Are black people dumb? he asked

There were two certainties about the children Tony, my Torres Strait Islander husband and I would raise. Firstly they would have brown skin, eyes and hair, from Tony.  Secondly they would have an insatiable thirst for reading and learning, from me.  The first I got right, the second I got hopelessly wrong.

     Trying to understand why my children have not embraced reading and learning has involved a fourteen year journey, a teaching qualification and changing strategies to make them learn.  But a comment by a friend while I was mulling over writing this story has almost solved this decade-plus conundrum … and the egg is on my face.

     “I could do anything and I could learn anything before I got to school,” she said.

     Here is my experience of education in the Torres Strait, that is, a remote Indigenous community.  The account relates to our two oldest boys.  

     Our children grew up in a house full of books and were read to constantly in the early years.  They loved reading.  In fact the oldest boy was an early reader before age 5.    

     There were no TVs, Xbox, DS or other screen devices till they were much older and then use was heavily controlled.  The boys spent most of their waking hours outside, in the yard, in the street, on the oval, on the reef or on the water, being children.

     By the time they entered school they could drive a dinghy and catch a fish, couple and uncouple the dinghy trailer from the ute and spear crayfish, tie and bait a hook and gut a fish, assess the wind and lunar cycle and read the solwata.  All this they had learnt from their father who had learned similar things from his father and so on.

     At school, they were suddenly corralled into small, artificially lit rooms with low ceilings, along with 24 other students.  They couldn’t use their existing knowledge as they were taught to sound out, count in twenties, read books about rabbits and snowmen and make tiny earths that circled massive suns and so on.

     Is there any wonder that my sons disliked school, rejected all it taught and disengaged?

     “Don’t make us read, Mum,” said the oldest boy often. “We don’t like it.  And other parents don’t make their kids read.”

     Both our older boys attended boarding school in Cairns following primary school on Thursday Island where they did well if As and Bs are indication.  Both failed when faced with mainland education standards in their first term away.  I have had conversations with other parents who’ve had the same experiences.

     Why did the boys fail?  In a nut shell, they failed because they quite simply had not learned all they needed to in primary school.  Why?  The curriculum failed to engage them and it disregarded the vast knowledge they had on day one of their formal education.  And that repelled them from learning, kolleh style, the European way.

     Okay, there is much research into why Indigenous children in remote communities disengage or fail to attend school.  We also know that the sample sizes of research are not sufficiently high, programs and projects haven’t been fully monitored and the research hasn’t been subject to rigorous evaluation.  But there are some factors that I have experienced and these factors are within the influence of educators and policy makers.

• Children have English as a second or third language and lessons are delivered in SAE.  For many children, the only time they hear spoken English is at school.
• Primary languages are oral (don’t forget to be able to read Broken English, you need a fairly good level of literacy, that is, phonetics).
• A curriculum and lessons that bear little connection to the children’s real world.
• High turnover of teachers, overwhelmingly European in the Torres Strait to gain permanency with Education Queensland.
• The power of the peer group who may not value education because, like my boys, see it as foreign to all the learning they did before they started school.
• The humiliation of being mocked for being "like them kolleh people" if students make an effort at learning and studying.
• A departmental behaviour management system that is fraught with problems as it is applied by the predominant European staff to Indigenous students. 

     It’s no surprise that Dr Martin Nakata (Torres Strait’s first Doctor of Philosophy) wrote in a 2008 paper, “Indigenous people live in very complex places.” 

     Both our oldest boys received Indigenous scholarships to attend boarding school.  As far as I know, neither boy received from the school or the scholarship, tutoring to fill gaps in their learning from primary school which resulted in them failing in first term. In fact, I didn't know what those gaps were, apart from substantial.

     “Mum, it’s so hard,” our first son cried to me on the phone in his first term.

     Fast forward three years to when second son attended boarding school.  He’s the observer, the laconic one.

     “Mum,” he asked me a month into his first term, “are black people dumb?”

     “What are you talking about?”

     “Well, the white kids can do the work, but the black kids can’t.”

     Interesting observation, yes?  Potential to consider himself dumb because he is black and couldn’t do the work, yes?

     I urged the boys to work hard and do their best because they needed education if they wished to live between their island home and mainland communities.  I disregarded the amazing wealth of knowledge they had as Torres Strait Islander children living on a remote island.  I hadn’t studied education at this time nor had I met my friend who said those powerful words.

     I now understand our sons’ failures at school are not theirs, but failures of the system.        It was not fair they had to make up their lost learning through intensive tutoring to compete in the mainstream because schools Australia-wide are delivering a Euro-centric curriculum in a Euro-centric framework.  

     Oh, the national curriculum and academic rhetoric laud the merits of Australian education that values diversity and caters to individual children.  Why then have I experienced the opposite on Thursday Island and why do experienced teachers whisper, “all that stuff about diversity, well, it’s not really possible”?

     There is much Closing the Gap rhetoric and we know by closing the education gap, other gaps are reduced such as offending, health and employment.

     My boys entered school with a smorgasbord of skills their urban counterparts almost certainly would not have had.  But their skills were disregarded as they were taught to sound out, count in twenties, read books about rabbits and snowmen and make tiny earths that circled massive suns.

     I acknowledge the diligence of teachers in the Torres Strait, past and present.  In fact, I have been in awe of their professional commitment in what may be described as difficult circumstances.  But they can only teach within a system they know and are professionally bound by.  And, hold onto your chairs, they do not receive ESL in the Torres Strait!

     “I could learn anything and do anything before I got to school,” said my friend as I struggled to put words together for this post.  I didn't want to become becoming angry at how the education system has failed my boys and worse, many other children in the Torres Strait.  

     My sons had an insatiable thirst for reading and learning before they went to school.  It’s just that they were taught in a small, stuffy classroom and the lessons had no bearing on what they learned from their father and their environment.

     In trying to Close the Gap and improve educational outcomes for Indigenous children, I have seen we are we forcing the children to change to fit the education system.  

     I believe we should be changing the system to fit the children and the wealth of learning they gain in their communities, which learning they bring to school at the tender ages of five and six.  We need to acknowledge how they learn, often in nature and make all formal learning relevant to them.

     Only then will they take pride in what they know and what they can do.  And if they go to boarding school with overwhelmingly white, middle-class children they can be proud learners and not one Indigenous child will ever think or ask, “Are black people dumb?”