By Dongyun Kwon
Healesville Primary School has led the way for Aboriginal cultural education with students learning the language since 2018.
This opportunity is set to come to more students throughout Australia with the Federal Government recently announcing a $14 million investment to teach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in primary schools.
Healesville Primary School Aboriginal Cultural Consultant Brooke Wandin said she is a Wurundjeri woman and teaches their culture and the Woiwurrung language.
“I am a language researcher and a teacher,” she said.
“I have been facilitating a cultural education program about Wurundjeri culture and as I got to know more about language, I’ve started teaching that too.”
Ms Wandin said she has tried to teach what each age group has learnt in the classroom.
“For example, if the children were learning about the environment, then I might use that as a theme to guide my plan into my teaching,” she said.
“I might include some language names around the environment, some of the ways that Aboriginal people care for the country, the ways that Aboriginal people have ceremonies or look after themselves using the landscape to make it relevant to children.”
The Federal Government announced it is investing more than $14 million to support primary schools to teach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in classrooms across Australia.
Ms Wandin said there are some challenges being an Indigenous cultural education teacher and she hopes the government’s funding would help solve them.
“I think one of the difficult things in teaching Aboriginal culture and language is that there are not many resources available to me,” she said.
“I have to make my own resources or I might need to find funding to make those resources.
“We need more people to become teachers first and I hope that some of the funding might go towards training for people who are aspiring to become teachers in the future.”
The cultural education class doesn’t have any pressure to be perfect or to do any testing.
“I do get some good feedback and I’m hoping, fingers crossed, that the children are enjoying my classes,” Ms Wandin said.
“I’d just encourage all schools from Wurundjeri country to include Wurundjeri culture in their school because it’s a really great way to learn about the true history and educating young people will hold us in good stead for a bright future for everybody.”
