In its most general sense, education is an essential aspect of democracy and democracy an essential aspect of education. Public education that is avail able for all citizens enables personal satisfaction with learning across all major areas of knowledge and establishes pathways for continuing study and links to the economy. It needs to serve the interests of all groups in society. Like theory and practice, there is a unity or dialectical relationship between education and democratic process. An education system that is not truly democratic is not truly educational and the learning deficient. In an undemocratic system of education, critique of history, ideology and of political economy is denied rather than encouraged. The quest for democratic approaches to education becomes more urgent under the impact of globalisation whether the economy is primarily for public or private benefit, a quest that has never been completely fulfilled during the modern era. This may have prompted Dewey (McDermott, 1981, pp. 452–453) to claim that ‘education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform’ and that ‘education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.’ Such a sweeping historical overview of schooling draws a clear line of demarcation with those who have a very limited aspiration for the majority of ordinary people in every country.

The characteristics of an essentially public education system are generally seen to contain:

  • learning for the public interest and culture;

  • philosophical approach to learning beginning with practice that is applied rather than abstract and with cycles of reflection on experience that transforms perceptual knowledge into conceptual understanding;

  • epistemological unity of practice and theorising, of knowing and doing, of learning and labour and a process of personal connection with the products of labour and intellectual production;

  • knowledge that is collective and in the interests of the community related to nature, society, work;

  • inclusive and integrated curriculum combining learning with productive labour;

  • state funded and supported, secular and open to all without fees.

In contrast, education systems that are essentially private are characterised by:

  • learning based on individualism and private interest;

  • transmission of predetermined knowledge, culture and values;

  • separation of theory and practice, of labour and learning and a process of personal estrangement from intellectual production;

  • knowledge that is differentiated in organisation between abstract and vocational and not subject to critical critique;

  • state and private funded, religious and non-religious, exclusive and public and fee-paying.

1 Education and the Economy

When analysing and evaluating the purpose and quality of formal systems of education, the key relationship for the country and citizenry to consider is that between education, training, the economy and production. The key contributing question is whether or not education can be truly democratic under either public or private economic systems. Knight (2002) has submitted that globalisation within Australia has caused a ‘business metaphor’ to be adopted for schools and schooling involving the notions of ‘intrusive, market entrepreneurial, corporatist and managerial’ to improve student performance. This ideology descends on all schools enlisting a competitive rather than cooperative ethos.

The exact connection between education and the economy is somewhat tenuous. The assumption is that economies are planned and implemented according to plan. That is, the basis and motive force of economic development is research, knowledge and logical decision-making. In an idealised sense, this is true, broad decisions are made by people based on their best understandings of particular issues at the time. Such directional decisions are however primarily political rather than logical. Whether to send the gun boats or cheque books to colonise a faraway land may involve factual information, but its interpretation will depend on a biased world view. To cross borders with aggressive intent to expand markets or to control land and minds is not an educational matter. Similarly, when a multinational company closes an industrial plant in one country and opens in another, or when shares change hands on the stock market. Educational advice will be available in each case, but the final decision will be made on the desire for profit and influence, rather than what is perceived as the collective good. Only seeking truth from facts may be hopelessly unrealistic when economic expansion and contraction are involved. It is difficult to discern a clear starting point for such procedures and to separate the educational from the political, what comes first. Whether or not economic and political decisions will ever be subsumed by the purely educational is a moot point in the real, particularly globalised, world. The essential difference may be whether decision-making is recognised as being chaotic on whatever basis the participants see as being appropriate, doing whatever is necessary, or whether decision-making should trend towards being more ordered and planned in the public interest. Markets of course do operate within a framework of government regulation and procedure.

