do something they did not want to do, it was a mouthful of expletives and they left.

To be eligible to attend the excursion the girls had to achieve at least 200 points. There was ample time to do this, but my class size dwindled to 4 regular attendees. I had long ago stopped blaming myself for this and accepted that the chaos in their lives was far greater than I. In recent weeks I had encouraged the girls to fund raise to pay some of the way toward their excursion into Kununurra as I wanted to book them into really nice accommodation as a treat.. They had been cleaning classrooms, washing cars and selling popcorn. I had purposely left them alone to sell the popcorn. They had to be strong and resist the demands from family members for free popcorn. This was an important step if they were going to be successful in any employment enterprise that involved the community. There is an expectation in this culture that if you are family, then what is yours is mine. This seems to be perpetuated by those too lazy to do things for themselves. I can appreciate in days gone by, this looking out for one another was important for survival in a harsh land. But now it means that those who work and provide for their own families, sometimes have as many as 30 hangers on, who raid your cupboard, sleep in your beds or demand to be taken around. One young girl despaired of this and actually sold her car since she was sick of being “humbugged” by everyone wanting favours.

Working to earn money was something that very few in this community experience. I had watched some of their parents hand over $50 at a time just to spend at the roadhouse. Coins were always scattered over the playground and referred to as “rubbish money”. Our Juliette used to delight in collecting the 5 and 10 cent pieces they had tossed away. Once they began working, they were keen to earn money and they proved themselves capable. I was encouraging them to place some of the money in a bag to open a bank account when we went to Kununurra. I talked about saving, compound interest and delayed gratification. Some really struggled with this whole idea. They live in a community where almost everyone spends everything they own before the next welfare cheque arrives. This goes on gambling, food and alcohol. They do not have to pay for housing, any insurance, school fees or any of the regular expenses that we have.

In the end I had only 4 students eligible for the excursion. I had arranged that we would go up early on the Wednesday, complete Maths in the supermarket, open a bank account, get their hair done, go out to dinner, stay at a nice apartment and then attend a “deadly Divas” day the next day. My visit to the hospital for 5 days prior threw some of my plans into disarray, but the girls were very excited. Some had earned many more than the 200 points so they were eligible to select some clothing from the 2 enormous boxes that Sue Boudakin and Jenny Carter.  These are 2 wonderful parents from Mike’s school St Aloysius’ in Sydney who from the very beginning of the year have organized numerous deliveries of clothing, prizes, shoes, lego, basketball shirts etc etc to be sent up to these students. God bless them and their associated schools for the generosity and time.

 P.S. To be called “deadly” is the highest praise you can be given in Aboriginal culture. This term is used throughout Australia and even their national music awards are called “the deadlies”. This is almost used to the exclusion of all other possible terms for everything from a good song, great clothes, good looking fella, good meal.

 August ended with a visit from Ashlee, Mike’s daughter who is 23 years old. Mike was very worried how Ashlee would go as she asked if she would be able to get a good coffee in Turkey Creek and what entertainment there was. His fears were unfounded. Ashlee had a fantastic time and was very well received by the kids. Family is everything to Aboriginal people and so they had been looking forward to meeting Juliette’s big sister for a long time. She was very anxious about an encounter with a snake and when she saw the size of the scrub bulls and how they wandered in our yard, she realized there were other things to fear. As I gave her the hairspray as insurance against lice and warned her about ring worm, boils, scabies and a variety of other exotic nasties her level of anxiety increased.

Juliette was very excited to see her big sister Ashlee once again.

Ashlee worked with Mike and the boys, gave a talk on working and life in the city to my girls and joined Juliette’s class for story time. It was obvious she loved the kids and understood why Mike and I were doing what we were. On her return to Sydney, she obviously had been moved by her experience as her brother asked Mike if Ash had a life changing experience while with us. She has enrolled to do teaching at university externally next year and is collecting hand me down clothes from her colleagues to send up to my girls.

Whenever Mike had to go to the school or the roadhouse she went with him and developed a great relationship with some of the young girls. When she returned from her Bungles day tour, a number of them were there to meet her off the bus. She could look inside their hearts and see how much these kids had to offer despite their harsh circumstances. She sobbed at the airport when it was time to leave, questioning the kind of life she was returning to. We are both so proud of her! She rang excitedly to tell us that she is coming back again at the end of November.

