A Lesson in History
My father grew up in an area of Victoria known to the local Jarwadjali people as Darrangurt. Their ancestors had constructed channels to drain the marshy ground between two natural swamps so that, when it rained, the swamps overflowed and fish, especially eels, were flushed into those channels and captured in fish traps.
Like their neighbours, the Gunditjmara at Lake Condah, they probably had a good business going in smoked eels, and may even have had permanent dwellings, long before the pyramids or stonehenge were ever thought of – some 8,000 years ago.
Nearby Gariwerd and the Black Range feature the highest concentration of rock art sites in S.E. Australia and include the Gulgurn Manja Shelter which contains Jarwadjali hand stencil rock art. There is a goodly chunk of human history – not just Aboriginal history – to be rediscovered, appreciated and treasured here.
Sadly, my father grew up knowing nothing about any of this. He was taught, if the subject was raised at all, that aboriginals were simple nomadic hunter-gatherers. Widespread ignorance and/or arrogance still coloured the attitudes of the day and a misguided “Christian paternalism” did nothing to improve things for indigenous Australians back when he was a boy.
When I was at school in the 1950s and 1960s things hadn’t changed that much. It is a sad fact that some of those old attitudes still persist today.
My father educated himself on these matters in his later years and he has expressed the hope that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be able to properly study and appreciate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island history and culture.
He hopes that their view of Australia will also embrace history from the arrival of the ancestors of modern aboriginal Australians out of Africa some 40,000–50,000 years ago, rather than just the little white bit at the end.
How will that happen?
With Dare to Lead schools can deliver all that and a bit more. Improving educational outcomes for Indigenous Australian children is one focus. Improving the education of all children in Indigenous history and culture is another.
At ASCIV we are committed to doing our part to support the work of Dare to Lead. We are encouraging all schools to join the coalition, and we are also offering our support to make their participation meaningful and effective.
Bill Gordon
President ASCIV