integrating the digital technology curriculum with indigenous knowledge systems

This is a draft overview of exemplars some of which are being developed and others being project ideas in embryo. Please get in touch if you want to help develop these ideas further, or, alternatively, just do it!

It assists teachers in implementing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures cross-curriculum priority from the Australian Curriculum, further integrating ideas from Science, Maths, Art etc. into the Digital Technologies curriculum.

The method employed here is to identify powerful ideas, usually from indigenous culture and express them using Digital Technologies. Initially this is done using Scratch coding to develop algorithmic thinking. I anticipate that this can be further extended into physical computing utilising such devices as the micro:bit, drones, Hummingbird:bit or programs that run on android phones (QR codes, app inventor). I have identified a substantial number of project ideas here but far more could be done.

Some ideas have been adapted from the Melbourne University Indigenous Knowledge site, whilst other ideas have been culled from various media reports or developed by this author.

A note about indigenous icons, animations and sounds: Scratch 3.0 comes with its own prepackaged icons, animations and sounds / music, which makes it easy for new users to quickly develop multimedia applications. What I have done / am doing is compiling a set of indigenous icons, gif animations and sounds / music more suited to indigenous cultural expression. Indigenous icons have been obtained from the web and tidied up (transparent backgrounds) using GIMP. Animated gifs can be imported into Scratch and utilised frame by frame. In this way a library of animations suitable for indigenous themes can be developed. Free sounds is a great source for sounds.

The words identifying the functions of Scratch tiles (move, turn etc.) have been translated into many different languages. I’m making inquiries as to what process would be involved in developing an indigenous language version of Scratch. It would be a tremendous boost to encourage indigenous multimedia coding if this could be achieved.

The Project themes include Navigating Through Country, Fire, Dotted Circle Art Work, Kinship Systems, Indigenous Languages, Drones, Phases Of The Moon, Seven Sisters, Rainbow Serpent and Photography.

RAINBOW SERPENT

The rainbow serpent creates springs, creeks, wetlands. It can also be associated with extreme weather, lightning, thunder and destruction. Either of these themes could be developed in Scratch.

Book reading story link: ‘Warnayarra: the rainbow snake’ by Pamela Lofts

For the images / gifs I’ve been looking for scary serpents or fascinating rainbow effects rather than cute and friendly snake images. Some scary serpent sounds have been downloaded.

NAVIGATING THROUGH COUNTRY

A schematic map is available from the Indigenous Knowledge site. A good starting task would be to duplicate this map in Scratch using the indigenous icons.

I’d encourage students here to then incorporate bilingual features into the project, their preferred native language plus English, using the Scratch pop up messages and text to voice features.

The picture shows some of the indigenous icons (not the map).

FIRE

Smoking out a kangaroo or emu is one of the many uses of fire used by aboriginal people.

Other uses of fire (as well as smoking out animals) include promotion of plant growth, reduction of fuel loads, social (campfire), cooking, communication, funerals, warding off evil spirits, insect repellant and burning spinifex to make glue

A story from the Martu, a central West Australian tribe is how, initially, the blue tongue lizard kept fire to himself. The chicken hawk stole fire from the lizard and gave it to the Martu. The Martu carried a fire stick from camp to camp.

A burn area makes it easier for hunting. New food grows after fire and rain (desert raisins, bush potatoes). Different burns are used for different foods. A small burn for skink, a long burn for a hill kangaroo and a round burn for a mala.

Some Martu art works show patches of fire

Reference to this section: Burning, bushfoods and biodiversity (film, 41 min)

PHASES OF THE MOON

There are dreamtime stories connecting the spotted quoll with the phases of the moon. The moon spirit loses its breath, dies and is reborn.

Mityan’s earthly counterpart is the Quoll or native cat which used to inhabit parts of Victoria and New South Wales. Its white-spotted brown coat is clearly reminiscent of the various phases of the moon, from the slim crescent through to the full moon.

The Scratch cloning feature could be used effectively here, for dramatic effects of the moon.

