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Source 7.57. Activity ideas for National Aborigines’ Week extract from Primary
Social Studies sourcebook year 3 (Department of Education, 1987a, p. 131).
Actively engaging students with classroom activities in order to develop and deepen their
understanding of Indigenous culture is encouraged. This demonstrates the active-learning
pedagogical approach employed during this era, far removed from traditional didactic
teaching approaches seen in earlier eras. For example, in this unit, students are encouraged to
participate in the following way: “Ask the children to make up their own stories/legends to
explain day-to-day happenings, e.g….why the wind blows. Instead of reading their stories,
get the children to tell them and act them out as traditional Aborigines would have done”
(Department of Education, 1987a, p. 131).
Even though it could be argued that as the only representation of Indigenous Australians in
the early years of schooling is included in an optional Special Days part of the curriculum,
thereby placing Indigenous representations on the peripheral of the school curriculum, as the
same unit is covered across grades 1 to 3 it is most likely that the majority of schools would
have taught this event at least once in those three years of schooling. This unit also represents
the beginning of including Indigenous Australians more consistently, and as part of the core
content, in Social Studies and History curriculum.
7.11.2 Discourses of Indigenous Australians ‘on-the-fringe’ of history.
The only representation of Indigenous Australians in Spanning time (Power et al., 1985) is in
the conclusion which includes a few paragraphs on specific issues that have emerged in
contemporary Australian society. This is achieved in one paragraph with four accompanying
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