The People

We are the Yolngu people of Ramingining, in the northern part of Central Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory.

Ramingining is a town of about 800 of our people. More of our people live on outstations different distances from town. Also about 50 Balanda live here.

The nearest other town is Maningrida, more than two hours drive away except in the rainy season, when we can only fly there.

In Ramingining we have a store, a clinic, a school, a new police station, an arts centre, a resource centre, houses and not much else.

But we have history and culture here, that our ancestors have been growing for more than forty thousand years.

They passed that culture on from generation to generation. Now it's our turn to pass it on, not just to the next generation, but to people everywhere, all over the world.

That's because our way of life is changing fast now, and what you can see on this website is for every generation to remember and keep our culture alive.



Taken from http://www.12canoes.com.au/

Sunday, March 6, 2011

day thirty one - a uni student again

6th March 2011 - 4:00pm


Well, what a week.

On Monday, I became a Uni student once again. You would've thought I had done enough study already, but apparently not. I decided to undertake the Graduate Diploma of Teaching and Learning through Charles Darwin University while I'm living in Ramingining. Monday was my first day, and I have spent the week alternating between whelmed and overwhelmed. After chatting to some friends who have undertaken various education degrees through various Universities, I was expecting that my 10 contact hours a week of classes and tutorials would be almost it. Boy was I wrong.

The online course is run fantastically. I've been so impressed with how easy it is to access unit information, lectures, assignment information and notes through their online program Learnline. But talk about lots of work! I was studying full time last week. Yes, I mean around 40 hours in the week. Way more than I was expecting! But given with the assignments, that I was trying to address all assessment criteria in the 500 words allocated, perhaps I was trying a bit hard. Maybe I am going to be a really good mature-aged student. I spent hours finding journal articles and reports that supported my argument, and hours more cutting back my 827 words to fit into the word limit. Maybe doing a PhD has made me think a bit differently about study compared to how I felt in my undergraduate courses.

I've also spent the week being totally overwhelmed about the component of my course. There is so much to organise over the next few weeks, I don't know how I'm going to get it done! I'll have five weeks of three days per week of prac, as well as three weeks full time. I guess everyone is in the same boat, and hopefully I'll be able to line Geoff at Ramingining School up to be my mentor teacher, and get lots of support from him. I suppose I will need to be thrown in the deep end to some extent, given that I'll be a fully qualified teacher at the end of this year (assuming I pass!).

Well, I'd better head off to read chapter one and two in Berk's Child Development...
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