ASTRONOMY

The Seven Sisters song series stretches across Australia. The videos at the National Museum page Tracking the Seven Sisters are incredibly good

Some features of the 7 sisters video could be emulated in Scratch: metamorphosis of sisters to different forms; art work (circles); background music etc.

DOTTED CIRCLE ART WORK

Culturally Situated Design Tools is an approach pioneered by Ron Eglash et al and adapted for aboriginal central desert art motifs (dotted circles with textured backgrounds) by this author. The picture below shows one variation of a myriad of possibilities (developed with Scratch):

Using Scratch or Snap! we can code the circle in various ways. The code enhances our understanding of the circle and how it can be represented in this medium. This can be done with dots or an unbroken line. To build tools that will do justice to the indigenous art work does take a lot of thought, research, collaboration and design effort. The tools also have to be usable initially by a novice to computer coding. To design all of this becomes complex, so the designer needs to be a good coder with a good understanding of the cultural form too.

KINSHIP SYSTEMS

Taking Arrernte people as an example. All Arrernte have skin names. There are 8 skin names: Kemarre, Perrurle, Penangke, Pengarte, Ampetyane, Angale, Kngwarraye, Peltharre. They get their skin name at birth based on the skin name of their parents. But they get a different skin name from both of their parents. For example, if a woman is Peltharre then, according to culture, she should marry a Kemarre man and their children will be Perrurle.

Using Scratch or SNAP this can be coded using lists, conditionals, input and outputs. It’s a good way to introduce data structures and conditionals to anyone interested interested in this feature of indigenous culture.

LANGUAGE AND QR CODES

An ABC report, Aboriginal Gathang language brought to life for Taree school students, from May 2018 describes how a NSW indigeneous teacher, Jaycent Davis, has installed Gathang language signs throughout the Taree High school and primary school

He has embraced digital technology, using QR codes on the signs, so students can scan them with their smart phones and hear the Aboriginal word spoken aloud.

This great idea could be adapted to any indigeneous language.

MULTIMEDIA TINY DICTIONARY

I have used Scratch to make a tiny multimedia dictionary (voice, pictures / animation, words) for the Australian indigenous Alyawarre language. See the Scratch project here.

Peter Ruwolt had the idea of making template programs using Scratch to support teachers in teaching reading and writing of Pitjantjatjara.

For example: Unmarked object on screen which when you click on it plays a sound of a Pitjantjatjara word, eg. Punu (tree). Another object on screen which contains the word spelt out, punu. The user drags the spelt out word icon onto the sound playing icon and the program generates a reward of some type. Students could then proceed to making their own sound and word objects, creating their own word – sound dictionary

LANGUAGE AND APP INVENTOR

With App Inventor students can develop phone apps for android phones. For example, I have developed an Arrernte Language app, with the help of a friend in Adelaide, to help those learning the language to pronounce the words. With this app someone learning the language can sit with a fluent speaker and if they mispronounce the words the fluent speaker can record a better version.

DRONES

IDX Manager Grant Cameron was invited to present at the World of Drones Congress to talk about IDX's work in regional and remote communities across Australia ...

Grant spoke about the importance of skilling up mob across the country in using technology, and how communities are benefiting from using drones to map and monitor their own country and keep sacred sites, cultural and intellectual property safe.
- from IDX Facebook site, September 27

PHOTOGRAPHY OF INDIGENOUS ART

Overhead time lapse photography as indigenous artists make a painting (Kim Mahood, Mapping and minding shared lands, The Monthly, July 2017 )

“Wallworth used overhead time-lapse photography to film the making of the painting, and the immersive multi-screen result shows the painters materialising, disappearing and reappearing as they create the landscape, dot by dot, on the canvas”

a critique of Tyson Yunkaporta's cultural critique of western education

I've written a critique of Tyson Yunkaporta's cultural critique of western education, here. 6425 words.

Different authors have different opinions about what culture is, cultural change and how important culture is. I dismiss strong cultural relativism but argue there are deep reasons why culture is important.

Culture is the brain wiring that occurs in the first 5-7 years of a child's life. We forget how we learned that stuff, it just becomes part of us, part of our identity, more or less impossible to change. So, for example, a rural Aboriginal child will almost certainly grow up believing in the spirit world, whereas an urban white middle class child might well grow up being an atheist or agnostic. That early “brainwashing” can't be avoided in our current society and it's not going to go away any time soon.

