Launched during NAIDOC Week, BCE Senior Manager - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education, Dr Mayrah Dreise said the Guide is based on the principle of “recognition and respect”.
“Just as we recommend in this Protocols Guide, we allowed time to build relationships, moving at the speed of trust, to ensure that we incorporated First Nations voice, both in our own collaboration and with First Nations artists and Elders,” Dr Dreise said.
“When exploring First Nations arts, students are engaging with ancient and continuing cultures and knowledge systems which belong to an entirely different paradigm to Western thought.
“First Nations knowledges are relational and holistic, expressed in ways unique to the Country and the peoples they are connected to.”
BCE Arts Education Officer Jacqueline Twigg said that by recognising that these cultural expressions belong to the knowledge-holders, the role of arts teachers in our schools is not to teach First Nations culture but to engage First Nations voices in explaining the cultural meaning.
“The teacher’s role is to design and guide the learning as inquiry,” she said.
“The learning informs students’ understanding of others’ ways of expressing meaning through art, as they create art expressing their own ideas. The Arts Protocols Guide is about that process.”
Local artist, Jennifer Kent of Manamana Dreaming, was engaged to create an artwork for this Guide and for representing The Arts in our schools.
“Jennifer’s artwork holds very special meaning for the land on which BCE schools are based, our Catholic faith and the teachers who inspire creativity each day,” Dr Dreise said.
Jennifer explains the meaning of her work in an Artist Statement in the form of ‘The Water Vine Story’ video.