Vocational training is another matter and needs to be considered separately to general education. The notion of the skilled and advanced worker has a long and colourful history in public thought, not only in terms of increasing production, but in terms of the population interacting with the environment and learning from it, a key component of a civilised humanity. Manufacturing, building and construction industries, for example, are very much concerned with an understanding of materials from the natural world. Once the political and ideological decisions have been made, to develop an assembly line operation in a third world country, or to manufacture the next version of silicon chip, it is necessary to obtain a workforce capable of undertaking the mandated tasks. This may involve a certain level of literacy and numeracy, some understanding of sophisticated computer-based equipment, the significance of environmental concerns and matters of occupational health and safety. Training programmes have a direct connection with production issues of this type. From the point of view of the work force, it is also necessary to be immersed in the design, manufacturing and quality control processes and the political issues that form the backdrop to their working lives such as legislation on the disposal of waste, regulations that apply to wage negotiations, globalised cost structures and interest rates pertaining to commodities and production efficiencies. As above, the cycle of events here is difficult to break to identify a starting point and distinguish between education, training and production. Like employers, decisions made by employees on this range of questions, will primarily be political rather than educational in nature, resting on an overall perspective and world view. Subsequent training programmes will however be shown as having a direct relationship with the economy of the enterprise and of the country.

If societies in the modern era are still constituted on an economic base/ superstructure model, where the economy is ideologically dominant, what are the realistic prospects for democratic education under either political system? A non-idealised view of democracy has been developed above, a view that sees democratic process not in terms of a bourgeois and mythical, self-indulgent free will, where thinking and action proceeds in a neutral, socio-political vacuum, but rather where practice and theory come together in a united praxis, precisely to interact with and change social conditions for the betterment of all. A real democracy is located within not without an economic framework, to improve the life of wage earners and certainly does not exist in a lifeworld insulated from the pernicious impact of the economy; the relations of production intertwine with and are shaped by the forces of production. Political democracy and an educational democracy can be struggled for under any economic system, taking into account the political and cultural circumstances that exist. At the very least, a socially useful and working resolution of the tension between public and private, reason and desire, between religion and science and between self and society, can be achieved. This does assume a historic progression from barbarism, feudalism, through capitalism to a post-capitalism or socialism with each being of a higher order to that preceding. Different forms of education can apply to each and can form their own linearity of social progression.

2 Conservative Education

There is a substantial question as to why European or western education has developed the way that it has over the centuries. Based on the above discussion, the historical development of formal education and the underpinning philosophy of education need to be linked to the economy and the major ideas that have dominated accordingly. Bowles and Gintis (1976) in their early work have analysed this trend in some detail. A society that is founded on slavery, for example, would not be expected to have a democratic education system. A society where women and slaves are not recognised would not have inclusive schooling arrangements. A view that knowledge is pre-existent in the mind and that only some are capable of creative thought will lead to an educational elite. During the modern era where Enlightenment principles have been inspirational, the conflict between science and religion must also be taken into account. Again, it is hard to envisage education systems that promote a dogmatic science or religion as being essentially democratic. It does not necessarily follow that a religious society or church state should promote its religious views through its schools or other public institutions, but rather see the family as a more appropriate venue; the separation of church and state should be clear. Why religious views held sway in many countries for centuries, indeed still hold sway in many countries today, is difficult to discern. Although Auguste Comte (Martineau, 2000) thought otherwise, there does not appear to be any logical reason why humans need to pass through such a long historical period of this type, except of course, if the nature of the economic system and its resultant struggles for power and wealth, determine that this be so. If the historical process from barbarism to socialism is necessary and inevitable, then approaches to knowledge and learning will follow a similar path.

For some reason, the thought of Plato (Bowen and Hobson, 1986) is still very influential in western education, directly and indirectly. This may be because his views remain very accurate in relation to the nature of humanity or because their conservative essence connects strongly with a private and market economy. Plato discussed the idea of ‘pure forms’ of knowledge as distinct from our understanding of everyday appearances and phenomena, that intellectual knowledge is the highest pursuit of humanity and the view that only a few citizens will ever attain such knowledge and insight. This is a socially conservative position which if followed, must produce an elitist system of education. The place and concept of mathematics today especially as it is treated in schools also stems from this view and period. The practice of rhetoric in Greek society was replaced with a quest for more ultimate truth, particularly one in accord with the physical world of changing seasons, the passage of the stars across the skies, cycles of birth, life and death in the animal and human experience in a timeless, universal way. These views were consolidated by amongst others Pythagoras (Riedweg, 2005) into a system of mathematics and symbols as the pure form of knowing, where humans go beyond mere appearance.