Should indigenous culture be integrated into the school curriculum?

Tyson Yunkaporta's 8 indigenous ways are outlined:

1. Holism: the Aboriginal learner concentrates on the overall picture before going into detail
2. Visual: a concrete, holistic image serves as an anchor for the learner
3. Community: for Aboriginal people the motivation for learning is inclusion in the community
4. Symbols and Images: since learning styles are problematic reframe visual-spatial learning as symbolic learning, using both concrete and abstract imagery (it's not clear to me from Tyson's descriptions what this alleged reframing of problematic learning styles actually means – see later for a critique of learning styles)
5. Non verbal: Kinesthenic, hands on, silence, imitation
6. Land links: Aboriginal people have a deep connection to place
7. Story sharing: Elders teach using stories, the lesson is contained in the narrative
8. Non linear: the linear perspective of direct questioning, direct instruction is categorised as “western pedagogy”; contrast this with Aboriginal pedagogy where multiple processes occur continuously. But note that in the next paragraph Tyson says there are “excellent western non-linear frameworks available like De Bono's Lateral Thinking ” (p. 13)

Tyson does argue a common ground position, that in selecting the 8 Aboriginal pedagogies he has kept an eye out for “common ground” between Aboriginal and western ways

He sees positive synergies arising from interaction between cultures and rejects those who make negative comments about indigenous learners and their cultures.

My case against

I'll just list the headings of my points in response:

1. Tyson's 8 processes of Aboriginal learning and reality.
2. Traditional culture is a warrior culture
3. There are negative (welfare dependency) as well as positive (open culture) indigenous cultures
4. The complexity of the cultural interface defies attempts to simplify it. One effect of simplification is to promote a pressure to conform to a cultural stereotype
5. There doesn't appear to be good evidence that different learning styles make a difference
6. The cultural solution feeds into the ongoing Political Blame game
7. The cultural solution is silent on what I believe ought to be the fundamental goals of the education system, the non universals
8. Philosophy of harmony or philosophy of struggle?

I conclude with some historical context and my current position on the role of culture in the curriculum.

Inside the mind of David Oldfield and friends

I thought Anthony Dillon went too easy on David Oldfield in his Quadrant article (First Contact's First Sin) by focusing on the clean up the rubbish issue (where he did have a point) and not mentioning a couple of other things that Oldfield said in the First Contact series.

In the last episode, at a Noel Pearson school in Coen, Oldfield said that aboriginal people were better off learning Japanese than their own language since an aboriginal language would never help them get a job.

At another point he described aboriginal culture as a Stone Age Culture. This latter statement has been approvingly aired in a comment from Bill Martin at the end of Anthony's article:

“As David Oldfield said during the “First Contact” program, it is a Stone Age culture that should be allowed to die out. Shock horror! – it was not edited out, presumably to illustrate Oldfield’s despicable racism.

Let those objecting to Oldfield’s sentiment answer this simple question: Emotional sentimentality notwithstanding, what practical use is Aboriginal culture in contemporary Australia or any other civilised society?

All it achieved over 45-50000 years is the mere survival of the species, as did all other living organisms. It is not necessary to list the primitive, often childish details of Aboriginal culture, nor the range of its detestable aspects to conclude that the endeavour to live by it in the 21st century is a diabolical folly. Consider further that the overwhelming majority of Australians identifying as Aborigines live their lives according to the norms of contemporary Australian culture, with only a modicum of acquaintance of indigenous culture. Why, then, condemn the tiny minority living in remote communities to their appalling misery? This last question is addressed to the Dodsons, Burneys, Mansells, at al, who live according to contemporary Australian standards while enjoying the rich benefits accruing to “champions” of a culture which they have abandoned a long time ago”

If you read the comment thread (only open to Quadrant subscribers) you will find plenty more of the same sentiments.

