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1. Permalink

   

   jim morris

   (logged in via email @yahoo.com)

   This is such an important subject but the article is drivel. No personal offence intended because it is so typical of the overall morally superior mindset that is preventing real change from happening.
   I sincerely wish to understand that mentality but it is virtually impossible to have a conversation about aborigines once the other party discovers that you don't entirely agree with them.
   I used to have orthodox views (no expectations) until I went to a community in the NT 30 years ago and saw the…

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   This is such an important subject but the article is drivel. No personal offence intended because it is so typical of the overall morally superior mindset that is preventing real change from happening.
   I sincerely wish to understand that mentality but it is virtually impossible to have a conversation about aborigines once the other party discovers that you don't entirely agree with them.
   I used to have orthodox views (no expectations) until I went to a community in the NT 30 years ago and saw the way the people there treated each other. It was absolutely disgusting by anybody's standards. Trouble is the 'compassionate ones' who consider everyone else to be racist morons seem to think it is alright for anyone claiming some level of aboriginality to be beyond judgement. Any violence, stupidity or depravity is the fault of Captain Cook and the rest of the 'boatpeople'. Lawyers and cultural consultants support claims that wife bashing and rape etc are part of 'culture'. Disgusting and barely believable.
   All this baloney about racial discrimination doesn't seem to include all of the special exemptions from normal civilised behaviour. A crime any other Australian would be sent to jail for is just swept aside and the perpetrator set free or slapped on the wrist. It must be that the powers that be are either so guilt ridden or protective of their careers that they aren't prepared to carry out their proper duties. It is as though they are unaware of what wonderful scammers aboriginal people can be.
   I don't know the answer to that particular question because it is impossible to engage in a rational conversation with those people.
   I advised my daughter, whose mother is a pacific islander and says she is often mistaken for having aboriginal blood, to never get involved in a discussion at school about aborigines because it is a lose/lose scenario but to simply take note of what an outstanding failure aboriginal policies over the last 30 years have been. She has now completed a medical degree without even being able to receive Austudy proving that having brown skin is no excuse for being lazy and irresponsible.
   The simplest way to improve the lives of aboriginal people is to have one set of rules and expectations for everyone and the biggest obstacle to that happening are all the holier than thou fools that shut down genuine debate that doesn't fall into line with ever more of their failed policies by branding them racists.

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      David Zyngier

      (Senior Lecturer at Monash University)

      I assume that you know more about the needs of indigenous children's education than Chris Sarra - given that he was the first indigenous principal at Cherbough Primary School, Queenslander of the Year 2010 and Queensland Educator of the Year, has completed his PhD in eudcation.

      Dr Chris Sarra is a world-class educator. Hailing from Bundaberg in Queensland and the youngest of 10 children, Chris experienced first-hand many of the issues faced by Indigenous students throughout their schooling.

      In…

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      I assume that you know more about the needs of indigenous children's education than Chris Sarra - given that he was the first indigenous principal at Cherbough Primary School, Queenslander of the Year 2010 and Queensland Educator of the Year, has completed his PhD in eudcation.

      Dr Chris Sarra is a world-class educator. Hailing from Bundaberg in Queensland and the youngest of 10 children, Chris experienced first-hand many of the issues faced by Indigenous students throughout their schooling.

      In the late 1990’s Dr Sarra took on the challenges of Indigenous education as the Principal of Cherbourg State School in South East Queensland. His ‘Strong and Smart’ philosophy led to dramatic improvements in educational outcomes. Through strong leadership and clear vision he facilitated many changes at the school which saw increasing enthusiasm for student learning, dramatically improved school attendance and increased community involvement in education.

      He now heads the Stronger Smarter Institute, which is transforming Indigenous education with positive messages of high expectations, quality relationships and community engagement in schools. Led by Dr Sarra, the Institute’s programs are having significant impact on students, educators and communities in schools across Australia.

      Chris is now the Executive Director of the Indigenous Education Leadership Institute which is pursuing improved educational outcomes for Indigenous children through engagement with principals, teachers, community leaders and Government.

