A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Chapter 3

Strangers in Their Own Country: Teachers in the Northern Territory of Australia

Teacher induction programs in the Northern Territory (NT) are designed to increase teacher retention by acculturating and orienting new teachers (both inexperienced and experienced, but new to the Northern Territory). They address how to live in the NT and in remote, often isolated communities, how to teach Aboriginal students and how to work with Aboriginal communities. Many teachers in urban areas, as well as teachers in rural communities, are engaged in multicultural education and living, where the language spoken and community mores and values usually differ from their own. The programs designed to assist teachers are an outgrowth of the Territory's geographic, demographic, and cultural characteristics.

The Setting

The Northern Territory includes one-sixth of the Australian continent but less than 1 percent of Australia's population. The Territory has a population of 170,000; it has two cities, Darwin with 78,000 people and Alice Springs with 25,000, a few small "urban" towns, and many scattered, remote settlements. The large percentage of people concentrated in a few places is consistent with the rest of Australia, where the population centers hug the coastline and are dominated by five large urban centers. Australia has one of the lowest population densities in the world, and the population density in the Northern Territory is only one person per 8.3 square kilometers.

The Northern Territory's population is diverse and multicultural. Almost 18 percent of the population was born outside Australia. Another 23 percent are Aborigines or Torres Strait Islanders, compared to 1.5 percent for Australia as a whole. Many non-Aborigines were born in other parts of Australia, attracted by jobs and the sense of adventure, although the rate of interstate migration has slowed in recent years. The population is younger than that of the rest of Australia. The student population is 35 percent Aboriginal, and almost 100 percent Aboriginal outside Darwin, Alice Springs, and a few mining centers. Twenty-five percent of the population speak a language other than English as their first language; 61 percent of these speak an Aboriginal language.

Large sections of the Northern Territory are designated as Aboriginal tribal lands. In these areas, Aboriginal councils are responsible for community policies and administration. Much of this land is off-limits to non-Aborigines without permits issued by the council. Since the mid-1970s, many communities have seen a renaissance of traditional Aboriginal lifestyles. With the exception of teachers and health workers, few non-Aborigines live in these communities.

Education in the Northern Territory

In the population centers one typically finds primary schools, junior secondary schools (grades 7-10), and senior secondary schools (grades 11-12). Most schools in the Northern Territory, however, are remote primary schools, many with only one or two teachers.

To respond to the huge distances separating schools in the Territory (for example, Darwin and Alice Springs are almost 1,500 kilometers apart), education administration is decentralized into North and South divisions, with each division having several regions. In 1995, Operations North served 31,500 students in 110 schools; Operations South served 9,600 students (with 2,000 students in non-government schools). There are 59 government schools in the Division. Of these, 74 percent are in rural and remote areas; these schools serve 41 percent of Operation South's students. To serve these students, NT employs about 2,100 teachers (5 percent of whom are Aboriginal) and 375 teacher assistants and teacher trainees (74 percent Aboriginal).

Beginning in 1993, responsibility for teacher recruitment passed to the divisions. Until then, most recruiting duties were handled centrally from the Territory's Department of Education, located in Darwin. Policies and guidelines for teacher induction are made at the departmental level and designed and implemented by the divisions and regions. The two operating divisions take different approaches for urban and rural areas, reflecting different patterns of student and teacher retention and mobility, availability of support programs and specialists, student composition, and isolation.

The teaching force is primarily recruited from other states in Australia. While the Northern Territory University (NTU) now provides some new teachers, its output is insufficient to meet the need for teachers in rural communities. The Northern Territory, in contrast to the rest of Australia, has a long history of interstate recruiting. This need to recruit teachers unfamiliar with living in the Territory and its curriculum (which are state and Territory adopted) led to the initial development of a teacher induction program in 1972 and expansion in 1985. In contrast, the Australia Department of Employment and Education (DEET) reports that teacher induction programs in the rest of Australia are less well developed than those in the Northern Territory because the other states train 95 percent of new teachers in training institutions within the same state. Other states now are beginning to develop more robust teacher induction programs incorporating many of the features currently being used in the Northern Territory.

In addition to recruiting staff from other states and NTU graduates, the Territory operates Batchelor College, which trains Aborigines as primary school teachers.

Currently, Batchelor prepares about 25 fully qualified teachers from the four-year training course. This course--which is equal to a three year-Diploma of Teaching--qualifies the graduates to teach anywhere in the Territory and, technically, anywhere in Australia where the three-year diploma is accepted. The College also offers a three-year course; the graduates are employed as assistant teachers in rural and remote schools. Thirteen assistant teachers were recruited in 1996, and 92 assistant teachers are employed in schools throughout Operations South. The philosophy of the college is to infuse all programs with a community-development orientation where Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal culture, attributes, values, and aspirations are given equal status. Even with Batchelor College, most teachers in the Territory, including schools in Aboriginal communities, are non-Aboriginal and trained outside the Northern Territory.

