“That was the word that was used,” Onus said.
Worawa Aboriginal College principal Lois Peeler and students arrive at the launch of the Aboriginal Change Makers resource.Joe Armao
“I remember looking around the room during history class,looking at all of my student colleagues,all of them looking very sorry for me,and I sat there and I thought,‘I’m terribly sorry for you all’.
“Because I knew who I was,I knew my story. I had amazing aunties and uncles and people who told me who I was on a daily basis. I had those stories,but they didn’t.”
Tiriki Onus was educated about his Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung heritage.MIFF
They were the stories of Yarmuk,who was taken to the Maloga mission at age three in the 1880s and passed on language to her descendants,even though it was against the law;of William Barak,who helped to set up a self-sufficient refuge for displaced central Victorian Aboriginal tribes near Healesville in the 1860s;of Jack Patten,who instigated the Cummeraganja mass walk-off in protest against poor living conditions and was arrested for the criminal offence of “inciting Aborigines”.
Their lives,and the lives and legacies of several other prominent past Victorian Aboriginal leaders will be studied in Victorian classrooms as part of a new history resource for students in years 7 to 10.
The resource,called,prompts students to consider Victorian history through the eyes and experiences of Indigenous people who fought against long odds to keep their culture and language alive.
It details subjects including life on Aboriginal missions,the policy of removing children from their families at age 15 to work as household or farm labour,and 20th century campaigns for recognition and self-determination.
It has been developed by Victoria’s only Aboriginal-run school,,in partnership with the Victorian parliament,which has also committed to provide professional resources for teachers to make best use of the material in their classrooms.
Aboriginal Change Makers was launched at Worawa last week. The all-girls boarding school stands on the site of Coranderrk,a former Aboriginal reserve of the 1800s that was reacquired by the Kulin people in the 1990s. A school first opened there in 1890.
Worawa principal Dr Lois Peeler said the Aboriginal leaders included in the resource “deserve to be taught across the curriculum as heroes”.
Worawa College principal Lois Peeler launches the Aboriginal Change Makers school resource.Joe Armao
“It is our hope that non-Aboriginal students will begin to access the actual history of the past and a new understanding of what has created their own perspective,so they can look at the past with clarity,and the future with honesty,” she said.
The launch follows the release of a new Australian curriculum this year that also elevates the teaching of Aboriginal history,though it was amended to include more of Australia’s Western history at the insistence of the former Coalition government.
The new resource encourages students to explore Australia’s “Eurocentric” nature by studying the names of streets and parks,newspapers and history books.
“Exploring Euro-centricity may be new for many students and therefore may be complex and/or challenging,” a note for teachers says.
Victorian parliament speaker Colin Brooks committed to a development program for teachers,run with staff at Worawa Aboriginal College,so they too could teach the resource with confidence.
“Aboriginal Change Makers will make a difference,” Brooks said. “It will give teachers and students the opportunity to gain a true understanding of the history,culture and,importantly,the leadership of Victoria’s Aboriginal people.”
Teachers and university teaching students will be able to complete one-day training sessions at Worawa’s Healesville campus.
“Teachers will spend a full day out at Worawa with Aunty Lois Peeler and the staff,and then some follow-up sessions that look at how to implement the resource in a sustainable and ongoing way,” said parliament’s community projects co-ordinator,Narelle Wood.
Yoorook Justice Commission deputy chair Sue-Anne Hunter,a Wurundjeri and Ngurai illum Wurrung woman,said education had emerged as “the one thing that keeps coming up” in talks with elders as part of the treaty and truth-telling process.
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