      The Institute’s work is based on the Strong and Smart philosophy which espouses a strong and positive sense of what it means to be Aboriginal in today’s Australian society and that Indigenous students can achieve outcomes comparable to other students.

      Chris believes that the power teachers have to inspire their students should never be underestimated. These are messages that Chris Sarra has drawn from his own life - as an Indigenous child, student, teacher, parent, principal and leader.

      If you are still sure that his work is drivel then there is nothing more that one can say to you.

   2. Permalink

      

      Jason Brailey

      Admin Officer - Research (logged in via email @monash.edu)

      Jim,

      Probably a dumb question because the answer is pretty plain to see, but did you even read the article? Your response reads like someone who saw the word Aboriginal and jumped screaming and spitting onto their soapbox made crazy by a deep pathological dose of denial.

      I am sure it won't sting you a bit considering the shallow and reactionary thinking that you have demonstrated, and the way in which you framed your puddle of dribble but you seriously are an ignorant racist.

      I am also sure that when you read this you will scoff and will feel instantly affirmed and righteous. My saying it makes your bigoted, over generalised and deeply ignorant views even more right don't they?

      I feel better for stating the somewhat obvious and I am sure you will feel better for hearing it. We both win.

      When I read things like this I wish I could cast aside civility - instead I will politely ask you to wipe your chin!
      

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         Jason Brailey

         Admin Officer - Research (logged in via email @monash.edu)

         For the sake of those that don’t see what to me seems obvious I will demonstrate how Jim’s post is racist. I will begin with a very small thing, Aborigine and Aboriginal when referring to specific people should be capitalised. If this were the only issue I certainly would not have responded, but it is a point worth noting as it signifies a certain level of disrespect. If Captain Cook and Australia warrant capitalisation I think the other people in this story do.

         The racist views are almost always…

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         For the sake of those that don’t see what to me seems obvious I will demonstrate how Jim’s post is racist. I will begin with a very small thing, Aborigine and Aboriginal when referring to specific people should be capitalised. If this were the only issue I certainly would not have responded, but it is a point worth noting as it signifies a certain level of disrespect. If Captain Cook and Australia warrant capitalisation I think the other people in this story do.

         The racist views are almost always rooted gross over-generalisations. In this case our commentators views are based on first hand observations 30 years ago. If I were to hold white Australia to account on the basis of an interaction 30 years ago I could say that it is a land of white racist rednecks. I could say this by ignoring the diversity that everyone acknowledges exists within their own communities - yet somehow against logic do not always recognise this diversity of thinking, feeling and actions within the communities of the ‘other’. All Aboriginal people are (insert descriptor), all Muslim’s are (derogatory descriptor), Aboriginal communities are (derogatory descriptor) etc etc...

         If I were to write ‘all whites are criminals because most crime is committed by white people’, all whites are friendly, all whites support the war in Iraq etc etc the patent stupidity of what I am saying is plain to see. The same applies when people of Jim’s ilk and the so-called well meaning do the same. Assertions that reduce Aboriginal people to the role of hapless victim is as negative a response as the most derogatory of comments from those that imagine the worst. I am often struck by how potent an enemy so-called friends and sympathisers can be!

         The reference to ‘lawyers and cultural consultants arguing that rape and wife bashing is a part of culture is another very offensive generalisation extrapolated from a very very small number of cases. I personally know of only one such case, yet concede that this cynical ploy to get a criminal off the hook may have happened more than once. For context you have an accused criminal trying to get off and a lawyer trying to get him off. I have not heard a single Aboriginal person speak about this without getting angry at Aboriginal cultures being dragged through the mud again. Underlying this example is another gross and deeply offensive generalisation, to suggest that all Aboriginal men engage in violence against their partners and children is something that I find personally offensive.

         With statistics that suggest that Australia has the third highest rate of rape based on reported crime figures I think that a broadly national problem is being swept under the rug except in the instance that a man from a minority is involved. This is further evidence of the fact that lazy minds can only distinguish difference and diversity within their own community. The sad irony is that only a decade or so ago a white fella need only say ‘she’s MY wife’ to make sexual assault no longer a criminal offence, good old patriarchy hey fellas.