This reminds me that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party is resurgent according to a Newspoll in October 2016, which recorded the following support figures: Queensland 10%; NSW 6%; Western Australia 6%; South Australia 4%; Victoria 3% (One Nation soars post-election, Newspoll shows)

For reasons such as these I had a think about my own attitude to aboriginal (and western) culture.

First up, with the help of Martin Nakata and Marcia Langton I compiled a list of adjectives / descriptors used to describe aboriginal and TSI culture over the past 230 years. I then grouped those descriptors into categories of my own making:

Dangerous: Savages, Barbarians, Cannibals
Backward: Primitive; Lost souls; Stone Age; Infantile; a People from the Past; Uncivilised; Childlike; Overgrown Children; Undeveloped; Low Intelligence; Inferior; Heathen
Admirable, sort of: Noble Savage; Exotic
Regrettable: Drunks; Dirty; Irresponsible; Dying race; Victims

Of course all these labels were dreamed by our “advanced” white, Colonial civilisation and often justified according to the “advanced” science of the times:

... the inferiority of the black races is due to the cessation of the growth of the brain at an earlier age than in the white races ...
- McDougall, 1903, quoted in Nakata, p. 76

But then the science has developed, changed and apart from Quadrant comment writers, One Nation supporters (a growing tribe) and genetic determinists most people now have a more humane perception: equal but different. Now we are enlightened, well some of us, since our culture is dynamic and changes as we learn more.

Well, is indigenous culture any different? Culture, including aboriginal and TSI culture continues to evolve. Once you attempt to set any culture in Stone as David Oldfield and his friends want to do (“Stone Age Culture”) then by freezing the culture of the Other you freeze your own mind, in a superior prejudicial state, in the process. All culture evolves, is dynamic, white, black and of course multicultural.

Historically Colonial whites did use their superior technology combined with their inferior morality to intrude in every way into black lives. So, in response, in order to survive, blacks have had to learn those aspects of white culture that enabled those whites to win the war. The obvious motivation to do this was to learn from the bastards who defeated them, as well as uniting with those whites who weren't or aren't bastards. Fight back. Learn English so as to defend the good aspects of ones own culture against those who have tried and are still trying to destroy it.

We had no education to check the scales, we knew no arithmetic, subtraction, addition. If we brought up 5 or 7 tons (of pearl shells) and the price was say 155 pounds per ton, we might get, ah 5 pound or 6 pound ... just pocket money
- Ganter 1994, quoted in Nakata, p. 161

There is also an internal problem in indigenous culture. Josephine Cashman, Jacinta Price and Marcia Langton amongst others have pointed out that there are elements within aboriginal culture that legitimise violence against women. In particular, this is a problem in remote communities. They are waging a campaign against this and meeting fierce resistance from the indigenous men (as well as elements of our "advanced" culture - legal system, police) who benefit from it.

Langton spoke of "a new version of Aboriginal culture that keeps a few elements of the older culture and adds a new set of dangerous elements", elements that expose women and children to assault yet forbid them from speaking out about it.

She believes legislators have "drunk the Kool Aid" and are too afraid to interfere with the "culture" of communities, a culture that now involves high levels of violence and abuse.

From this comes a "culture of silence" as explained by Cashman, which "allows criminals to gain power over communities and to establish unfettered access to children through fear, which perpetrates a misguided tolerance of criminal behaviour."

In situations where domestic incidents are reported, victims are called "dog and snitch" for collaborating with white authorities and those who report violence and rape often find that the police responses range from slow to non-existent, she said
- Being offended by Bill Leak's cartoon misses the point, says Marcia Langton

Note that Marcia Langton condemns this "new version of Aboriginal culture". This is what I mean by all culture evolves. Josephine Cashman, Jacinta Price and Marcia Langton don't renounce their aboriginal culture, they take great pride in it, rather they renounce those aspects that are not compatible with modernity. That is aboriginal and TSI culture, an evolving work in progress, full of significant internal contradictions, just like our western culture.

REFERENCE:
Breaking Down the Barriers to Sexual Violence Care, speech by Josephine Cashman
Langton, Marcia. Well, I Heard It on the Radio and I Saw It on the Television… pdf, 46pp (1993)
Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007)