In the 1970s the average length of teaching service in rural schools in the most isolated areas was as low as nine months. Retention of teachers has improved markedly in recent years (as recruitment has improved, induction and support programs expanded, and the demand for teachers dropped significantly in other states); however, it remains low in rural areas. The proportion of bushies who are new teachers varies each year. In 1995, of the teachers new to the NT or teaching, 83 percent were assigned to rural and remote areas. In that same year, 43 percent of the recruits were new teachers. In 1996, 39 percent of recruits were new teachers and, of the total recruits, 69 percent went to rural and remote areas. In addition, teacher mobility is very high among rural schools and from rural to urban schools. Few teachers in rural communities spend more than three years at a school. Retention is higher and mobility less in Darwin and Alice Springs.

First-year teacher assignments in the NT are similar to those of more experienced teachers. The sole exception is the desire of administrators, usually successfully implemented, not to assign inexperienced teachers to one-teacher schools in their first year. For first-year teachers, responsibilities such as teaching loads, participation in curriculum and planning committees, and attendance at staff meetings, are comparable to those of other teachers. In larger urban schools, where team teaching is feasible and more common, first-year teachers may be assigned classes at the beginning of the term that are anticipated to have fewer discipline problems. By the second or third term, even these differences vanish.

AS YOU COME TO THE END OF YOUR FIRST YEAR, WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST FEW WEEKS LIKE? "Like someone changed the TV while I was out of the room. I often didn't know what movie I was watching." "The teaching load was enormous. I got good support from school, and the other teachers were helpful." "It was like jumping in at the deep end. It is a very steep learning curve moving from the university to the real world." "I was nervous; would I be up to the challenge?" "Daunting. A lot of work. It took a while to figure out where to get stuff; you ask a lot of dumb questions at first." "Nothing prepared me for these children. The first week I wanted to take a blunt knife to my wrists. The next months were hectic. Very slowly my life and my relationship with the children is falling into place." HOW DID YOUR EXPERIENCE AND EXPECTATIONS CHANGE OVER THE YEAR? "I became more realistic. Now I see small steps and a little progress with my students as exciting big steps." "I'm no longer a perfectionist. I've become more flexible. I've learned to, and am now willing to, organise around the students instead of expecting the students to behave the way I expect." "I don't think anything can prepare you for being in charge and responsible for a class day after day. I learnt more the first few months than I did at university and in practicums combined." "I think the biggest lesson I learned was that it's the job you do in the classroom that counts. I had to reduce the time I spent outside planning and worrying. I was exhausted all the time. I didn't have a life outside school. I've come to accept that I can't do it all."

Challenges for Teachers

Teachers also are less valued by the community in general. It was reported that throughout Australia, including the NT, the status of teachers has declined noticeably in recent years. New applicants to teacher training institutions have lower admission scores, and teaching is often not a new teacher's first choice for a career. Teacher morale has declined, in some instances pay has lagged behind other professions, and urban jobs are scarce. Teachers are increasingly seen as employees and less seen as professionals.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN OUTSTATION TEACHER Karen lives in Sedgwick Downs and teaches at a remote settlement 45 minutes away. Karen's day begins at 7:15 when she arrives at the Sedgwick Downs Primary School to pick up materials and make copies. She then loads the land cruiser for the drive to Gulibi. When she arrives at about 8:30 the children start arriving. The first hour Karen helps the children with personal hygiene--nose blowing to clear ears, tooth brushing, etc. Assisted by Dedi, her Aboriginal assistant teacher, the next two hours she teaches 17 children, ages 3 to 11, oral English, stories, and chanting. Dedi takes the smaller children for reading, while Karen provides the bigger children reading, writing, and phonetics. At 11:30 they break for lunch. Karen brings the food that she has brought with her from Sedgwick Downs to the mothers to prepare. This is part of a community nutritional program. The children begin returning in 15 minutes, so Karen doesn't get a lunch break for herself. Until 12:30 she involves them in games. Classes resume at 12:30 with silent reading, one-on-one instruction, a break for fruit, and a math lesson. School finishes between 2:30 and 3:00. On her way home each day, Karen must stop at the grocery store in Sedgwick Downs to pick up food for tomorrow's lunch. Arriving home between 4:30 and 5:00, Karen chats with Amy, a teacher in Sedgwick Downs with whom Karen shares a house. They chat about the day and how their program is working. She then reads or watches TV or takes a nap. Then she prepares dinner, eats, reviews plans for tomorrow, and is in bed, exhausted, between 8:30 and 9:00. Tomorrow is another long day. Since Karen travels to Gulibi only from Monday through Thursday (an assistant teacher is in charge on Friday), she is able to do lesson plans and review curriculum materials at Sedgwick Downs Primary School every Friday.