 We had a wonderful weekend with Ashlee at Emma Gorge Resort. Although it was getting warm, this tent style accomodation was quite luxurious. Ashlee, Mike and Juliette headed off early to Zebedee Springs and El Questro while I was very boring and stayed in the dining room of the resort and did school work all day. I had much to reflect on from the past week of teaching. A real treat was restaurant dining. I had not been near a shop for nearly 8 weeks, so the luxury of a cooked meal was wonderful. Next morning, Ashlee and Mike rose very early to beat the scorching sun for their climb to Emma Gorge. They were in the waterfall by 7.00am. On their return we spent a leisurely day by the poolside as Juliette entertained the oldies on the AAPT bus tour. They were obviously missing grandchildren and so she had many of them playing games in the water with her. That child makes friends every where she goes.

The friendship between Erin and Juliette is wonderful to watch.

I had reached the end of my tether with the girls and their demanding behaviour. Who would have thought that only 2 students present could cause such mayhem. I was over their door slamming and threats and demands of instant attention. I was tired from nursing Juliette for all those weeks, but when you have to share yourself between students, Aboriginal students are used to yelling to get attention. That is what works at home! They expect you instantly to stop helping whoever you are and be at their side. If they get an answer wrong on the computer while waiting for you they release a torrent of abuse at you and say it is your fault. I had enough this day and when one student threatened to throw the computer on the ground I told her that she could no longer do computer work until she learned to behave more appropriately. She left and another student who then got an answer wrong while I was dealing with the other student then slammed things down and left. I was glad to see the back end of them both. Although they were regular attendees, they were wearing me down with their demanding behaviour. I was using this day at Emma Gorge to rejuvenate my spirits and think about how I was going to move forward from this point with my students.

Mike does bike riding with his boys after lunch on Fridays

I used the Accelerated Literacy text we were doing to develop activities based on cross cultural misunderstanding and goal setting. I sat them all down on the floor on Monday and I talked very earnestly about my disappointment in their behaviour and how at each step I was just trying to help them realize their dreams. Education was their key to escaping the poverty and violence they were living with. I talked about anger management and how they will end up unemployed or in the justice system if they do not learn to respond more appropriately. I know that this is what they live with constantly and very few adults show appropriate anger management. It is also a culture of immediate gratification, and so our education system presents many challenges as it relies on delayed gratification for long term success. It was telling that as we worked through the goal setting activity, one of the sudents sat herself away from the others on the floor, and the tears rolled down her cheeks, as she felt the future was just so bleak.

For those of you who have read all the posts of my blog, you may remember the difficult times I had at the Art Centre as I was trying to get the girls to work through the visual design process to complete a major work. It seems the entire heart ache was worthwhile as we posted 5 of their major works away to Perth for a competition that was open to all Catholic high schools in WA, the Angelico Awards. One day I was home from school when Juliette was sick and Katrina our principal rang in the afternoon to say she had just had a call from the competition organizers to say that Shanchia, one of my Year 7 students had came second overall. This was an amazing achievement, as this included students in Year 12. In their ignorance they asked if she was available for the prize giving that night in Perth (that is only 3500km away).

Shanchia working on her winning Angelico entry: Warmun Dreaming

I could not find Shanchia as she was playing somewhere in the creek, but her mum Roseleen was in a card game with many older women and I made a big deal of how significant her achievement was. As the oldies had shared their knowledge and stories it was their victory also. All of the artworks were exhibited in Forrest Place in the centre of Perth for a week. Next term I will organize an exhibition for them at the gallery here.

My numbers this term have slowly declined as one of my best students was taken away to Wyndham by her mother. This was the third school for her this year. One who was 15 had dropped out to “marry”, a tragic error for her as she was bright, with a flair for maths. I could see her making a great office administrator and we had been making progress with her anger management. All I could see now for her was alcohol and domestic violence fuelled by frustration. Being “married” here means living with a fella, neither of you work, you stay in bed most of the day and then you boss the older people around to look after you.

Another student left to attend a boarding school down south, her second attempt at a school away from the community. I was at least able to give her a really good talk about making this one work. Of the remainder, one attended school for about 3 days per term, another two for about 5 days per term. Two of these were completely illiterate. A bright girl who had been away and educated in a city briefly just wandered the streets.

I just love this photo of Erin and Juliette in the Warmun countryside.

