Walking in two worlds

I recently watched In My Blood It Runs. Amazing documentary, really well put together… but also tragic and sad. I found myself wanting to give Dujuan a big hug and tell him it’ll be alright. You can see the look on his face, he is not stupid, he is a very intelligent kid, but he is trying to reconcile his experiences of the world around him and it doesn’t seem to be fitting. It’s a clash of cultures, Nanas desperately trying to keep their grandchildren on track and embraced by their culture and language, while the community is reeling from grief and trauma, which plays out in anti-social behaviour and violence.

It’s a story I’ve heard before. Through the work of my PhD, about a young kid in Wiluna that the police had been keeping an eye on. He was brilliant on the drums and had been able to do some recordings for a music project up there, but he was off the rails, not attending school, and in and out of police custody. As well as my work in Roebourne, supporting the evaluation of the Act-Belong-Commit adaptation, Standing Strong Together. Children are struggling at school. They are acting out, attendance is poor, and achievement is low. Their parents’ own experience of school is much the same, so they might tell their kids it’s important, and that they have to go, but the children are finding it hard to see the relevance. It has no meaning or significance for them. They know the stories of the past from their parents and grandparents, aunties and uncles, but these are not adequately acknowledged or dealt with at school. They learn culture and language from their elders, but again, these are not given authority or adequately acknowledged at school.

While lying awake this morning thinking through all of this, I was reminded of the work of Professor Marion Kickett on Aboriginal resilience. Aboriginal people who are successful, against all odds, were those who were able to walk in two worlds. They found a way of reconciling their culture, identity and sense of belonging as an Aboriginal person with mainstream culture in Australia. This then also reminded me of a video I watched as part of the volunteer training for the AIME program I took part in while studying for a Graduate Diploma in Education at ECU. It spoke about parents walking alongside their children to a river, but they couldn’t go with them across the river. They needed to cross the river because all the opportunities were on the other side of the river. But the river was dangerous, with strong currents and crocodiles. It’s a great analogy.

The final thing all this made me think about was a children’s book. I actually bought it while I was studying towards my PhD at UWA, five years or so before I had my own children. I have three kids now and they love the book. It’s called, The Two Hearted Numbat by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina. Numbat was able to reconcile having two hearts, a heart of stone and a feather heart by wearing both together. I also picked up a few books while I was working in Broome, My Lost Mob by Venetia Tyson and Scaly-tailed Possum and Echidna by Cathy, Katrina, Marlene and Myron Goonack. It is so important to see these stories in print. To have them available to read to normalise these stories and make them available and accessible (and on par) with other stories we regularly read to our children. It occurred to me that we really need stories that speak to kids like Dujuan, and their experience of having to reconcile, come to terms with, and ultimately become successful at walking in two worlds.

In My Blood It Runs presented a contrast in Dujuan’s school in Alice Springs between the teaching of European settlement of Australia (it was “discovered” and claimed by the British) and the teaching of Aboriginal Dreaming, where the teacher was reading a book she didn’t really understand, or feel convinced that anyone might believe in it. While it may have changed since, during my teacher training we had only one lecture/tutorial on teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. That was it, blink and you missed it. The attitude of some of my fellow students during the tutorial after the lecture surprised (shocked) me. I guess it’s not the prevailing attitude of sector I have worked in previously. Mandatory cultural awareness training for teachers working in schools with higher proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students would really go a long way. Professor Juli Coffin’s work on cultural security could easily be adapted from healthcare settings to education and taught alongside Professor Kickett’s findings on Aboriginal resilience. This should really be taught to the children as well. Give them a framework and toolkit for success. Then it won’t be such a surprise when someone does succeed, or unusual how they could have done it against all odds, because we want them to succeed, we’ve told them how they can be successful, and we’ve supported them to do it.

Can we have children’s books about living and succeeding in two worlds? I feel there is a real need for children’s books that demonstrate Aboriginal success and experience. How different would it be if Dujuan was read a story way back in Kindy about a child who went to school to learn about letters and numbers, then spent time with his Nana after school learning about language. By showing a contrast between the two worlds, you can also show how they can fit together and what determines success in both of those worlds. Sitting in a classroom and all the routines and expectations of that environment contrasted with being at home or out on country and what routines and expectations are considered acceptable there. Aboriginal people shouldn’t have to make a choice about which world they prefer to live in or which one they can be successful at. Just like Numbat with two hearts, there are positives to both, but how can be better support the reconciliation of them both together in order to be successful at life.