By FAUSTINA AGOLLEY
It was a perfect day, not so long ago – I was reading to my three-year-old niece Ella. My brother had insisted I read her “My Dad Loves Me!” by Marianne Richmond. As I read, Ella would chime in at the top of her lungs to complete each sentence. We read two more books before lights were out and that’s when my thoughts of gratitude surfaced.
Every day, whether it’s on a drive to an appointment or before I go to sleep, I find the time to go through a mental list of things that I’m grateful for. It’s a regular habit to keep myself in check and to keep the optimism brewing, even on the not so great days (thankfully, those don’t happen too often).
Like many kids her age, Ella is fortunate enough to grow up in a family and community who can teach her the skills she needs for a bright future. In the next two years I know she’ll start telling me what she wants to be when she’s older. And within the next decade she will have mastered the ability to read and write.
Having migrated to Australia from England at an early age following my father’s passing, my mother set out to give my brother and I the best opportunities possible. She was determined that we had two things above all else: a roof over our heads and a good education.
My mother’s determination paid off. My brother is now a surgeon, and I completed my degrees in the same year as landing a full time job with Network 10. I am reminded everyday that it is the basic skills of reading and writing that spring-boarded us there, and I’m grateful for my mother’s hard work and sacrifice in making sure we had these skills.
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Just a note that the statistic – that only 1 in 5 children in very remote communities cannot read or write to a basic minimum standard as tested by NAPLAN – should include the very important point that NAPLAN is an English-only test and many of the children who fall into this statistic (though by no means all) live in communities in which English is not the lingua franca, and who speak languages other than English, including Kriol, as their first language.
A report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs inquiry into language learning in indigenous communities, 'Our Land, Our Languages', recommended that the government provide an alternative standardised test for children whose first language is not English precisely so that the educational development of remote Indigenous children could be accurately ascertained. The report also found that such negative portrayals of Indigenous students can have undesired negative effects on said students' sense of self-worth, and contributes to further entrenchment of the situation. Unfortunately, the government's response to the report basically rejected the recommendation for a NAPLAN alternative, saying that it would be contrary to the purpose of a standardised test. Clearly the creation of a sanitised dataset is more important to the government than actually doing anything about it.
See here for a more detailed outline of the report and of the situation in general: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/...
What a wonderful piece, Faustina. I never saw this the other day - I don't think it got any time on the website's front page or side bar, which probably explains the lack of comments.
But I think it is really good to bring more awareness to charities such as these. There are such a lot of Australians, particularly indigenous, who are not getting access to the same education or skills as the rest of us. This organisation is doing fantastic work to close the gap.