Hughes Kimberley Calling

 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.

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