It is a western New South Wales High School with strong winter sunshine filling the classroom. The teacher moves nervously in from the brick corridor with its interchangeable Education Department prints, and stands just inside the door.“Right, pay attention please,” the Social Sciences and History teacher says. The group gives the teacher their concentration because they have come to expect interesting and controversial work in these sessions. Even though a few of them are tired and full of canteen lunch, they turn in their seats and begin to chew on the ends of biros.“This afternoon we have a visitor to the school who I am sure most of you know. She is here to help you…understand and come to grips with the Aboriginal Studies segment of your work…and she’ll probably straighten me out on a few points where I might have gone wrong, too, so I’ll ask you to pay attention to Mrs Copago and save your questions up for a minute or two.”Mrs Copago is a little bit nervous, too, being in the formal atmosphere of the brick blocks, but she has known most of the students since they were drooling, so she quickly relaxes and settles into the task of talking about her culture and her people.There is no shortage of questions from the students, and from the teacher, and they are all anxious to learn. Mrs Copago does not mind the questions that the students have heard at home, and she explains about unemployment and drinking in the light of the area’s history and racism in Australia. She talks about the skills and values Aborigines have that most Australians do not have and she ends on a positive note with hope for the Aboriginal community of the area and for Australia generally. The students and the teacher are well pleased by the session and Mrs Copago challenges them to change their own values and their family’s by thinking about different, equal cultures, land rights and the history of Australia.
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May 1, 1993
