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Assessment Task 2: Research Task
Profession-Specific exercise for recent primary education graduates:
In what ways will knowledge of frontier conflicts between Aboriginal people and
European settlers be important to your audience in their future professional lives?

In todays modern classroom, it is in your own best interests to be as
knowledgeable as possible in the field of Australian history. This does not simply
mean knowing the white European version of history, but to also consider the events
of the colonisation of Australia from Aboriginal Australians perspective. An in-depth
knowledge of the conflicts that occurred between Aboriginal groups and European
settlers will enable you to teach the colonisation of Australia in an objective manner
whilst remaining respectful of Aboriginal culture. To appreciate what this really
means, we will examine what the frontier conflicts were, discuss the importance of
Aboriginal identity in the classroom, and link this back to racism and prejudice
towards Aboriginal people today.

Firstly, it is important to recognize the important facts of the frontier conflicts
that occurred many years ago. In 1788 when European migration to Australia began,
the land was legally declared as a terra nullius by the British, a term meaning a
territory belonging to no one (Attwood & Griffiths, 2009, p. 25-26). The Aboriginal
people who lived on the land, a land that had great cultural and spiritual significance
to them, had no legal right to it in the eyes of the British (Broome, 2010, p. 10.). At
that time there were an estimated 300,000 Aboriginal people in approximately 500
tribes across the land (French, 1989, p. 8) and for the most part, first contact
between Indigenous Australians and Europeans were often hospitable (Broome,
2010, p. 36). The settlers would trade with the Aboriginal people and in turn they
would act as guides throughout the land. However, as European settlement grew
larger, the demand for land and resources grew with it, leading to numerous
conflicts with the affected Aboriginal groups (Reynolds, 2006, p. 10). From a
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westerners perspective, the fighting that took place was not recognised as a
conventional war, but a series of localised conflicts that took place all over the
continent, as a full-scale war could not be orchestrated because Aboriginal groups
did not band together to resist the violence (Macintyre, 1999, p. 62). Violence
became a common and accepted way of forcing the Indigenous people off their land
(Reynolds, 1996, p. 5) and the conflicts were normalised by killings and stories of
them (Broome, 2010, p. 46). At the time Europeans held the opinion that Aboriginal
people were fierce, treacherous and savage, and were outlaws after European
goods (Broome, 2010, p. 37-39). In fact many of the men on the frontier were
convinced that the Indigenous people were the aggressors and the violence was
justified (Reynolds, 1996, p. 5). Aboriginal people however, considered these acts of
violence to be a part of one large massacre. At first, reactions from Aboriginal people
was consistent with Aboriginal law, whereby revenge was taken against those who
committed the violence in the first place. Yet the scale of attacks and conflicts
became so great that retaliation began to occur against many other white folk
(Broome, 2010, p. 42). Due to a lack of evidence, it is hard to place an exact figure on
the number of deaths, injuries and attacks that occurred as Aboriginal people told
their history through stories, not written records; and to protect their image, many
of the small scale and somewhat opportunistic attacks on Aboriginal people were
not recorded by white Europeans (Barker, 2007, p. 9). In fact, there has been little
archaeological research conducted in the field of frontier conflicts, yielding few
items of evidence to suggest the magnitude of the violence that occurred (Barker,
2007, p. 9). What Barker (2007, p. 13) suggests is that we should not view the
frontier conflicts as a massacre, as the word alone emphasises the number of people
killed and the duration of which this occurred over, eliminating the feelings of
human suffering. The ability to empathise with those affected by the frontier
conflicts is particularly important for those to effectively engage in the learning
space, and empathy begins with this knowledge.

The colonisation of Australia by European settlers had a devastating effect on
Aboriginal culture and identity, which has large ramifications for Indigenous students
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in the education system. When murder became an untenable method for acquiring
the land of Aboriginal groups, education became a mechanism for assimilation in
attempts to breed out the black (Hollinsworth, as cited in Aveling, 2012, p. 102). In
terms of segregated Indigenous education, schools were given undertrained
teachers, little resources and dilapidated buildings. The curriculum was restricted to
reading, writing, dictation, and arithmetic so they had the most basic knowledge to
operate in white society (Reynolds, 2009, p. 86). Assimilationist education saw very
few Aboriginal students complete their schooling and massive educational
inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students existed (Reynolds,
2009, p. 87-88). On top of this, traditional and cultural values of Aboriginal people
began to dissipate (Reynolds, 2009, p. 93). A reform in the education system led to
reports that found Aboriginals wanted to use the education system to help in the
retention of their Aboriginality, contradicting the goals of Indigenous education in
the past (Reynolds, 2009, p. 89). This idea has been supported by evidence that
students were found to be less engaged in school if their cultures were not
acknowledged in the classroom and that the self-concept is directly related to self-
esteem, which has a large impact on educational outcomes (Aveling, 2012, p. 99;
Bodkin-Andrews, ORourke & Craven, 2010, p. 299-300). It is important for teachers
to understand this for Indigenous students to fully engage in the learning space, and
for non-Indigenous students to acknowledge and promote the identity of Indigenous
people. The new Australian Curriculum was devised based on The Melbourne
Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians and in this declaration it
acknowledges that the previous regimes failed to improve educational outcomes
for many Indigenous Australians (MCEETYA, 2008, p. 6). One of the goals of the
declaration is to rectify this by building on local cultural knowledge and experience
of Indigenous students as a foundation for learning, working with local communities,
and eliminating the educational outcome gap between Indigenous and non-
Indigenous students (MCEETYA, 2008, p. 8). A new curriculum that values Indigenous
culture throughout the entire curriculum mirrors the idea first presented in 1975
where the aim of Aboriginal studies was to reconcile through raising Aboriginal
identity, self-eteem, and promoting the acceptance of the multicultural nature of the
Australian society (Reynolds, 2009, p. 91).
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Prejudice and racism is born through ignorance, and the most effective way
of eliminating this is through proper education. Aveling (2012, p. 100) states that in
Australia the purpose of Aboriginal studies is to educate all Australian students with
an understanding and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives
and that racism is a major factor in poor educational outcomes of Indigenous
students because it prevents them from fully entering into the school community.
Previous policies at the beginning of the 20
th
century allowed for the rejection of
Aboriginal students from schools on the demands of white parents, which ran for
decades (Reynolds, 2009, p. 86). This relegated Aboriginal students socially and
would be a catalyst for poor outcomes in Indigenous health, crime and homelessness,
leaving them wondering where their place was in white society as they struggle
against racist stereotypes. Through education these views are challenged by
supporting non-Indigenous students to empathise with those affected by the
frontier conflicts and enables Indigenous students to engage in learning in
contemporary Australia and achieve positive learning outcomes. The Melbourne
Declaration on the Educational Goals for Young Australians states that one of their
aims is for all young Australians to become active and informed citizens through
understanding and acknowledging the value of Indigenous cultures and to possess
the knowledge, skills and understanding to contribute to, and benefit from,
reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians (MCEETYA, 2008,
p. 10).

A comprehensive knowledge of the frontier conflicts for teaching the
colonisation of Australia also permeates into all other aspects of the contemporary
school curriculum today. There have been many wrongs done to Indigenous
Australians in the past, and it is important to acknowledge this today in order to
meet the goals set for the new Australian Curriculum. By acknowledging Aboriginal
culture in the classroom, all students become informed about and empathise with
those Indigenous people who were wronged, engage Indigenous students in the
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school life and increase their chances for better educational outcomes, and finally
eliminate prejudice and racism towards Aboriginal Australians that still exists today.

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References:

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French, M. (1989). A history of the Darling Downs frontier: Conflict on the Condamine.
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