         Very little needs to be said about Jim’s dismissal of the idea that racial discrimination exists nor his suggestion that Aboriginal people are treated leniently by the courts. There are only two sections of society that Aboriginal people are disproportionately represented, AFL football and prisons. As for the example of his daughter, only a fool would presume that all black people are lumped in big black lump. There is a long history of some people being held in higher or lower esteem than other regardless of skin colour. Jim, hit google and look up the year the Maori men were given the vote in Australia, now do the same for Aboriginal people.

         Underpinning Jim’s argument is a fundamental fallacy that I would like to drag kicking into the light of day. There seems to be a dominant view that holds each and every Aboriginal person personally responsible for the failure of government policy/programs. There is a flat refusal to hold the people both black and white that take salaries and fail to perform to account. The sad reality is there are many people under performing for good money and then hiding their failure with a wink-wink nudge-nudge without even the need to verbalise it, “you know them black fellas, bloody useless..."

2. Permalink

   

   jim morris

   (logged in via email @yahoo.com)

   The obvious question to ask John, after ignoring the hysterical viterpuration, is why the attempts to improve the situation for aboriginal children (in particular) are so consistently abysmal. Of course I read the article but I was dismayed to find that it was just more of the same well-meaning but pathetic nonsense that costs billions yet produces almost nothing.
   Peter Sutton is the only person with deeply entrenched interests in aboriginal policy who has had the courage and integrity to admit that…

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   The obvious question to ask John, after ignoring the hysterical viterpuration, is why the attempts to improve the situation for aboriginal children (in particular) are so consistently abysmal. Of course I read the article but I was dismayed to find that it was just more of the same well-meaning but pathetic nonsense that costs billions yet produces almost nothing.
   Peter Sutton is the only person with deeply entrenched interests in aboriginal policy who has had the courage and integrity to admit that the ongong policies are doing more harm than good. The rest of you are so deeply buried in your own bs that you think everyone else believes it too; otherwise they are "ignorant racists".

   And Mr Zyngier, in reply to your far more courteous post, yes I do think I could do better than Mr Sarra. If I couldn't I would hang up my hat. My eldest daughter, who just happens to have brown skin and is often mistakenly thought to be aboriginal, grew up with me as a single parent in constant poverty partly because I was subject to state-sponsored discrimination by feminists and aborigines yet she is now a doctor through her own hard work not even being eligible for austudy.
   Her younger sister, whose mother is from Indonesia, is also topping her class.
   I don't know when the morally superior will wake up to themselves. Probably never because they only engage with other people who have the same narrow minds. The worst of it is that while people like them sit around on their shiny bums collecting obscene wages too many aboriginal people continue to suffer because of their exploitation by white wimps and black shysters.

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      David Zyngier

      (Senior Lecturer at Monash University)

      Jim, I don't actually understand what you are saying - by the way Shyster is a racist term used to describe jewish people - I am certain you know that - my mother has a number on her arm because of beliefs like that!

      If you want to particiapate in dialogue about the issue of what works for indigenous kids in school happy to do so - but I will not respond to ad hominem bile.

      Sutton writes: "'For many the proposition that all Indigenous disadvantage has been caused by external impacts alone has been a sustaining fiction, one perhaps defended at times on the grounds that the masses cannot handle the subtlety of the truth and are inclined to simplicitudes."

      How is this contradictory to what Sarra is suggesting that needs to be done?

      By the way its Dr Zyngier not Mr Zyngier (I am a work in education and not in surgery!)

3. Permalink

   

   Janet Hammill

   (Senior Indigenous ethnographer child health health researcher at University of Queensland)

   Chris Sarra is up to his old self promotion tricks yet again and tweaking the violin strings. What a shame he still continues his falsehoods about his achievements at Cherbourg State School (CSS). The first time he was Queenslander of the Year only four students from his school progressed into high school in 2005 and that was out of a birth cohort of around 50 births. Most students entering high schools originated from schools other than CSS. Sarra speaks so eloquently of compassion but it is not…

