- Education
Alhekulyele – Dog Rock Curriculum
Learning-with Akngwelye Thirrewe – Protector Dog
Connecting to Arrernte Country
Western Arrarnta elder, Baden Williams shares the Akngwelye Thirrewe – Protector Dog story as part of a middle years ‘Learning-with Country’ program developed in partnership with the Institute of Aboriginal Development (IAD), Museum of Central Australia, Arrernte Rangers, and Red Hot Arts.
Stories inspired by this program were shared at the 2017 NT Writers’ Festival titled, Crossings | Iwerre-Atherre
This was one of several visits to significant cultural, historical, and geographical sites around Mparntwe, involving cultural elders, historians, artists, Arrernte rangers, and a geologist.
your support and care of the Arrernte students in your class is evident in the way you interact with them on high expectation projects that make a difference to their lives
Gudjela staff, Denise Kennedy, Geraden Willliams-Kennedy, and Georgia, 2024
Artwork – Akngwelye Thirrewe – Dog Rock, Wendy Cowan, 2018
Akngwelye – Wild Dog Story
Akngwelye – the Wild Dog story can be seen from all aspects of the school building, the ground on which the school stands.
Akngwelye – in no uncertain terms the Wild Dog stipulates that the exclusion of their presence from the school curriculum correlates with school attendance and academic rates.
As Akarra Elder, professor, artist, author, linguist, teacher, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother Margaret Kemarre (M.K) Turner, OAM says:
“The land, the people, the story – that’s our governance.”
Feminist scholar Donna Haraway emphasises:
“It matters what stories tell stories; it matters whose stories tell stories.”
Sources
- Donna Haraway (2019). It Matters What Stories Tell Stories; It Matters Whose Stories Tell Stories, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 34:3, 565-575.
- Childrens Ground. (2023). The M.K. Turner Report: A Plan for First Nations-Led and Designed Education Reform in Australia
Artwork – Alhekulyele, Place-Learning, Wendy Cowan, 2022
Akngwelye – The Wild Dog Story as told by Apmereke-artweye – custodian Doris Stuart Kngwarreye
On a cultural tour Apmereke-artweye – custodian Doris Stuart Kngwarreye shares the Ayeye Atngwelye Mparntwe arenye – the Wild Dog Story of Alice Springs – Mparntwe.
Doris explains that she grew up on her father’s Country where the Akngwelye – Wild Dog is a major story.
The Akngwelye – Wild Dog story is embodied in the ridges that circle Mparntwe – Alice Springs.
Doris Stuart Kngwarreye Wild Dog story highlights the profound relationship between Arrernte people and Arrernte Country.
Sources
- Finance, Kieran. (2016). NAIDOC celebrates the Wild Dog Story of Alice Springs. Alice Springs News
- Brooks, David. (2007). A Town Like Mparntwe: A Guide to the Dreaming Rocks and Sites of Alice Springs. IAD Press.
- Turner, M.K., Barry McDonald Perrurle, and Veronica Perrurle Dobson. (2007). Iwenhe tyerrtye: what it means to be an Aboriginal person. National Library of Australia.
Art – Apmereke-artweye, Doris Stuart Kngwarreye shares her Ayeye Akngwelye Mparntwe-arenge – Wild Dog Story of Mparntwe story, Wendy Cowan, 2018
Rethinking Indigenous Education: Learning-with Arrernte Country
What happens when Alhekulyele – Wild Dog and custodians work in reciprocal relationality with schooling in central Australia?
What happens when relationality with Arrernte Country interrupts the production of deficit reports in Indigenous education?
What occurs when attention is paid to in/animate relationality, rather than something to be ticked off a curriculum scope and sequence as ‘done’ but never achieved?
These crucial questions challenge me to rethink the theories and strategies that keep education in Central Australia stuck in deficit repetitive patterns.
As a artist-teacher working on Akngwelye – Wild Dog Country, Akngwelye persistently nudges me to listen to and include its story in what and how I teach.
When attending collaborative curriculum planning meetings I am cautious about directly raising Alhekulyele’s promptings to be included in the school curriculum. In these time-poor and efficiency-focused meetings, it is easy to be silenced with a “let’s keep on track” statement followed by a harried glance at the clock. As I look around the table, I observe which colleagues have bought the rhetoric of ‘efficiency’ voiced through – ‘everyone on the same page’ and those whose faces and postures show levels of concern.
Traditionally, collaborative planning meetings are a means to sort curriculum topics and to identify those who orientate themselves as ‘stakeholders’, the ‘gatekeepers’, and ‘experts’ of knowledge in education. In other words, these meetings perpetuate late liberal governance models where not questioning established narratives is rewarded or, at the very least, not punished by exclusion.
In my experience, Alhekulyele makes itself known to teachers depending on how and whether they differentiate Life and Non-Life, how and whether they understand curriculum, pedagogy, and ethical responsibilities as working in relationality-with and of Arrernte Country.
Alhekulyele’s persistent nudging matters to the skin of the school. To be included in the educative matter/s of Country. Exclusion shows knowledge and cultural biases, reflecting taken-for-granted definitions of those that hold important knowledges. This raises the question: what knowledge is included, for whom, and why?
At the end of 2018, the ‘Learning-with Country’ program I devised with Elders was dismissed from the school despite its success in student engagement and improved academic results through writing complex multi-modal texts. Stick Mob Studio was formed from this exclusion.