Exploring Indigenous Culture
Cecil Hills High School
Year 9 Incursion
In Week One this term, Year 9 and Yarn spent an amazing morning working with the team from Koormurri exploring Indigenous Culture. In Term One we completed a unit looking at Indigenous perspective in literature, with many different texts like Archie Roach’s Took the Children Away, Redfern Now, Little Cuz Big Cuz, Growing up Indigenous, Poems of Gilbert and many more. Through these texts we build an understanding of the culture and history of Indigenous Australia. At the end of the unit we celebrated the culture with a half day experience.
With Uncle Russel we were told Dreamtime stories, had a smoking ceremony, learnt to throw boomerangs, and had a yarn about bush culture. He also spoke about the qualities of respect for each other, ourselves and elders in our multicultural society.
When the groups switched over we spent time with Jessie.
He generously answered all our questions and showed us a variety of cultural artefacts. He explained their use and weaved the use of them into Dreamtime stories, and modern use. Students then asked various questions about clothing, bush food, etc. They were very inquisitive and both Uncle Russel and Jessie were happy with the day, the quality of questions. They loved visiting Cecil Hills High School.
The day ended with every student being offered a chance to help create a very large painting, using our hands. Uncle Russell and Jessie then helped finish this into Emu Tracks, using Dreamtime stories that had been shared during the day. This painting will be soon hung in the school library.
Ms Wicks and the English Faculty