The dominant place that mathematics and to a lesser extent science has in modern educational thinking, can be seen as quite remarkable, depending on whether or not the views of Plato and Pythagoras are reasonable. Modern science has a much shorter history and its battle with the humanities for inclusion in the school curriculum has only been finalised quite recently, since World War II. On the other hand, mathematics or more particularly school mathematics seems to have a rigid grip on the collective educational mind and is handled very conservatively in schools. Even in the advanced economies, school mathematics is still historically recent and is not taken by most students continuously through to completion of the secondary level. It is still seen as a usually disconnected collection of symbolic rules that are abstracted from personal experience and of which, many students find it difficult to make sense. More integrated, practical and applied approaches to teaching and learning that find solace across all other curriculum areas are not seen to be entirely relevant for mathematics. Plato would presumably have an obvious explanation here arguing that mathematics is the purest form of understanding available to a few only and its principles and techniques are different to other areas of knowledge. School mathematics will be discussed in more detail later (see Chapter 13), but the implications for current schools include a policy matter as to whether mathematics should be a curriculum area for all students and if so, a practical matter as to how it should be treated. A counter view would involve all knowledge being seen as human constructs without a normalising truth being allocated to one area and therefore, the same principles and procedures applying across all arrangements. The latter view clearly does not hold in the OECD countries for example, so a working hypothesis that connects epistemology and a paradigm of economy comes into play. As with the question of democracy generally, prospects for breaking with the dominant economy and having a more integrated approach to mathematical learning for all students are of central concern to a more open and progressive view.

3 Progressive Education

The publication of Emile in 1762 by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Bowen and Hobson, 1986) was strangely enough the first systematic challenge to Plato’s thinking on education and knowledge for many centuries. Karl Marx (2008, p. 1) suggested that ‘The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain on the living’, but exactly how this continues to be applied to Plato and classrooms around the world is a little difficult to appreciate. In this work, Rousseau proposes that the focus of education should shift from the ‘what’ or content of knowledge to ‘who’ is taught, that is the child. This seems to be an obvious step to take, but is clearly still difficult to contemplate for the contemporary school let alone implement with integrity in many countries. Contrary to the notion of original sin, the child is intrinsically good and is able to develop personal understandings from within rather than have laws externally imposed. Education falls into the category of attempting to pattern the child to a given mould and therefore detracts from the growth of individual development. According to Rousseau, the child should be as free from ‘outside interference’ as possible so that by the years 12–15 there is a strong curiosity about the natural world. Between the ages of 15 and 20, the student is ready to embark upon a range of social and intellectual activities not unlike the modern curriculum. It is easy to see why Rousseau’s views were very radical for the times and a serious challenge to the grip of religious dogma. They are certainly democratic in that they locate the impetus for learning with the child, every child regardless of background, rather than the church, adult or state and they attack prejudice by theorising that all children come to their own understanding of ideas through their own experience. Such a concept of an active, knowledgeable humanity and of a child-centred learning, has been drawn upon extensively by many thinkers over the ensuing 250 years.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the locomotive of modernity including industrial development and modern science were having a huge impact on social directions. Millions of people around the world were becoming more determined to do their own thinking and to throw off the yoke of oppression. The conditions of the industrial working class in Europe were intolerable as it stoked the furnace of economic progress. Karl Marx in sociology, Charles Darwin in the physical sciences and Sigmund Freud in the social sciences were redefining human consciousness and biography. It is within this context, that the North American and liberal pragmatic philosopher John Dewey began his investigation of progressive education, perhaps from where Rousseau had ended but under very different circumstances.

For Dewey, truth was linked to the consequences of action. For a pragmatic philosopher, the contradictions that this posed between what Dewey called ‘progressive’ and ‘traditional’ educational (Dewey, 1963) were enormous, not only due to a concept of philosophy itself as a generalised learning and therefore defining the enterprise of schooling in philosophical terms, but because of the passive role of the child in accepting knowledge already chosen as true by the teacher. Dewey’s theory of inquiry learning overcame these problems, where the child was encouraged to learn from personal experience and to come to a personal explanation as much as possible independently of the adult. For the modern school, there arises a crisis of direction if its outcomes are more uncertain and ‘work in progress’ rather than a repetition of known truth and the serious implications that this view has for policy, organisation, methods of assessment and the grading and sorting of students. Dewey placed practice at the pinnacle of human experience rather than the intellect as posited by the Greeks, although his emphasis on an integrated knowledge and a unity of practice and theory for all phenomena was perhaps his greatest contribution to education and is the greatest challenge to traditional education at all levels. His writing while dense and often difficult to comprehend on a first reading is striking in its capacity to unite and not separate the different aspects of experience.