The issue here for these girls was not me, but their inability to accept that school is not a place where you can do anything you wish all day. Those who were particularly hostile have absolutely no boundaries set by family and so you are the first to say no to them. By thirteen years old it is too late to learn how to deal with this for some of them. Many spend all night prowling the streets and getting into mischief. As with many of the students at our school, anger management issues, ADD and defiance disorders are what they struggle with daily. Not to mention hunger, lack of sleep, domestic and sexual violence at home.

Despite these girls, one success story eclipsed all these disappointments. Since the introduction of Mathletics, a girl who had previously attended school about 5 days per term was now here every day, sometimes as early as 6.30 to start working on Mathletics. Her posture and smile reflected an increased confidence and as her reading and Maths improved so too did her anger management. Neither of her parents cared for her and though her grandmother collected her welfare, she provided very little care. She became my star and she thrived under the praise. She had previously been a very infrequent attendee of school, and when she came she was very hostile.

 This girl has something special though and wishes to rise above the tragedy of life here. I had given her numerous prizes for being student of the day, yet almost all of these she had gift wrapped and given to someone else. This, from a girl who owned almost no possessions of her own!

Brother Paul has since moved on from being principal, though during this time he received an Order of Australia for his contribution to Aboriginal education. The Marist Brothers now allow him to work collaboratively with the Association of Independent Schools to place Aboriginal students in the boarding schools around New South Wales. He showed us the statistics, 250 boarders spread across 30 out the 36 boarding schools. 22 sat for their Higher School Certificate last year and 18 of those are now at University. These are certainly impressive statistics!

 From his years of experience Paul understands how the welfare system has damaged the pride and sense of control they have over their own destiny. When these boarders attend the schools such as Riverview, St Scholastica’s, St Joseph’s and Kincoppal, although Abstudy contributes to some of the fees, parents or carers are expected to make some contribution towards costs of uniforms etc. This is set up as a Centrelink deduction. Paul has found that this contribution takes away the handout mentality but also helps the family to value the experience being provided for the student. Generous donations from past and present students often make up the shortfall.

 One of Paul’s great success stories was of a boarder who attended Joey’s. He was from a community near Kempsey on the far north coast of New South Wales. He was now at university, having completed high levels of Latin, Mandarin and Extension English. His affinity for languages was developed in his own culture, as many Indigenous students are fluent in numerous Aboriginal languages. His English major work was the story of the history of his people in poetic form in both English and the local language. That is what is so frustrating in our teaching, these students are no less bright, just disjointed school attendance makes it hard for them to progress.

 God bless Paul. When he said he was coming to visit the Bishop of Broome, I cheekily said why not drop in, we were only a thousand kilometres away. On the east coast you would not think of travelling this distance, but in the Kinberley 1000km is your nearby neighbour. The humble man that he is he arrived for a 4 day visit via the all night Greyhound bus.

His experience with Aboriginal communities allowed him to make many valuable insights into the state of our community. One thing that struck him was the absence of Aboriginals in all the businesses in town. The community owns the roadhouse, yet not a single community person is employed there. As this also runs motel units, a restaurant and a caravan park there are lots of employment opportunities. The clinic, Art Centre, and community office all have more whites employed. It is a matter of empowering the community to take control.

 Paul enjoyed his few days at the school and Mike took him to some of the local sights of significance. Mike arranged for one of the Elders, Rusty to go with his class to Mistake Creek, the site of an Aboriginal massacre of which some of our community survived when they were children. As Rusty was telling this incredibly moving story, all except 2 of the boys returned to the bus, too lazy to stay and listen. They continued with their disrespect by yelling out “when can we go”. Mike was so sad that they showed so little respect toward one of their own Elders telling one of their groups most significant stories.

It was certainly lovely to have Paul stay with us for the few days and his insights into the education system here he was taking back to the Bishop of Broome and to the Catholic Education Office. He spoke very strongly of the need for a Catholic high school to be established in Kununurra. Many of our students simply do not succeed in boarding school in far away places. There are a number of reasons for this: often they have underlying emotional issues that need to be dealt with before they can adjust to the demands of residential living. Also, for Aboriginal people, connection to land and family is so strong, particularly for those in remote communities. Being away from this they simply become too homesick. At least if they were weekly boarding in Kununurra they would still have family around and could return home each weekend to community life.