Critical Evaluations: Based on the Yarn’s Approach:

Year: 2021

Author: YouTube, by Ozzie – Educational Videos for Toddlers & Kids.

Representations: Showed great respect for the Aboriginal People in reading the story with cultural respect. 

Nouns: Acceptable language is used in this video and the using of capitals is correctly used in this video. 

Sensitivity: There were no visuals of deceased members of the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities in this book. 

Critical Elaborations and Justifications:

AITSL Standard: Focus Area 1.4: Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, the connections to The Rainbow Serpent show how cultural and linguistic background affects students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background in their education.

According to the VEYLDF, Students explore the diversity of culture, heritage, background, and tradition, and that diversity gives opportunities for choices and new understanding. 

Child Safe Standards 1.2: The organisations have strategies in place that enable all its members to recognise and value the strength of Aboriginal culture and comprehend the significance of that culture for the welfare and safety of Aboriginal children and young people. 

Theme:  Reciprocity: (Suitable aged group 3-5 years old)

The idea of reciprocity is central to Aboriginal society. The political climate of Aboriginal society, social and family bonds, totemic beliefs, and the interchange and sale of food and tools are just a few examples of how it manifests. In Aboriginal tradition, reciprocity is essential to timelessness, often known as the interconnection of all things. By recognising the interconnectedness of the social, ecological, and spiritual systems, reciprocity is a moral precept that promotes community health (Harley, 1995). It demonstrates how their obligations to one another as members of their family group connect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders together as a social unit.

Name: Aboriginal symbols game: (The resource is relevant and suitable for aged 3-5, Early learning Years).

Adopted and illustrate by Yuin, women and founder of Ngandabaa. Using Aboriginal symbols to create a story. Throughout history and today. Aboriginal people tell significant cultural narratives and pass them down through the generations using symbols in their artwork. Symbols can vary greatly form region to region, both in term of their forms, but also their meanings. Symbols are not only used in artwork mediums, but also in body painting, the ceremonial use of symbols on the body, painted on from coheres made from rocks and clay and mixed with water, is a cultural tradition that has been used form thousand and thousands of years. 

https://www.bing.com/search?q=Aboriginal+symbol+game+for+children+ytube+video&pc=U316&form=CHRDEF&sp=-1&pq=aboriginal+symbol+game+for+children+ytube+video&sc=0-47&qs=n&sk=&cvid=78A9B4AF710447379C6ECC52853A352F&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&ghpl=

Critical Evaluations; Based on the Yarn’s approach:

Year:2021

Author: YouTube, by Yuin women of Ngandabaa.

Representations: During her video the Yuin women and founder of Ngandabaa showed great respect and presented in a balanced way. 

Nouns: Acceptable description of how to use the Aboriginal symbols in storytelling. 

Sensitivity: This video showed no images of Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander peoples who have deceased, 

Critical Elaborations and Justifications

VEYLDF -Children begin to understand how symbols and pattern system work: Children develop an understanding that symbols are a powerful means of communication, and that ideas, thoughts and concepts can be represented through them.

VC – Children retell familiar literary texts through performance, use of illustrations and images (VCELT159).

AITLS Standards 1.3 – Demonstrate knowledge of teaching strategies that are responsive to the learning strengths and needs of student from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Child Safe Standard 1.2: Strategies are embedded within the organisation which equip all members to acknowledge and appreciate the strengths of Aboriginal culture and understand its importance to the wellbeing and safety of Aboriginal children and young people.

Theme:  Identify 

One's identity is shaped by the knowledge and feelings associated with one's family, kin, culture, and country. (Forrest 1998). Particularly, identity is a component of a person’s self-concept that results from that person’s awareness of his or her participation in a social group as well as the value and emotional significance associated with that membership (Phinney, 1992, p.159). The development of identity takes place over time. Culture is gradually imparted as well, in which customs, values and beliefs are shared) Kickett- Tucker & lfe, 2018).

 The AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia is available to display. The resource urges children to think about the languages of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as well as the unique physical and social-cultural geographies to which they belong by using a variety of map representations. Children will understand the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in particular, as well as the reality that the nation in which they currently dwell is the traditional homeland of those peoples, and how this mirrors the diversity of Indigenous Australian cultures and identities more broadly.

  https://www.narragunnawali.org.au/rap/actions/2/welcome-to-country

Critical Evaluations

Based on the Yarn’s Approach:

Author: AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia created by David Horton 

Representations: Aboriginal people is balanced in a respectful way, and no use of racism in this resource. 

Nouns: In this resource Capitals, and languages have been used properly

Sensitivity: Images used in this resource is age appropriate to represent. 

