23rd September
- Some of the “deadly” clothes that arrive from Sydney.
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.
