Uncovering Hidden Histories: Evaluating Preservice Teachers’ (PST) Understanding of Local Indigenous Perspectives in History Via Digital Storytelling at Australia’s Sovereign Hill

ABSTRACT

Non-Indigenous-led organizations and education programs have long been criticized for sanitized teachings of Aboriginal perspectives in history, while scholarship touts the transformative benefits offered up via decolonial and immersive pedagogical approaches. In this case study, we explore the impact of a cross-cultural venture, titled Hidden Histories: The Wadawurrung People, between a living history museum, the local Aboriginal community, and a regional university on teacher preparedness to incorporate Aboriginal perspectives in history curricula. Through a cultural interface lens, we examine the ontological and epistemological developments of 112 preservice teachers postinteraction with an intercultural digital-kinaesthetic education tool. Our findings suggest that PSTs enjoy engaging with the tool, yet while on site, they prefer to immerse themselves in the museum environment. Our findings indicate also, however, that the tool is an accessible cross-cultural predatory tool that encourages a lifelong commitment to integrating Aboriginal perspectives in history curricula.

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge Wadawurrung peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land upon which this project is situated. We pay our respects to their Elders, past, present, and upcoming, and recognize the 60,000+ years of sacred knowledge held within the land, waters, and by the peoples.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ The Wathaurung Aboriginal Corporation (Wathcorp), trading as Wadawurrung (https://wathcorp.com.au/), is the Registered Aboriginal Party (RAP) for Wadawurrung country. WAC has a statutory role in the management of Aboriginal heritage values and culture within the region, under the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Act, 2006.

² AusVels is the abbreviated terminology used to refer to the statewide curriculum-guided education in the state of Victoria, Australia, constructed from the national Australian curriculum. It stands for Australian Victorian Essential Learning Standards. Note: Since the development of this digitour, the name of the curriculum used in Victoria has changed to Victorian Curriculum F-10 (http://ausvels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/).

³ In Aboriginal culture, land is not owned, it is Country where spirit, culture, and the physical interact. As Hill (1995) says, “the meaning of land [for Aboriginal peoples] goes beyond legal possession to include a personal and physical relationship that is tied to the Dreaming and ancestors . . . it is steeped in spiritual connection” (p. 53).

⁴ The Stolen Generations are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who, when they were children, were taken away from their families and communities as the result of past government policies. Breaking important cultural, spiritual, and family ties, the practices continue to have a lasting intergenerational impact on lives (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2017).

⁵ Digitour meaning “digital tour” presented through a responsive website. The first of its kind at Sovereign Hill, the Hidden Histories: The Wadawurrung People digitour, can be used for free both on- and offsite, and provides a dynamic interpretive medium for telling this story at a museum with no traditional interpretation signage.

⁶ Rugs made from possum skins were (and continue to be) manufactured by Aboriginal people, particularly in southeastern Australia. These rugs were a major intercultural trading item during the gold rush period (Cahir, 2005).

⁷ Mia Mia is a Kulin Aboriginal word for shelter that was commonly used by non-Aboriginal miners during the gold rush period (Cahir, 2012).

⁸ Of Sovereign Hill’s 700,000 visitors annually, approximately 100,000 are international tourists, with the majority from China and India.

⁹ The practice of storytelling is a mode by which Aboriginal peoples communicate. It is also a form of knowledge transfer understood by non-Indigenous peoples and a common tool used by educators (Abrahamson, 1998; Haigh & Hardy, 2011).

¹⁰ This is a National Reconciliation Week–focused program of events aimed at educating visitors and the broader public about local Aboriginal history and living culture. Gnarrwirring ngitj means “learning together” in Wadawurrung language, and this ethos drove the key events chosen for the inaugural festival in May and June 2016.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sara Weuffen

Sara Weuffen (B.Ed(PE), PhD) is a Lecturer of BOLD (Blended Online and Digital) Learning and Teaching Enhancement at Federation University Australia. Her PhD explores how local Aboriginal voices are, and could be, incorporated into secondary school curriculums for shared-learning of Australia’s history.

Fred Cahir (BA, GradDip Ed, MA, PhD) is an Associate Professor in Aboriginal History at Federation University Australia. His PhD focused on uncovering the role of Aboriginal people on the Victorian gold fields. Dr. Cahir works also as a teacher-researcher consultant for local cultural renewal projects.

Alice Barnes (B.Ed) is an Education Officer at The Sovereign Hill Museums Association. She manages the primary and secondary education-focused programs that teach students about life on the Victorian gold fields in the 1850s.

Uncle Bryon Powell is a Wadawurrung Traditional Custodian. He consults with communities, education institutions, and government organizations to provide cultural heritage advice, and bring to life Wadawurrung culture and history.