Forty Years on: Seeking a Way for the Future—Dhawal’yurr Yuwalkku Dhukarr. Reflections on Bilingual Education at Shepherdson College, Galiwin’ku

Abstract

This chapter is a personal perspective on the exciting beginnings of bilingual education at Shepherdson College. Noela Hall taught at Shepherdson College for 11 years between 1972 and 1985, and returned to teach there again from 2008 to 2015. In this chapter she recalls the enthusiasm of 1970s and early 1980s. As a school staff, both Yolŋu (Indigenous) and Balanda (non-Indigenous) teachers were committed to working together for something that was not only educationally sensible and sound, but also just and right—that every child should have the opportunity to learn in their own language. This meant not only the development of a new curriculum for the students, but a complete change of dynamics in the way Yolŋu and Balanda school staff learned to work together to deliver the school program that the community desired. The optimism associated with the early years of the programs is compared with the situation today, 40 years on, where under current education policy, one only occasionally glimpses the vision and potential, which were the strong motivating inspirations of those early years.