How can we begin to explain the different trajectories that flow from and between Plato, Rousseau and Dewey? How is it possible for some views to dominate for centuries and find root and sustenance far distant from their home lands? If the connection between economy and intellect is close, then the development of trade and commerce helps explain to some extent the need for literacy, arithmetic, agriculture, engineering and the like and the ways of thinking that emerge from different modes of production. A serf working in the fields with all labour being appropriated by the landlord, will see the world a little differently to a train driver delivering trucks of coal to the wharf, or a graphic designer working with abstract ideas on a computer screen. In each case, the relationship between the worker and what accrues from the productive process is different and in some cases is exceedingly remote. In a globalised world of production and a greater emphasis on information, knowledge and intelligence, new features and connections are becoming apparent that must be taken into account by progressive educators, features that will make the break with conservative educational philosophies more profound and extensive and ultimately, more epistemologically democratic. While it seems clear that Dewey’s inquiry has had a pervasive bearing on the policy and practice of many education systems worldwide to this day, such influence is difficult to maintain in practice. The Plowden (1967) review of primary education in the United Kingdom in 1967 is another example of debate and policy being heavily influenced by theorised ideas. Piaget’s (Vuyk, 1981) views on child centredness, constructivism and action in learning underpinned the Plowden report quite markedly, but their application across the curriculum remains challenging 40 years later.

Education can learn much from the science of cosmology and the theorising that is taking place regarding the origins and structure of the universe. Scientific developments of this nature generate the same excitement that occurred 100 years ago with new understandings regarding the particle theory of matter, the discovery of the electron and ideas regarding relativity. Complexity theory is a case in point. It is now suggested that there is nothing miraculous about the universe – the universe ‘is’ – and that whatever happens in the universe is a function of its inherent properties. As the universe continues to expand, stars come and go, matter and light are transformed into each other, then the overall complexity of the universe increases and new features are created, features that were not present before. This is similar to the pieces of a jigsaw that at some point only seem to make an unrecognisable jumble, but at another while still incomplete, can make a coherent whole as the picture or pattern becomes discernable. Human organic life can be interpreted in this way, as a scientific function of universal complexity and one which emerges from matter as a critical mass of complexity is reached. Human consciousness and the generation of ideas can be conceptualised in an identical manner. Thought and more particularly new thought becomes a human characteristic as human material complexity passes a certain point, as the totality and combination of experience, practice and theorising causes new properties to emerge. Based on this analysis, life as we know it is a logical outcome of the universe’s composition as concentrated in this galaxy and could quite conceivably occur at many other places in the universe with a similar makeup.

The interrelationship between a progressive epistemology and complexity theory is remarkable and provides much practical guidance for schools. New understandings or new ideas may also depend on a threshold or critical mass of experience where, once established, new properties or thoughts, connections, assemblages, networks, or insights, are enabled for the organism. The role of the school then becomes one of ensuring that a diverse experience is allowed to accumulate over time so that the learner is allowed to participate in the construction of their own awareness. New ideas may explode in the brain in the same way as a black hole explodes from a ‘point of singularity’ or a ‘point of concentrated experience’ containing all of the constituent particles of a new creation. In one sense, this latter analogy could be considered a Platonic Form, although from a philosophical view, the idea is not pre-existing in the brain. Dewey’s notion of learning through inquiry and the centrality of building ideas from experience fits nicely with the tenets of complexity that links humans more closely with the material universe and how it transforms itself in timeless, endless cycles of destruction and construction. Under the imperative of pragmatic philosophy, to be human is to learn and to learn is a function of the universe, it properties and arrangements. This is a progressive, epistemological view rather than a conservative, ontological view of learning and of humanity and opens the door for all children regardless of their socio-economic histories to participate with all knowledge and construct their own meanings.

