I have spent this year continuing the project that I started working on at the end of 2008. The name of the project is the 'Indigenous Teacher Upgrade Program' which has meant that my focus has changed from teaching children to working with indigenous teachers in remote schools around Central Australia, helping them upgrade their teaching qualifications. This has meant doing alot of travel which has meant that I have seen some pretty amazing country and experienced some great things along the way. All the travel has been very tiring though. I cant even imagine the number of kms I must have driven during the year. The work itself with the indigenous teachers was also great and I enjoyed that aspect of my job very much. Sadly I feel as though the Dept for which I work has lost it's way and is making very bad policy decisions. I am not sure how much longer I will continue to work for them. I will continue to work on this project until it's conclusion at the end of 2010, but then the path ahead is a little unknown, which is a little scary but also quite liberating.
In November I took a group of the teachers i work with down to Hobart to the National Indigenous Education conference. They presented some of the research they have been doing as part of their study and it was inspiring to hear them talk and also see how well they were received. It has not been an easy time to be indigenous in the with the continuing NT intervention and policy decisions being made that undermine indigenous language and culture. I admire these women and their resilience, but wonder how many more times they can have the rug pulled out from underneath them.
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