Aboriginal Education Quotes

He had been instructed only in that innocent and ineffectual way in which the Catholic priests teach the aborigines, by which the pupil is never educated to the degree of consciousness, but only to the degree of trust and reverence, and a child is not made a man, but kept a child. When

We are swapping band-aid education for brand new education, sealing the cracks – all the holes in the broken-down fences of Australian education policy for Indigenous peoples. Yes, they continued the better education, we know what is best rhetoric in their on-going war with the sceptic observer whom they continually accused was pass em this and not pass em that – always out to destroy Aboriginal people like a record still stuck in the same grove. Anyway. Whatever. Agree or not. This was the hammer, even in officially recognised Aboriginal Government, pulping confidence. The hammer that knocked away the small gains through any slip of vigilance. The faulty hammer that created weak ladders to heaven.

Most disconcerting of all were those experiences in which the patient's consciousness appeared to expand beyond the usual boundaries of the ego and explore what it was like to be other living things and even other objects. For example, Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female prehistoric reptile. She not only gave a richly detailed description of what it felt like to be encapsuled in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species' anatomy she found most sexually arousing was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head. Although the woman had no prior knowledge of such things, a conversation Grof had with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles, colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal. Patients were also able to tap into the consciousness of their relatives and ancestors. One woman experienced what it was like to be her mother at the age of three and accurately described a frightening event that had befallen her mother at the time. The woman also gave a precise description of the house her mother had lived in as well as the white pinafore she had been wearing—all details her mother later confirmed and admitted she had never talked about before. Other patients gave equally accurate descriptions of events that had befallen ancestors who had lived decades and even centuries before. Other experiences included the accessing of racial and collective memories. Individuals of Slavic origin experienced what it was like to participate in the conquests of Genghis Khan's Mongolian hordes, to dance in trance with the Kalahari bushmen, to undergo the initiation rites of the Australian aborigines, and to die as sacrificial victims of the Aztecs. And again the descriptions frequently contained obscure historical facts and a degree of knowledge that was often completely at odds with the patient's education, race, and previous exposure to the subject. For instance, one uneducated patient gave a richly detailed account of the techniques involved in the Egyptian practice of embalming and mummification, including the form and meaning of various amulets and sepulchral boxes, a list of the materials used in the fixing of the mummy cloth, the size and shape of the mummy bandages, and other esoteric facets of Egyptian funeral services. Other individuals tuned into the cultures of the Far East and not only gave impressive descriptions of what it was like to have a Japanese, Chinese, or Tibetan psyche, but also related various Taoist or Buddhist teachings.

Here it is worth repeating the headlines: Residential schools. Limitations on religious freedom through the banning of ceremonies, of potlatches, of the right of spiritual leaders to travel. The bogus rule claiming that First Nations people needed permission to travel. Banning First Nations people from using lawyers. The underfunding of Aboriginal education. Interference in the use of their land. The steady removal of land by a variety of dubious methods. Etc. Etc. Etc. In other words, governments, one after the other, have used their power to betray the Honour of the Crown.

In circumstances such as this I have no sympathy for myself as a citizen. It is my government, my civil service. Mine and yours. It has shamed all of us by prevaricating, lying, causing suffering to fellow citizens. In this case, the word shame must be used. We and those suffering are the Crown. We are the source of Canada’s fiduciary responsibility. And we, through our government, are cheating and humiliating citizens who have already been humiliated by our governmental education system. Not surprisingly, the

Our fascination with change won’t, of itself, make it more likely or more rapid. Come 2020, I’m confident that Australia will still have one of the world’s strongest economies because the current yearning for magic-pudding economics will turn out to be short-lived. The United States will remain the world’s strongest country by far, and our partnership with America will still be the foundation of our security. We will still be a ‘crowned republic’ because we will have concluded (perhaps reluctantly) that it’s actually the least imperfect system of government. We will be more cosmopolitan than ever but perhaps less multicultural because there will be more stress on unity than on diversity. Some progress will have been made towards ‘closing the gap’ between Aboriginal and other Australians’ standards of living (largely because fewer Aboriginal people will live in welfare villages and more of them will have received a good general education). Families won’t break up any more often, because old-fashioned notions about making the most of imperfect situations will have made something of a comeback. Finally, there will have been bigger fires, more extensive floods and more ferocious storms because records are always being broken. But sea levels will be much the same, desert boundaries will not have changed much, and technology, rather than economic self-denial, will be starting to cut down atmospheric pollution.

The aborigines were a source of wonder and amusement to be alternately fed, clothed, teased, educated, and petted.

The Europeans also did not understand the main reason behind the men’s elaborate initiation ceremonies and why they travelled and educated themselves much longer than the women. They saw it as another example of the men’s high status. The law stories, however, reveal another view: the Nhunggabarra male ancestors are portrayed as reckless and aggressive and responsible for most mistakes. Hence, men need extra schooling and experience to mature and become responsible citizens in Aboriginal society. The men had to compensate for their lack of maturity and knowledge by learning from others and by conducting more ceremonies during their time on earth.

The Native Women’s Association of Canada states, “These systemic issues have directly caused poor health and mental health, economic insecurity, homelessness, lack of justice, addictions and low educational attainment for Aboriginal women and girls, placing them in precarious situations where the risk for violence is greater

A non-tokenistic way to value the knowledge of a friend or Aboriginal person you work with is to view the education you wish to receive as a process that takes time and needs to take place on their terms.

Grasp that, and you will not be surprised to learn that the males of these primitive people held their own sex in such veneration that quite young ones—puny in intellect, and without education—were, by act of senate, qualified to elect senators, enter upon the government of the world, and occupy the highest offices to the exclusion of the Infinite Intelligence, where possessed by women. So those poor vain creatures, with much, assumption of wisdom, though still very apelike in various ways, made laws affecting woman's liberty, property, and even her children, without consulting her, her happiness, or any higher feeling than their own self-love, comfort and aboriginal greed. In short, the women up to past the nineteenth century were really slaves in all but the name.