4 Indigenous Education

The Indigenous project of modernity needs to establish the authority and credentials of an Indigenous philosophy and epistemology if the different cultures of the world are to develop in non-racist ways, share and reconcile with each other. It is certainly a necessity if Indigenous peoples wish to participate in non-Indigenous systems of schooling. There are significant decisions that need to be made by competing viewpoints in support of the general philosophies that underscore conservative and progressive education. The claim for an explicit and emphatic Indigenous epistemology is not an assimilationist proposal to accept European analysis and to assuage difference, but the opposite, the search for a set of precepts that seek to explicate human understanding to a greater extent within the context of a unified humanity.

Advice coming forward from Indigenous communities around the world regarding Indigenous education is crystal clear. In regard to fourth world communities, Indigenous people must be in control of their own culture, language and history, must be able to participate fully and democratically in developing and adapting a specific curriculum to meet the needs of local communities and must be able to approach knowledge from an integrated and holistic direction. These recommendations are unambiguous. The question arises of course as to why such advice is not implemented in schools around the world, particularly secondary schools where there is such a high dropout rate of Indigenous children around age 15. A reasonable postulate is that the contradictions between the formal structures of school and the essential philosophy of community life are too great to bear after many years of schooling. Removing oneself from the European school is a method of survival.

Unlike primary schools, the secondary school continues to suffer from a crisis of identity and purpose in the wealthy countries like Australia. Primary schools around the world clearly see their role as caring for very young children and in overseeing their language development in the broadest sense. On the other hand, secondary schools in the stronger economies have been unable to clarify their role in regard to university entrance, preparation for employment and involvement with the academic disciplines. An uneasy hybrid exists between these three pressures, expressed very strongly in assessment procedures used at the completion of the secondary years. The nature of the secondary curriculum also varies with every new government and with the economic circumstances that prevail especially in relation to unemployment and skill development. There is a strong tendency for the secondary curriculum to take up a more vocational orientation under the conditions of economic recession and certainly economic depression, while to become more liberal when the economy is stronger. The curriculum can also be more child centred and school based, or knowledge centred and state based depending on government priorities. Guidelines issued by governments can suggest a framework for curriculum development that provides wide scope for the work of teachers, or lay down quite specific rules to be followed. All of these approaches are firmly linked to the economic conditions of the country.

How can fourth world Indigenous educational interests be furthered under such socio-economic realities? Is there a conservative or progressive model that is a best fit, or is a totally new model required for a globalised and marketised environment? Can different cultures be reconciled, or are the differences too great? As discussed previously, the following key points that dominate the globalised world, will need to be considered:

  • Knowledge. Indigenous knowledge is very much related to the land, waters and animals that frequent where a community lives. This key relationship must therefore be central to any curriculum involving Indigenous children and their families. It is essential that Elders be equal partners in curriculum development offering their experience and wisdom regarding local culture, history and explanations of events. While the knowledge of Elders may be made known in traditional ways, the overall context of Indigenous children attending regular schools provides more progressive means of learning and does not preclude more conservative approaches. The ideas of learning by doing, indeed of imitating those with obvious expertise, of practising techniques are not antithetical with a community of open inquiry. As with all learning, there is a need to provide strategies for the child that enable links to be made between personal and more general experience and to experiment with evolving ideas. How knowledge actually grows and is understood is central to a mutual epistemology in schools.

  • Perspective. All humans bring a world view or political perspective to their interaction with the social and physical environments. This is a complex mix of morality, creation stories, politics and culture. For Indigenous people, there is clearly the question of Indigeneity. To incorporate an Indigenous perspective across a European curriculum will be extremely difficult to achieve for any dominant society given that it must be identified, understood and agreed in the first place and then methods of application must be found for every subject area. A perspective is clearly different to a common strategy that has been employed in many systems to now, that of dealing with aspects of Indigenous life in one particular subject area, mainly that which deals with history and politics. This approach is designed to primarily transmit content knowledge such as that concerned with invasion and leaves the vast majority of the curriculum untouched. Developing and integrating an Indigenous perspective on subjects such as mathematics and science, for example, will prove to be an enormous task.