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   Chris Sarra is up to his old self promotion tricks yet again and tweaking the violin strings. What a shame he still continues his falsehoods about his achievements at Cherbourg State School (CSS). The first time he was Queenslander of the Year only four students from his school progressed into high school in 2005 and that was out of a birth cohort of around 50 births. Most students entering high schools originated from schools other than CSS. Sarra speaks so eloquently of compassion but it is not what was shown to six teenage boys I took to Melbourne for ten days in 2005. He claimed they should not have gone as they were "not role models" for the community and aroused shocking community anger towards them on our return. Moreover one young chap with significant intellectual disabilities was demonised at Sarra's instigation. Students between the ages of eight and nine years were given CSS letterhead paper to write letters of hatred about "G" to my boss at the time and our host friends at Ford Performance Vehicles. G's family remain keen to highlight the injustice shown to him. Anyone interested in viewing the evidence please feel free to contact me. I have no shortage of material to demonstrate that all is not what it seems with Dr Sarra.

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      Jason Brailey

      Admin Officer - Research (logged in via email @monash.edu)

      Wow, I thought this conversation was about the ideas expressed in an article... one need not be flawless in order to have something worth listening to and considering to say.

4. Permalink

   

   Gary MacLennan

   (Senior Researcher Indigenous Educaiton)

   Ah Jim,

   you resort to crude insults and refuse to engage us intellectually at all. I will make one last effort and then leave the matter.

   Let me say it now very clearly. Dr Sarra represents one of the best hopes for his people. His strong and smart philosophy closes off the kind of avenues that have helped place his people where they are. To Indigenous children he says "you must try hard to succeed. No excuses". To white educators he says "You too must try harder and you must not accept anything…

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   Ah Jim,

   you resort to crude insults and refuse to engage us intellectually at all. I will make one last effort and then leave the matter.

   Let me say it now very clearly. Dr Sarra represents one of the best hopes for his people. His strong and smart philosophy closes off the kind of avenues that have helped place his people where they are. To Indigenous children he says "you must try hard to succeed. No excuses". To white educators he says "You too must try harder and you must not accept anything from your students but a striving for excellence. You must have high expectations."

   I straight out challenge you now Jim to lay aside your anger and your hate and your vicious insults and tell me what is wrong with that. I have listened to Dr Sarra speak and I can say he is a transparently good man. His ideas strike me as carefully thought out and based on a life time of practice and commitment.

   What though of your contribution? You say I am lost in "bs". It is not my purpose to trade insults with you. It would demean both this forum and the issue we are discussing and ourselves. Sadly though you seem to have chosen the kind of role that Yeats hinted at when he talked of how

   ... all my priceless things
   Are but a post the passing dogs defile.

   Gary

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   jim morris

   (logged in via email @yahoo.com)

   David and Gary, you are both obviously buried too deeply in your own bs to ever see the light. All I can do is vote for whatever party that will do something about wasting money on pointless programmes.

6. Permalink

   

   Gary MacLennan

   (Senior Researcher Indigenous Educaiton)

   Well Jim still seems to be reluctant to model a dialogical approach for us. A pity. But let us take some of the points he makes in his latest comment. He does not like his country being labelled as racist. When last I looked it was my country too Jim. However I did not dream up the White Australia policy. Nor did I dream up the obsession with race that our Founding "fathers" exhibited so openly and frequently. One would have to be a Keith Windschuttle to deny that. Nor did I dream up the racist…

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   Well Jim still seems to be reluctant to model a dialogical approach for us. A pity. But let us take some of the points he makes in his latest comment. He does not like his country being labelled as racist. When last I looked it was my country too Jim. However I did not dream up the White Australia policy. Nor did I dream up the obsession with race that our Founding "fathers" exhibited so openly and frequently. One would have to be a Keith Windschuttle to deny that. Nor did I dream up the racist remarks about the non-educability of Indigenous Australians that are everywhere in official documents.

   Now are billions of dollars being squandered in Indigenous education, as Jim alleges? No, they are not. But this allegation is essential to the fiction that Jim and the Hughes family & like minded commentarors cling to. This fiction is that somehow or other the Left has been in charge of Indigenous education and that is the problem.

