1. The contribution of Indigenous content to the Australian school curriculum: the example of geography   Alaric Maude  

2. The Australian school curriculum being implemented across the country has three cross-curriculum priorities, described as ‘contemporary issues about which young Australians should learn’. They are:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures
Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia
Sustainability.
These are to be ‘represented in learning areas in ways appropriate to that area.’
The priorities have been controversial, and some argue that they detract from the teaching of basic subject knowledge.

3. The only academic analysis of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander priority by Indigenous scholars describes the inclusion of Indigenous content in the English, maths, science and history curriculums as ‘weak, often tokenistic and overwhelmingly unresponsive to historical and contemporary realities.’ (Lowe and Yunkaporta, 2013) Geography is the fifth subject to have a curriculum ̶ how well does it incorporate Indigenous content?

4. Criteria for this assessment
does the curriculum present Indigenous knowledge as contemporary or past?
is Indigenous content used to learn from or to learn about (Hart et al 2012)?
is Indigenous knowledge presented as quite different to Western knowledge (Barca and Arenas 2010)?
what is the cognitive requirement of the Indigenous content (Lowe and Yunkaporta 2013)?
does the curriculum provide opportunities to learn about the key social and political issues for Indigenous people (Lowe and Yunkaporta 2013)?

5. Several groups contributed to the Indigenous content in the curriculum:
the writing group appointed by ACARA (the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority)
the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group to ACARA
geography teachers
education bureaucracies in the states and territories
ACARA staff
The final curriculum was determined by ACARA staff, in consultation with state and territory education or curriculum bureaucracies, and combined input from all groups.

6. Indigenous content in the curriculum Foundation Year
The curriculum is written as content descriptions and elaborations.
Content description: The Countries/Places that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples belong to in the local area and why they are important to them
Elaborations:
identifying and using the name of the local Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander Language Group
identifying how and why the words Country/Place are used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples for the places to which they belong

7. In Foundation Year children learn about the place they live in, what it is like, and why it is important to them. Consequently the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group wanted Indigenous children to see the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander identity of this place recognised in the curriculum. However, what this content description also does is to plant the idea that a place can have more than one identity, and that these identities are equally valid. In Year 3 students will learn that places are parts of the Earth’s surface that have been given meaning by people ̶ that places are human constructs.

8. Year 1
The weather and seasons of places and the ways in which different cultural groups, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, describe them
comparing the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People’s seasonal calendar for the local area with one students are familiar with, such as the four-seasons calendar derived from Europe

9. Teachers could help students to understand that:
British Australians brought with them a calendar of four equal seasons from a small country with a different climate to Australia, and applied it to the whole of the continent. This calendar doesn’t work in northern Australia, and is not particularly appropriate for most of southern Australia.
Aboriginal seasonal calendars are different in each place, the seasons are not equal in length, and do not have fixed starting and ending times.  They are also more about the growth of plants, the behaviour of animals and sources of food and water than about the weather.

10. What this content description teaches is that:
while weather can be described objectively, the seasons are a human construct
there can be more than one way to perceive and classify geographical phenomena

11. Year 3
The many Countries/Places of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples throughout Australia
using language maps to show how Australia was (and still is) divided into many Aboriginal Countries and Torres Strait Islander Places
Students should learn from this that:
there are many different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
they had occupied and settled the whole of the country long ago
every part of Australia is still an Aboriginal Country or Torres Strait Islander Place

12. Year 4
The custodial responsibility Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have for Country/Place, and how this influences their past and present views about the use of resources
In this content description students should learn:
about the concept of custodial responsibility. Teachers might also explore the differences between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous Australian views on the relationship between humans and the environment.  
more about the meaning of Country and Place, and a way of thinking about people’s relationships with places.

13. They could also investigate the methods Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples use to ensure that food production is sustainable, which will teach them something of the sophistication of these methods and counter the characterisation of Aboriginal Peoples as nomadic hunter/gatherers.

14. Year 7
The economic, cultural, spiritual and aesthetic value of water for people, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and peoples of the Asia region
exploring the multilayered meanings (material, cultural and spiritual wellbeing) associated with rivers, waterholes, seas, lakes, soaks and springs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
This content description and its elaboration teaches students that water is not just something that we use for cleaning and growing things, but also has aesthetic and spiritual value. By understanding how Aboriginal peoples perceive water they may look deeper into how non-Indigenous people in Australia may also value water for more than its practical uses.

15. Year 10 Environmental change and management
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ approaches to custodial responsibility and environmental management in different regions of Australia
researching the role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in environmental management
explaining Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander models of sustainability that contribute to broader conservation practices

16. Geographies of human wellbeing
The different ways of measuring and mapping human wellbeing and development, and how these can be applied to measure differences between places
examining and comparing different concepts of human wellbeing, including those held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

17. Educational outcomes
Indigenous students should find a recognition in the curriculum of the value of the knowledge and cultures of their communities. There are also many opportunities for their teachers to use the elaborations and their own ideas to teach the content descriptions through Indigenous material.

18. Non-Indigenous students will learn:
some important Indigenous concepts, like Country and custodial responsibility
that every part of Australia is an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Country or Place
that Aboriginal communities created much of the Australian environment
other ways of relating to places and other ways of perceiving, relating to and using the environment, presented as equally valid to Western ways
that Aboriginal environmental knowledge and methods of land management are valued and being applied today

19. Indigenous content will also enrich their understanding of geography’s key concepts of place, environment, interconnection and sustainability. This enhances the learning of geography; it doesn’t detract from it.

20. Assessment
Does the curriculum present Indigenous knowledge as contemporary or past? (contemporary) Is Indigenous content used to learn from or to learn about? (to learn from) Is Indigenous knowledge presented as quite different to Western knowledge? (no) What is the cognitive requirement of the Indigenous content? (low, but …) Does the curriculum adequately cover the key social and political issues for Indigenous people? (probably not, and much will depend on whether teachers are willing and able to explore the issues of social justice that are latent in the content)

21. But much will depend on teachers
But much will depend on teachers. To achieve these outcomes they will need to collaborate with local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and have a good knowledge of both geography and Indigenous culture. Several studies have shown that this knowledge base is deficient. They will also need to allocate enough time to the teaching of geography.