  • Curriculum. There is a commonality of view amongst OECD and similar countries regarding curriculum design, a commonality that has become stronger over recent years. This is probably due to globalisation and the similar requirements for trade, commerce and information technologies. Indigenous views of European literature, mathematics and science will confound the accepted curriculum, although there will be greater overlap in other areas particularly in the arts. The great debate between the humanities and the sciences in European cultures has been completed centuries ago for Indigenous peoples in terms of holistic approaches, but remains to be resolved elsewhere. The notion of mathematics and truth as mentioned above is difficult enough for advantaged children of the settler society, let alone those who approach understanding from a completely different perspective. The basic principles of curriculum design and their directing philosophies need to be revisited for children of the fourth world, with mathematics and science receiving particular attention. These contradictions remain almost intractable within conservative schooling.

  • Technology. Given the significance of technology and computer-based information and communication technologies in particular to the pursuit of globalisation, the incorporation of the wide range of technologies now available becomes a priority for Indigenous peoples. Provided of course that technology can be culturally inclusive. Access issues aside, the evidence worldwide suggests that technological devices ranging from radio, medical equipment, motors and machinery, aircraft, television, videos, DVD and iPod devices, mobile telephones, the Internet and computers generally, are all acceptable to and are utilised by Indigenous people, including young children. This mirrors the experience of the population at large. The explanation for this in both cultures includes the apparent personal authority and autonomy that can be brought to bear, intellectual flexibility, the power of communication and information gathering provided and the data techniques that are placed into the hands of all citizens without obvious discrimination. The mass take up of technology and telecommunication systems by ordinary people across the world has been one of the characteristics of current modernity and one that cannot be ignored for educational reconciliation.

  • Democracy. A society that professes the value of democracy, must also maintain a democratic education system. Creating an epistemological democracy within a curriculum can be markedly restricted by the economic and political requirements that are imposed and as noted above, these will vary as the characteristics of society change. The extent to which a curriculum can be truly democratic is therefore problematic, but the political will to always trend in that direction should be expected. A huge contradiction continues to exist at the senior secondary level, where examination for tertiary entrance distorts and dominates the other years. Prospects for schools becoming more independent of the tertiary sector appear slim, particularly as the demand for higher education increases. A democratic education system will need to adapt as need be to take account of the Indigenous perspective on decision-making, but the same general democratic approaches should apply to all. Discussions at school will need to be more informal, more long term, more respectful and genuinely community based than that usually familiar to European participants. In broad terms, however, educational structures already exist in Australia on which such directions can be built.

  • Ideology-critique. This is the most difficult question for an education system under capitalism or socialism to confront. Can any social institution including a school, become socially critical, to be honestly critical of itself and the defining ideas and practices that constitute its very reason for being. A democratic and reflective institution will attempt to do so without immersing its members in ideological conflict directly, although the vigorous clash of ideas and cultures is hard to avoid. A school can proceed by having an open mind towards truth and encourage a variety of means of investigating propositions without imposing an ideological frame. There are questions of commonness here, as to what a society considers essential and what can be left to the discretion of learners and practitioners like teachers. This is a difficult matter for any public administration to balance some questions of deeply held value with the democratic requirement of personal expression and independent thought, especially for the young. A balance can be maintained by holding some knowledges to be generally true at the time, perhaps even over a considerable time span, but a concomitant recognition that these can be shown as being untrue or at least thrown into doubt as new evidence and interpretation comes to the fore. Indigenous epistemologies and perspectives should be congruent with a democratic pragmatic of this type.

As the feudalism–capitalism–socialism journey unfolds together with attempts at reconciling cultures within the constrictions of first and second world economic characteristics, the issue becomes one of devising a structure that enables cognitive travellers to continuously grow and experience as independent thinkers, in charge of their own destiny. Specifically, we now turn to a progressive model of education that is more than a realistic and global hybrid, but one that begins to describe and constitute an educational genome project in its own right.

5 Being and Identity

For all humans, the question of who we are, where we have come from and where we are going is both confronting and eternal. As Martin (2005, p. 28) observes, ‘To know who you are in relatedness is the ultimate premise of Aboriginal worldview because this is the formation of identity.’ For some there is a religious answer where beliefs and values have been established perhaps via a divine being to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. For others, the emergence of modern science has contributed to a reliance on matter and energy for explanation with their interaction being responsible for human characteristics such as morality and compassion. Whether or not religion in its formal sense is an aspect of Indigenous life can be debated. In Australia, for example, the European word, Dreaming or Dreamtime, denotes a coming together of personal and community Indigenous identity and strong connections with the land and present day conditions. It is said that many ancestral figures inhabit the earth, skies and seas and are associated with local animals and landscape features. The Dreaming is timeless, forever present. It is not a religious view as it does not involve the worship of gods or the following of a strict recorded code of doctrine and behaviour.