In addition, teachers in the Territory often are isolated from their natural support group--family and friends. Most have moved several thousand kilometers from their homes to cities and rural communities where initially they know no one. They enter schools where the students are different from those whom they have interacted with in their school lives and student teacher practicums. For the first time, many are faced with the complexities of a multicultural society. While most come from large, urban multicultural settings, these cities often break down and exist as a set of cultures living side by side. In the Northern Territory, one sees this parallelism in Darwin and Alice Springs, and a few other places; but in most schools multiculturalism is the norm. The new teacher is also faced with a new curriculum. In Australia, the teacher training institutions base their curriculum around the state's curriculum. Therefore, students are exposed extensively during training only to that state's curriculum.

Because of the smallness of many schools in the NT, teachers have assignments requiring multiple preparations. With a large number of Aboriginal children, teachers face language barriers. They have difficulty setting realistic expectations for low-performing students and schools. They have inadequate and often inappropriate classroom-management skills that result in disruptive students and other disciplinary problems. And, they have limited preparation in dealing with cultural diversity.

"In recruiting, I look for flexibility, maturity, realistic expectations about Aboriginal communities (although these always exceed reality). I try to match people and schools based on community support, isolation, sense of support needed, size of school, experience level, and gender. I speak to the superintendent and principal; then I speak to the applicant and I have the applicant speak to the headteacher. Then, I make an offer. This process paves the way for effective school-level support. I'm able to do this now for about two-thirds of the new teachers." Central Office Staff Member

Teachers working in rural schools encounter additional challenges. They must learn and live by the mores of the community. Each Aboriginal community has distinct roles, responsibilities, and behaviors that children, women, and men follow. Most communities speak their own languages. One principal describes a recent incident: "A new teacher who arrived after orientation was chased by an Aboriginal mother with a stick after the teacher said to her child, 'You look like your mother.' While the teacher meant it as a compliment, in this community, this was an insult. You only say, "You look like your father." The principal worked with the community and teacher to resolve the incident.

In Aboriginal communities, new teachers teach in either an ESL or bilingual program. Few new teachers have received very much ESL training, and those that have typically have dealt with providing ESL to new immigrants to Australia from central Europe and Asia. To assist the new teacher, particularly to provide bilingual education, Aboriginal classrooms have Aboriginal assistant teachers. New teachers also have to learn to interact and effectively use an assistant teacher, who is often untrained, reserved, and wary about committing to the new teacher.

The Aboriginal students provide challenges to teaching. Aborigines were traditionally a nomadic people. Although Aborigines are settled in communities, going to class every day at the same time and staying in class all day has to be established "as the norm" by the new teacher. It can be a particularly difficult problem with teenage boys. As one teacher noted: "These children must be brought from the dust to desk." Aboriginal students, because of inadequate health care, also have an exceptionally high incidence of hearing problems. As many as 50 percent of all Aboriginal students suffer from an educationally significant hearing loss at some stage during their school life. All new teachers are instructed in "nose-blowing," which is performed every morning to clear ear passages; schools also have audiology equipment for the new teacher to use in assisting the students. In sum, these new teachers were trained as primary school teachers yet must also be able to implement some of the approaches used by ESL and special education teachers in more urban schools.

Rural teachers are provided with housing, either free or at reduced cost, depending on the degree of remoteness. In some communities teachers must share houses. In some communities very good housing is available; in others, relatively poor accommodations are all that are available. Regardless of the condition of the house, Aboriginal communities are difficult places for non-Aborigines to live: with the exception of television, which is always available, the communities are isolated and the teachers will almost always be apart as non-Aborigines.

Aboriginal teachers in Aboriginal communities face their own challenges. First, Aboriginal teachers must adapt to accepting assistance and assessment from a single source, usually a non-Aboriginal staff member. This is sometimes difficult because in Aboriginal culture, there is little overlap of these two roles--individuals are either acceptable or unacceptable. Second, Aboriginal teachers must find ways to achieve objectives (such as discipline) within community constraints. Primarily females, Aboriginal teachers live in a male-dominant culture and are often less mobile and more bound to their communities.

The Aborigines' contact with formal education began relatively recently. In many communities, Aborigines went to schools that were run by missionaries. To ensure attendance, many missions did not give the Aborigines food if their children did not attend school. With the decline of mission schools and increased self-determination, Aborigines have not, until very recently, given priority to education. In some instances education continues to be given low priority. Their primary concerns have been maintaining and reintroducing traditional Aboriginal practices and local decision making. To many, schooling was not relevant. The legacy of this period remains. Teachers are challenged by high truancy rates, limited use of English, massive dropout of males at the secondary level, alcoholism, and petrol sniffing. Today, support for schooling is slowly improving. The Federal government supports programs to involve Aboriginal parents. Aborigines and non-Aborigines are also working to build bridges between the communities.

To meet these challenges, the Department of Education provides a multifaceted teacher induction program for all teachers new to the Northern Territory.
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[Chapter 2 (part 3 of 3)]

[Chapter 3 (part 2 of 5)]