   Did I dream up Bleakly, O' Leary and Killoran? These three were resonsible for Indigenous education for most of the last century and Jim will have to take my word for it. They were not Left wingers nor did they spend overly on Indigenous education.

   Let us take just two examples. An inspector's report of January 6th 1937 argues that the school building on Thursday Island did not need to meet the same standards that apply elsewhere, because 'of its enrolment of aboriginal and other tropical children'.

   The Head Teacher for Cherbourg Robert Crawford had to write on the 25th February 1960 to the Director of Native Affairs complaining about class sizes. There were 41 in Grade 7 and no teacher. Grade 2 had 67 pupils. I could go on and on about this. However the point is that this is the legacy that Indigenous families have to live with. There was not until relatively recently a serious attempt to provide them with a quality education. That is the problem that we are grappling with today and let me repeat, the Left were not in charge.

   Maybe Jim could do a bit of research here. Let him google "Stolen wages" and try and engage the literature before he alleges that Indigenous Australia is having billions wasted on it.
   Gary

7. Permalink

   

   jim morris

   (logged in via email @yahoo.com)

   The 2010 Indigenous Expenditure Report says "When $33,000 per student delivers a 94 per cent failure rate, lack of expenditure is not the cause. Despite additional funding, 150 indigenous schools have the lowest literacy and numeracy of Australia’s 9500 schools. Failure is due to separate “Aboriginal” curriculums".
   I contributed to this discussion because I find the situation absurd. I have zero to do with any government policies but I can recognize failure when it is so obvious. I don't like having my country and its fabulously diverse population labelled racist and I don't like being called an ignorant racist for expressing frustration at the billions of dollars being repeatedly squandered on 'compassionate' programmes. The obsession with 'race' is obviously a large part of the problem and I hope one day you will realise that. Good luck.

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      David Zyngier

      (Senior Lecturer at Monash University)

      Jim you have not quoted the 2010 Indigenous Expenditure Report but lifted directly from Hughes & Hughes article in The Quadrant! see http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2011/6/rivers-of-money-flow-into-the-sand June 2011 Rivers of Money Flow into the Sand.

      "When $33,000 per student delivers a 94 per cent failure rate, lack of expenditure is not the cause. Despite additional funding, 150 indigenous schools have the lowest literacy and numeracy of Australia’s 9500 schools. Failure is due to…

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      Jim you have not quoted the 2010 Indigenous Expenditure Report but lifted directly from Hughes & Hughes article in The Quadrant! see http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2011/6/rivers-of-money-flow-into-the-sand June 2011 Rivers of Money Flow into the Sand.

      "When $33,000 per student delivers a 94 per cent failure rate, lack of expenditure is not the cause. Despite additional funding, 150 indigenous schools have the lowest literacy and numeracy of Australia’s 9500 schools. Failure is due to separate “Aboriginal” curriculums and a lack of focus on classroom teaching. Instead of phonics to target weak English foundations and arithmetic drills to build basic numeracy, extra funding is spent on supernumeraries and special indigenous programs. Consultants flourish, but teaching days, weeks and years are shorter than in mainstream schools. Commonwealth-funded “Community Festivals for Education Engagement” take students out of school for two to nine days to learn that “it’s fun to be at school every day”. Meanwhile, they are not learning history, geography and science.

      Excessive funding is contributing to high failure rates."

      Plagiarism - That is not nice!

8. Permalink

   

   jim morris

   (logged in via email @yahoo.com)

   Okay fellas, just keep on doing what you are doing and let the results speak for themselves. It really has nothing to do with me other than an inbuilt distaste for stupidity being rewarded and the downtrodden being exploited.
   If you non-racists were as intelligent and genuine as you make out then the violence and hopelessness would have been reduced years ago.

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      Gary MacLennan

      (Senior Researcher Indigenous Educaiton)

      Jim

      Am I to take your last comment as a refusal of dialogue? I hope not. My argument is. and the empirical and historical record shows this with savage clarity, that the "non-racists" have only recently acquired critical influence in Indigenous education. Dr Sarra has played no small part in achieving the triumph of what I take to be plain decency.