Many cultures express deep connections with the land. It is significant that the concept of ‘wilderness’ is non-Indigenous associated with the idea of ‘taming’ the country and changing it to suit economic need. Indigenous people are said to be never lost in their own country. The cutting down of trees and the formation of fields and paddocks for crops and animals was intended to subdue nature for human pursuits. Indeed the advent of climate change and global warming over recent times has become one of the great debates of the modern world, where images of melting glaciers and dry river beds generate much anxiety in the human psyche. This has re-established a strong desire for many people to care for the natural environment and to ensure that there is a respectful relationship with animals and landscape. The issue that arises here is whether connection with the land is an ontological feature for all humans, that is to be human is to have a philosophical and emotional attachment to our natural surroundings, or whether Indigenous peoples have a special and unique relationship with country? This is a difficult question as Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples can only have an appreciation of the other’s innermost feelings and understandings, as distinct from an identical perception and connection. A history of knowing the environment over many thousands of years must lead to an intimate understanding of its structures and characteristics, but this does not necessarily mean that non-Indigenous peoples do not have their own value and relationship with the landscape as well. It is quite possible for all local residents to observe the ducks flying in to shelter before a storm, or to eat particular berries for their medicinal properties, or to know the location of various waterholes in times of drought. Even non-Indigenous town or city dwellers might know that there is little point to go fishing at particular times of the year, or when the east wind is blowing. What must be considered for educators then is how key features of social life such as language, history, country and culture combine for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples to generate knowledge, meaning and identity and how these can be incorporated into a regular curriculum at school. What is at stake here is what it means to be human for all people and how schools can incorporate such fundamental ideas.

Given the difficulty of different cultures really understanding each other, it may be appropriate in the first instance for each culture to have a better, stronger and dynamic understanding of itself. This is practical advice that can be suggested to educators. That is, through the experience of Indigenous issues and the grappling with practical problems that occur in schools, non-Indigenous educators can reflect upon their own standpoints and open up the possibility of changing their own knowledge, practices and beliefs, indeed identities. For example, a classroom that is teacher dominated could be altered so that there is much greater opportunity for personal discussion amongst students and between students and teacher. This could result in the teacher coming to a more comprehensive understanding of the role of language in communication and learning and how this is significant for all children, including Indigenous children. Here, the teacher has not set out to implement approaches that are assumed to be appropriate for Indigenous children, but has begun a personal investigation of pedagogical issues. This has raised fundamental questions about the role of language and whether or not it is more important to experiment with it or be instructed about its components. In strengthening one particular cultural view of teaching and learning, the teacher becomes more understanding of a different cultural view of teaching and learning. This approach is not anticipated to ‘Indigenise’ the curriculum by replacing white knowledge with black knowledge, to replace one dominant view with another dominant view, but to respect all cultural views around practical projects as a way of developing new understandings for mutual benefit. This is the epistemological and democratic argument that needs to be raised when questions of ‘mainstreaming’ all Indigenous schooling are advanced.

For Indigenous peoples, identity is very much concerned with ‘where I am from and who my family are’. Country, community and language are key aspects of identity and therefore need to be incorporated into schooling. If a cultural context for schooling is not established then learning becomes meaningless or distorted and Indigenous children will become alienated from mainstream classrooms very quickly. A similar argument can be made for non-Indigenous children. Most Australian children, for example, will come across a very well-known poem by Dorothea Mackellar that includes the lines:

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror -

The wide brown land for me.

These lines from a non-Indigenous person of Scottish descent express a deep, emotional connection with country that many non-Indigenous Australians relate to very strongly, whether they have extensive experience of the bush and outback areas or not. It is impossible to ignore the wide open spaces, the bright blue sky, the red sand of desert or the golden sand of beaches. This is an intense cultural context that frames all learning and Australian identity. There is a scientific argument that since the beginning of time and through the processes of evolution, the human race has originated from the earth, has spread across the earth and returns to the earth. With this awareness, there is one human species that draws its identity, knowledge and understanding from the earth and subsequently is enabled to consider its place in the universe. If such fundamental contemplations do not permeate the school curriculum, then the learning of Indigenous and non-Indigenous children alike will be irreparably damaged.

