Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:45:00.946Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Starting Where They Are: Rethinking Aboriginal Early Childhood Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

B. Graham
B. Graham*
Affiliation:
S.E.A. Aboriginal Curriculum Bilingual, Dept. of Education, Professional Services Branch, Winnellie, N.T.
Get access

Extract

Bilingual education programs are being developed in some remote Aboriginal communities that have retained their own languages and a high degree of traditional orientation. As bilingual education in the Northern Territory is today beginning really to mean bilingual/bicultural education, this means that Aboriginal teachers are expected to act in different ways from when they worked as Teacher “Aides” and assisted in programs that were solely based on the non-Aboriginal culture. It is also a new situation for many non-Aboriginal teachers who, particularly in the Early Childhood area, have been trained to work with small children and now find that their most significant activity is the interaction they have with adult Aboriginal teachers as they help these teachers work with children. This paper outlines an approach that assists teachers develop more meaningful early childhood programs for Aboriginal children, and in addition helps teachers function more effectively in their new roles.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 1981 , pp. 28 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cummins, J.: Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Education Research, Spring 1979, Vol.49, No.2, pp.222–251.Google Scholar
Friere, P.: Education: The Practice of Freedom. Writers and Readers Publishing Co-operative, London, 1974.Google Scholar
Graham, B.: Wangkami: A Handbook for Aboriginal Teachers Involved in Early Childhood Education. N.T. Department of Education, Darwin, N.T., 1980.Google Scholar
Graham, B.: Group interaction for team teaching. Developing Education. N.T. Department of Education, Darwin, Vol. 6, No. 5, April 1979.Google Scholar
Harris, J.: Ethnoscience and its relevance for Aboriginal education. Unpublished thesis prepared for M.Ed. University of Qld, 1979.Google Scholar
Harris, S.: Milingimbi Aboriginal learning contexts. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico, 1977.Google Scholar
Jersild, A.: In Search of Self. New York Teachers College, Colombia University, 1952.Google Scholar
Nyerere, J.: Freedom and Developments. Oxford University Press, East Africa, 1973.Google Scholar
Reyes, V.: Self-concepts and the bi-cultural child. Journal of the National Association for Bilingual Education. Vol.1, No.2, December 1976, pp. 57–59.Google Scholar
Solomon, J.Encounters: A Resource Schedule for Early Childhood. Child Study Publications, Perth, 1976.Google Scholar
Toukomaa, P.et al.: The intensive teaching of the mother tongue to migrant children of pre-school age and children in the lower level of the comprehensive school. Helsinki: The Finnish National Commission for U.N.E.S.C.O., 1977.Google Scholar
Watts, B., McGrath, W. and Tandy, J.: Bilingual Education in Schools in Aboriginal Communities in the Northern Territory. Dept. of Education, N.T., 1973.Google Scholar