Term One has been completed

Term one has been completed

Term one has officially ended. The lack of blog entries is testament to the busy nature of teaching during term one. That and the increased amount of time spent fishing in the many new wonderful spots being revealed each time I head out to fish, whether that be in the new purchased boat (more on that later) but also land based fishing at one of the more picturesque places visited on the island so far.

The students are resilient and slow to trust. The high turn-over of staff this year has seen new methods, faces and names introduced to them. However, the students are funny, intelligent in different ways and sometime volatile and angry. I will never possess the knowledge or skills that some of the staff here at Xavier College have. Our leadership team steer a very tightly run ship with a mixture of discipline and rule. However this is vastly outweighed by love, empathy and huge amounts of patience when a student is having a particularly bad time that day. The small different approaches that are needed to diffuse each situation stems from the passionate work of all the staff I work with here on Bathurst Island. The non-Tiwi teachers come from all walks of life (mostly Victorians) but all have the desire to see each and every student succeed in one way or another. The Tiwi students also have the benefit of Tiwi assistant teachers. A range of Tiwi people who are a fathomless source of knowledge, help the teachers with students on a daily basis. 

Angelo "Jackhammer" Orsto (Jackhammer because he loves Goldberg the WWE Wrestler) is one such person. He has fast become a man I respect and often go to with questions or seeking help with any particular student. He is a strong man in the local community and together with the other AT’s Kaitlyn, Bertram, Cassie, Edwina, Jerrika and Megan form a team of Tiwi people working together to provide a happy safe place for kids to be. Without them our school would not function in the positive way it does.

GOO (Growing Our Own) students are Tiwi teachers in training across MCPS (primary school) and Xavier. They recently completed one of their mandatory teaching practicums. I was very fortunate to be Mentor of a GOO student named Bertram Tipungwuti who I have mentioned before. Bertram took to teaching various groups well and loves to get into some practical woodwork. It is fantastic to see the kids respond to his instruction and demonstrations when I know when I try that exact same thing it takes a lot longer before the students listen or understand. As a fellow Tiwi, he commands a type of respect that is wholesome and culturally driven the way it should be in a remote indigenous setting. I am not saying as a teacher here I am not afforded respect or kids do not listen to me, that couldn’t be farther from the truth, it is just different. It is great to see Tiwi people being strong in making education fun, engaging and essential to raise up their fellow Tiwi people. The GOO program at Xavier and MCPS is overseen by Simone, a lady so dedicated to seeing Tiwi teachers succeed in becoming fully qualified teachers. It has been said that as a school we hope to one day have no non-Tiwi people teaching here, and that Tiwi educators will continue on teaching the students of the future.

Back to the students…. Funny kids. Kids that have done it tough in more than one way in some cases. I mentioned it before that the students are resilient here. They put up with a lot to come to school each day. Sometimes the community is at unrest which affects our student population greatly. Sorry business and family death is to be taken seriously and when a death does occur on either of the two islands (Bathurst or Melville) our student numbers can drop to below 30%. But there is a flip side to these kids. They are inquisitive. They are passionate about sport of any kind. They are funny. They are emotional. They express these emotions in a range of ways some negative and others positive. 

They are thirsty for knowledge about you. They often touch your arm or give you a hug and it isn’t a normal day if I don’t have one of the younger kids draped over my shoulders or hanging from my arm asking “what we doing today Brad?” high fives and fist bumps are king. Kids here like to know who is teaching them, and often a new question about my home country (NSW) comes up along with personal questions. It doesn’t feel invasive, they just want to know me better. I have quickly found out that Sunglasses, especially mine are sought after items and it is often a race to get them from my face or off my head before, during or even after class on lunch duty. Oh, and the selfies… never leave your phone unattended for one minute… I recently had to delete about 400 photos of kids taking selfies and kept about 2 because they were literally all the same!

One admirable trait of the students here is they are quick to forgive and move on. I have learned this lesson a couple times and it is an invaluable lesson at that. Each and every day is a new opportunity for the student to be in a safe happy place where they can learn.

Now onto the Woodwork classes……it is after all what I mainly teach here at Xavier.

I teach 4 groups. Each group is streamed on ability (although not in woodworking ability) my group 1 class made wooden robots, which can be seen in the pictures below. These kids are some of the funniest you’ll get. Low literacy and numeracy scores do not reflect what these kids are capable of. Sometimes they are also the most volatile, but that old quick to forgive and forget attitude serves myself and they well. They had a great time and loved cutting up the body parts and drilling holes for the rope and other bits and pieces. The end results were great and each students will have the chance to take one home.

Group 2 made birdhouses while group 3 made a stool. These two classes loved the woodwork side of things. Liked seeing the result of their handiwork. I feel introduce paint and every kid becomes and artist. Students love AFL up here and most projects are painted in their favourite footy team colours. It is funny seeing a birdhouse in Hawthorn yellow and brown, blue and white of Geelong Cats or the Red White and Blue of Western Bulldogs. See the pictures below of the work the kids have been doing.

Group 4 are on a hard project and are making a fold down table. This process has been a little more difficult as the students haven’t quite grasped what they were making until I showed them a working example of the project. They quickly forgot their own work and insisted in their own way that they could just take mine home as theirs and they would be finished. But after some coaxing they finished off the term with 75% completed projects and next term will see them finished off in footy colours and all.

I also teach AC boys VET construction. These boys love woodwork or doing anything physical where they feel they have made a contribution and matter. This term they have made chairs for themselves and were very proud of their efforts. Next term they will be focusing on works around the college grounds. Especially recreating a ceremony area surrounded by Pukumani (funeral) Poles which have multiple meanings. This will be something these boys can look back on in the future with pride and say they made that. Students here love being able to show off their work.

It has been a busy, sometimes challenging and stressful term. It has been the hardest I have had to work in a long time as a teacher. A different kind of teaching for sure, but some of the most rewarding and fulfilling teaching I have done to date. Many memories have been created this term both in and out of school. I will cherish these for a long time to come. I have included some pictures of the kids I work with, that have insisted on being in photos and having a selfie with me at the same time. I am currently updating this Blog from Litchfield National park (which will also feature in the blog in due time. Although the weather is not exactly favourable at this point in time as it is raining and quite cold. Sitting under a doonah writing this!

anyways, in the next instalment I shall update you all on the fishing, and 4 Wheel driving escapades that we have managed to get into while on the island, as well as the aforementioned boat… that’s right I bought a boat..

Untill next time…

“The only way to make the right decision is to know what the wrong decision is” – Paulo Coelho – The Pilgrimage

Brad (said like Bread when called out to by a Tiwi student)