6 Concept of the Democratic Polytechnic

At this stage, it is appropriate to consider briefly how the above considerations of culture and identity can be incorporated into the regular curriculum to benefit all children. This is one example to indicate that a number are realistic and possible. A progressive model of schooling that attempts to integrate the requirements for democratic and culturally inclusive learning, can be called ‘general polytechnic’ where ‘polytechnic’ is taken to mean a school based on ‘many arts of learning’ and ‘general’ indicates a broad education initiating students into various forms and fields of knowledge. A progressive rather than conservative philosophy is supported because this better accommodates the necessary features of democratic schooling supportive of Indigenous education and the backgrounds of all children. The polytechnic will promote a love of learning, democratic process, social critique and the development of broadly experienced and culturally dynamic people, an active citizenship for change and innovation.

A central feature of polytechnical education will be the varying degrees of redefinition of particular areas of knowledge as they are currently understood and pursued in many mainstream schools. The redefinition of knowledge goes beyond the mere reorganisation and repackaging of facts to a more fundamental epistemology. Learners will develop new relationships with concepts and ideas; they will come to know more, internalise more and discover more. As will be detailed later, school mathematics will be a prime candidate for such reconceptualisation, particularly to encourage teachers and students to learn together and to build a base of mutual experience from which intellectual and reflective forays into the mathematical unknown can be made. An inquiry and democratic emphasis on learning is intended to promote flexibility and rigour, where learning teams question, investigate and seek truth on all issues. This is the basis of a concern for social justice, our cultural and environmental heritage, concerns that cannot be artificially created or imposed. A school operating along these lines will have no place for mechanisms which sort, grade and compare individuals artificially. Student assessment and the monitoring of learning will be an important part of the curriculum being informal, continuing, integrated and cooperative designed to signpost progress over time.

One model of a democratic polytechnic curriculum could contain the following key elements:

  • Four broad areas of integrated studies encompassing the humanities, sciences, arts and technologies. A fifth area will allow for more specific studies such as sport, instrumental music and a range of electives. Philosophy and the study of ideas could be a fifth broad area, or be integrated into all other areas. Mathematics, for example, integrated into the sciences could be structured as a philosophical inquiry into quantities, patterns and relationships that occur throughout the physical and intellectual zones. Each integrated study occupies on average 1 day per week.

  • An approach to teaching and learning that involves continuing cycles of investigation where practice and theorising are integrated in all studies and where personal theorising and critique build a platform for ongoing learning.

  • A critical, information and communication technology perspective where the most educationally developed technologies will be appropriated and incorporated into students’ learning.

  • An Indigenous perspective across the curriculum that respects and recognises the land, culture, history and philosophy of Indigenous peoples and informs the development of all learning.

  • Community learning circles and the development of negotiated and integrated student projects and portfolios as the main organisational structure.

  • Explicit and negotiated statements of modes of monitoring, assessment, student learning outcomes, teaching methodologies and curriculum forms.

  • Democratic forms of decision-making including community, staff and students.

The overall concept of the General Polytechnic School so outlined attempts to take the broad theories of Dewey in regard to inquiry learning and the practice/theory unity and integrates them with the new information and communication technologies. The original idea of polytechnical education as understood in the European context, was intended to break away from conservative elitist approaches, bring intellectual and physical labour together and to link schooling with production. This confirms Dewey’s view that education ‘is a process of living and not a preparation for future living’ (McDermott, 1981, p. 445) and encourages learners to actively construct their own understandings based on personal culture but tempered by broader experience. The democratic polytechnic falls into the category of progressive rather than conservative education and is well placed to support the culturally inclusive curriculum required for Indigenous reconciliation and learning. A holistic rather than segmented view of life and knowledge where everything is connected to everything else is in total accord with Indigenous views. As a modern project, the General Polytechnic School challenges entrenched ideologies of privilege and advantage both educationally and socially and is therefore oriented to serving the interests of the overwhelming majority of families and their children.