      I cannot think, Jim, you would want racist ideas to continue to influence Indigenous education. Nor can I think that you do not know that they have…

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      Jim

      Am I to take your last comment as a refusal of dialogue? I hope not. My argument is. and the empirical and historical record shows this with savage clarity, that the "non-racists" have only recently acquired critical influence in Indigenous education. Dr Sarra has played no small part in achieving the triumph of what I take to be plain decency.

      I cannot think, Jim, you would want racist ideas to continue to influence Indigenous education. Nor can I think that you do not know that they have had such an influence in the past.

      Now you mention results. The very latest data from North Queensland shows that we are beginning to achieve good outcomes. Outstanding principals such as Mike Hansen in Cairns West SS are achieving brilliant results with an approach that is heavily influenced by Dr Sarra and the ADG of IETF, Ian Mackie.

      That is where the future lies and not with trading bitter insults. If we are to succeed then everyone of good will is needed. Are you one of those Jim?

      Gary

9. Permalink

   

   Gary MacLennan

   (Senior Researcher Indigenous Educaiton)

   I am sorry that the response to Chris' article took such a turn. Jim is angry and that is not really a good space to start a conversation from, thugh being Irish I tend to forgive displays of anger more than most. Ms Hammill's contribution, however, does not deserve a comment.

   I will urge Jim to lay aside his anger and contemplate the following. It is offered in a sincere attempt to construct a dialogue. When we visit an Indigenous community or when we read the statistics on Indigenous health…

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   I am sorry that the response to Chris' article took such a turn. Jim is angry and that is not really a good space to start a conversation from, thugh being Irish I tend to forgive displays of anger more than most. Ms Hammill's contribution, however, does not deserve a comment.

   I will urge Jim to lay aside his anger and contemplate the following. It is offered in a sincere attempt to construct a dialogue. When we visit an Indigenous community or when we read the statistics on Indigenous health or the NAPLAN scores, we have to understand that what we are seeing is the product of an underlying relationship that of the non-Indigenous and the Indigenous community. We should also acknowledge that within that relationship the power resides largely though not exclusively with the non-Indigenous community.

   Now if we historicize the relationship within the field of education we find that the pattern is firstly one of exclusion of Indigenous children from the education system. Thus David Ewart, one of the powers in Qld education, explicitly (and illegally) forbade Indigenous children from entering Buderim SS in 1897 on the grounds that they would 'contaminate' the non-Indigenous children.

   It is a moot point when the process of exclusion ended. Certainly the system of separate ‘schools for coloured children’ and “aboriginal children” appears to have lasted into the 1970s. Thus there is a report in the Melbourne Age of a Mrs Murgha of Woorabinda having herself and her children turned away from the “white school”.

   There is a pattern in the historical record then of Aboriginal parents seeking an education for their children and that being denied them by various means. Sometimes by brutal exclusion and sometimes by the processes that made up low expectations. These include an emphasis on uniforms, ignoring the impact of poverty, racist remarks, school sanctions etc, etc. If I may offer a personal anecdote, I myself once had a student-teacher who remarked quite openly to her fellow students that she always sent the Aboriginal children to the back of the classroom because of their smell.

   Perhaps I have said enough to cause Jim to question whether the problems Indigenous families experience currently in education are the fault of the bleeding heart Left. In any case, I would urge him to purchase Chris Sarra’s book (2011, London: Routledge) when it comes out this year in Australia. He will find there the passion and the ideas of a truly remarkable Australian educator. One who has dedicated his life to serving his people.

   .

10. Permalink

    

    wilma western

    (logged in via email @bigpond.com)

    This is a lovely explanation of an ideal. I'm however puzzled by "being firm in a relationship means being willing to challenge and intervene....." Isn't the issue then who has the responsibility/ authority to challenge and intervene ... and who recognises and accepts that?

11. Permalink

    

    David Zyngier

    (Senior Lecturer at Monash University)

    Chris, thanks again for stating the obvious - unfortunately too many (mainly but not exclusively) white folks just don't seem to get it! Your work at Cherbough has been an inspiration for me and for the student teachers who get to see your work via the ABC documentaries made. Strong and Smart Black and Deadly!