Critical Elaborations and Justifications
EYLF outcome 2.2 children respond to diversity with respect and Outcome 2.4 – Children become socially responsible and show respect for environment.
Child Safe Standards 2.2: A child safe culture is championed and modelled at all levels of the organisation from the top down and bottom up. 
AITSL standard 2.4: Demonstrate broad knowledge of understanding of and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures, and languages.
VEYLDF: Children sense of belonging to groups and begin to recognise that they have a right to belong to many communities.
Victorian Curriculum: Identify what is familiar and what is different in the ways culturally diverse individuals and families live (VCICCB001).

Theme; Country
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people They honour their connections to the land through ceremonies, the protection of sacred sites, and land rights demonstrations. A "return to Country" travel is appropriate when a community member is weary and in need of spiritual renewal—the kind that can only be obtained by standing barefoot on your own lands. Refer to their distinct traditional tribal land with the phrase "country" (Smith, R. J,2021).

In Native English, the word "country" is both a common and appropriate word. Humans discuss a country in a similar way to how they would discuss a person; they sing to it, chat to it, visit it, worry about it, feel sorry for it, and long for it. Several people assert that the nation is conscious, hears, smells, notices, cares for, joyful, or depressed.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=Colours+of+Australia+song+&pc=U316&form=CHRDEF&sp=-1&pq=colo&sc=6-4&qs=n&sk=&cvid=9F08776372A54873A0CC3F46C03C667C&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&ghpl=

https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/education/building-belonging-toolkit-early-childhood-educators-cultural-diversity-and

Critical Evaluations: 
Based on the Yarn’s Approach:
Year: 2020
Author: YouTube Video by The Australian Human Rights Commission. (FIFA ROO).
Representations: Showed great respect for the Aboriginal People in reading the story with cultural respect. 
Nouns: Acceptable language is used in this video and the using of capitals is correctly used in this video. 
Sensitivity: Nothing in this YouTube Video depicted diseased members of the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities. 

Critical Elaborations and Justifications
Child Safe Standard 1: Organizations create a culturally safe environment where Aboriginal children and young People’s various and distinctive identities and experiences are acknowledged and valued. 
AISL Standard 3.5: In order to encourage students’ participation, use of variety of verbal and nonverbal communication techniques. 
VEYLDF: Use a range of verbal and nonverbal communication strategies to promote student’s participation in the room. 
Victorian Curriculum: Describe ways to include others to make them feel that they belong (VCHPEP075). 

Theme: Identity 
According to Gfellner & Amstrong (2012), Phinney (1992), for children to evaluate their social environments and provide meaning to their sense of identity, it is crucial to understand the relationship between identity and culture. For Aboriginal children to feel confident, safe, wise, and a valued member of their community, they must have a strong and culturally appropriate sense of identity (Kickett- Tucker & Coffin, 2011). The importance of cultural links to identity and wellbeing Aboriginal children mush have their culture, language, and identity recognised, cherished, and taught in order for their school involvement to be strengthened. This will also give their self-esteem and welfare a solid foundation to thrive on. 

Rose, D.B. (no date) Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal   views of landscape and Wilderness, Google Books. Australian Heritage Commission. Available at: https://books.google.com/books/about/Nourishing_Terrains.html?id=rSpjpwAACAAJ (Accessed: February 23, 2023). 

Forrest, S. (1998). That’s my mob: Aboriginal identity. In G. Partington *Ed). Perspectives on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. Katoomba, New South Wales” Social Science, pp. 96-105.

Gfellner, B. M., & Armstrong. H. D. (2012). Racial-ethnic Identity and adjustment in Canadian Indigenous adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence, 33(5), 635-661.10.1177/027243162458036

Hartley, R. (1995). Families and cultural diversity in Australia  [Bibliographies]. Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian Institute of Family Studies. https://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat00097a&AN=deakin.b1683350&site=eds-live&scope=site 

https://www.aitsl.edu.au/too;s-resources/australian

Kickett-Tucker, C. S., & Coffin, J. (2011). Aboriginal self-concept and racial identity” Practical solutions for teachers In N. Purdie, G. Milgate, & H. R. Bell (Eds) Two way teaching and learning” Forward Culturally reflective and relevant education. Camberwell, Victoria “Australian Council for Educational Research, pp. 155-172.

Kickett-Tucker, C.S. & Ife, J. (2018). Identity in Australian Aboriginal communities: Koordoormitj in the essence of life. In S. Kenny, B. McGrath, & R. Phillips *Eds) The Routledge handbook of community development. Routledge: New York, pp. 310 – 322. 

Phinney, J.S. (1992). The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure” A new scale for use with diverse groups. Journal of Adolescent Research, 7(2), 156-176

Shay, M., & Oliver, R. (Eds.). (2021). Indigenous education in Australia: Learning and teaching from deadly futures. Taylor & Francis Group. 

Smith, R. J. (2021). A Context for Australian Indigenous Use of the Word Country. Tradition Today, 10, 40–46
Victorian curriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/overview/about

www.education.vic.gov.au/pal/child-safe-standards/policy.