Helping them learn

Education advocate and former NAIDOC Female Elder of the Year, Ali Golding, NSW. Photo: Alex Wisser.

Many parents and grandparents see education as the key to children’s futures.

“Just love your babies. Make a comfortable space for them, have books and pencils everywhere. Play low music, the sticks or didge – have cultural things all around. Give them good food, be there as much as possible, keep them safe and support them.”

That’s Ali Golding’s advice to parents wanting to help their young children at school.

A respected Biripi elder from northern New South Wales, at 70 Auntie Ali is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. In the 1980s she was a pioneering Aboriginal education assistant and is an Elder in Residence at the University of New South Wales, and has helped generations of youngsters.

As a young girl in the 1950s, Auntie Ali says discrimination and racism meant she left school early but she held onto her father’s belief in the value of education. Years later, helping at her children’s school, she taught herself to read and write. She says, “Soon, I couldn’t leave books alone.” She eventually gained a theology diploma from Darwin’s Nungalinya College.

This year’s NAIDOC Scholar of the Year, Lester-Irabinna Rigney, is as passionate as Auntie Ali about the importance of Indigenous children attending school and getting educated.

Rigney believes parents have a very strong role to play in determining their children’s futures and advises they should immerse their kids in a variety of reading and writing activities to help them learn.

“Parents should have high expectations of their children and there are many simple ways they can help them,” he says.

“They should role model the things they want their children to do. They can work with them on their homework, have books surrounding the inside of the house and make sure they are reading all different types of materials, newspapers, cartoons, books, a CD Rom or a website.”

A Nurungga man from Point Pearce in South Australia, Rigney is now dean of Aboriginal Education and director of the Wilto Yerlo Centre at the University of Adelaide.

Both Auntie Ali and Rigney believe good nutrition helps children make the most of school. “Never underestimate the importance of a healthy lunchbox,” Rigney says.