Aboriginal leaders reject call to halt English lessons

A PROMINENT literacy acad­emic responsible for training Eng­lish teachers has challenged the need for Aboriginal children in remote communities to learn Eng­lish and the assumption that their reading and writing skills need fixing. Stewart Riddle, education lecturer in literacies and English curriculum at the University of Southern Queensland, has questioned whether raising indigenous literacy levels across Australia “is inherently a good thing, in and of itself”, likening it to the assimil­ation policies that led to the Stol­en Generations.

Dr Riddle’s comments were rejected yesterday as “offensive”, “confused” and “nonsense” by indigenous leaders Noel Pearson, Warren Mundine and Chris Sarra, who all said strong literacy skills in English and children’s home languages was essential.

The three leaders said it was not an either-or proposition but Aboriginal children had to learn English as well as traditional languages and culture to give them access to the world.

In an article posted on The Conversation website last week, Dr Riddle invokes a two-tier school system, saying the literacy skills needed by Aboriginal children in remote communities are different from those required in major cities as measured by the national literacy tests, NAPLAN.

“What relevance does sitting for the NAPLAN tests have for a young child, living in a largely oral-language culture in remote communities, where English may be their third or fourth language?” he says.

“It might be argued that such attempts (to close the gap) are no better than historic attempts to make Aboriginal kids more ‘white’ by sending them off to missions to be properly educated.”

Mr Pearson said Dr Riddle’s references to the Stolen Generation were “just depressing” and “a reminder of the hopeless thinking that has gone on in teacher-education faculties for too long”.

“And this guy is teaching fut­ure teachers this kind of nonsense,” he said. “If you want to understand why indigenous people fill the juvenile and adult deten­tion facilities in this country, look at their education.

“If you want to understand why their education is a disaster zone, look to people like Riddle.”

Dr Riddle is a former high school English teacher and now trains teachers at USQ and is on the management committee of the Queensland English Teachers Association and editor of its journal.

He told The Australian that Aborig­inal children should learn to read but questioned the language in which they should be taught, what version of English or if it should be in their own language. “We get so caught up in a narrow understanding of what it means to be literate,” he said.

Mr Mundine, the head of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council, said that Aborig­inal children should learn their own languages and culture, “as well as proper English, proper maths and proper sciences”.

“All of us have gone out to communities and got experiences and skills and brought them back to our communities,” he said.

Dr Sarra, head of the Stronger Smarter Institute, said teaching Aboriginal children English was the best way to enhance and strengthen indigenous culture: “Otherwise we effectively render them functional only in that local community and completely dysfunctional in other communities.”