LEARNING IN GLEBE | Students

Memories

The findings of the Networking Tranby project

Here is a summary of what the people we interviewed who had been students at Tranby remembered about their experiences.

A full report on our findings is here.

The main things they wanted to talk about were:

1. What their earlier experiences of learning had been like.

2. Why they enrolled. What they had planned to do with their Tranby studies.

3. What had worked well for them at Tranby.

4. What had they learnt at Tranby that they valued or had used in later life.

5. What directions they had gone in since their Tranby studies

The records at Tranby show that most students (about 75% in each year) were between 18 and 34 although there were always a number of students older than this in each year. These older students are all remembered well and warmly. In the records, there were about even numbers of men and women as students overall, with slightly more women than men. In any one year, there might be more women or more men, but overall the numbers were about even.

1. Earlier Experiences

All the interviewees had had very unhappy experiences at schools. Most people of all ages when they enrolled had encountered racism and they said they had felt uneasy about having no mention of Aboriginal people in history lessons or else having Aboriginal people depicted negatively. So most had left school early and even the younger enrolees had worked for some years before coming back to study. Some people had left school in the early years of high school because they and their family needed the income that they could earn if they were working.

People who were older when they enrolled at Tranby had experienced the old style ‘Protection’ or ‘Welfare’ schools in NSW or Queensland or elsewhere. They had been frustrated by the limited curriculum and poor training of the teachers. The people who had been younger when they enrolled had usually been through primary and perhaps lower secondary schools which were not officially segregated, but where Aboriginal students were frequently punished and felt that they were looked down on by white students who formed the majority of their classes in most cases. Those who had been the very youngest students to enrol, at 17 or 18, had often argued back at the racism or the negative presentation of Aboriginal people, and their brave outspokenness had led to teacher disapproval and further disinterest.

2. Why they had enrolled at Tranby

Some people had heard about Tranby through word of mouth, or because older relatives had been there or were attending then. A number of people said they had wanted to finish the education they had been forced to leave, either because of racism or poverty. Most people said they wanted to improve their job or income. For some, the Business Studies course was attractive because they wanted to run their own or their community’s business. A significant number were already employed in the State or Commonwealth Public Service and needed to improve their level of schooling in order to gain promotion. A minority of people said they wanted to go onto higher education to train for a profession, like law or teaching, and a very small number said they wanted to do tertiary study in order to research. So, most of the students mentioned improving their job prospects or increasing their income, but in saying this, most made it clear that they wanted to use new skills or qualifications to assist their communities.

Some students had come to Tranby for a different set of reasons. They had less connection with their family or community – either because of earlier Government policies like the Stolen Generations which had separated their parents or grandparents from their community, because they themselves had been adopted or fostered and had lost contact with their own community or because they had become alienated from their families, due to family violence or conflicts or because of their gender identity. These were people who were no longer close to their own family or community but still wanted strongly to identify as Aboriginal and to take part in wider community cultural and political activities. Tranby offered a way in for such people.

3. What they liked about being at Tranby

All interviewees said they liked being in classes where all the other students were Aboriginal. This ‘Aboriginalisation’, as one student called it, allowed the interviewees to relax and feel like they shared backgrounds and experiences, to at least some extent, with their peers in the class. Most said it helped them to feel more comfortable about asking questions when they did not understand something. In their old education settings, they had felt embarrassed or ‘shamed’ but having to ask a question. This meant that many of them self-censored and avoided asking questions at all. Because they could ask more questions, people interviewed explained that they began to learn much better in each of the subjects.

Quite a few commented that it had been important that Tranby teachers were sympathetic and encouraged questions, and then took the time to explain, one-on-one, so that students could go at their own pace. They all said, however, that the most important place they learned new things was from other students. The things they learnt from other students ranged from learning how to ask for help with subjects through to learning how to defend yourself against racism – to ‘bullet-proof’ themselves. Many felt it had been very important that the students generally supported each other – for example, helping people to get through assignments just by offering encouragement, making cups of tea or just ‘being there’. The growing sense of confidence in their own learning resulted from these experiences and allowed some students not only to complete the Tranby courses they enrolled in but to think about going further, exploring options at TAFE or University that had never seemed accessible before.

This did not mean that the content of courses was not important at all – but that in the memories of these former students, they were only really able to access that course material because they felt they were in such a supportive atmosphere. One group of courses that interviewees mentioned particularly were the bookkeeping and mathematics courses, which they found they were much better at than they had been led to believe at school, and which had a practical use in community and business management. The other very important body of learning was the cultural, history and political area – some of this they learnt from courses, some from other students and some from the activities which Tranby fostered like the political campaigns for an end to discrimination in education, to end Black Deaths in Custody and for Land and Cultural Rights. Students valued this body of knowledge so highly they said because it helped them sharpen their sense of identity and it allowed them to be more confident in teaching their children.

Getting to know fellow students from all over Australia and learning to understand about differences in languages and cultures was something that all interviewees talked about. Some particularly mentioned that they had never before met Torres Strait Islanders before, as they themselves had come from south eastern cities or rural areas. Others mentioned that they had met Aboriginal students who were gay or lesbian and they this had been an important new step in their development. Many students mentioned meeting older fellow students and elders who came to teach informally and mentor the younger students. This appreciation of the diversity of Aboriginal people was valued and mentioned frequently in these interviews.

The ways that so many new conversations could be struck up between these diverse fellow students was over the shared lunch-time meals. Because the student body was funded to be full-time, the kitchen at Tranby could always be open. Lunch time meals were opportunities to meet people outside one’s own subjects and to expand networks of friendships. Even more, for many students, the openness and generosity of the shared meal was valued deeply for its symbolism – for many students it represented the welcomes they had received at the homes of relatives and grandparents so it made them feel ‘at home’. Just as much, it symbolised the values they cared strongly about in Aboriginal culture, of sharing rather than hoarding, of welcome and inclusivity rather than individualism and accumulation.

Not all students finished the courses they enrolled in. The records show that around a quarter of all students discontinued. They gave reasons like being unable to live on the limited income from Abstudy, homesickness, having competing family and child-care responsibilities or having found employment. Getting better work had after all been a goal for many in doing a Tranby course, so this was not necessarily a disadvantage. One of our interviewees had not finished her course because she had been offered a job she wanted, but she nevertheless found she had learned new things in the Tranby environment which changed the type of employment she had taken, focussing on community work from then on.

4. What they had learned at Tranby that they used in later life

For many people, passing the assignments and tests and just passing to achieve their Tertiary Preparation Certificate or their Business Studies Certificate, was a great advantage which allowed them to apply for the jobs they wanted. Just like many mainstream students passing the School Certificate or the Matriculation exams, they didn’t recall any of the content afterwards but the qualification was what counted!

However, each of the interviewees talked about learning some things which had stood them in good stead long after they had left Tranby. Some of these things had been learned in classes but much had been learned from fellow students and from Tranby social and political activities.

a. History and Culture: all interviewees talked about the importance to them of the cultural, political and historical knowledge they had gained. They were able to use this in many ways – to clarify for themselves their own sense of identities; to understand better the position of their own families and communities, even where they were alienated from them; and to decide where they wanted to put their energies in later jobs. A commonly expressed reason for valuing this knowledge so highly was that it allowed people to better know what to teach their own children.

a. Negotiation: a really important lesson for some was strategic thinking. Interviewees talked particularly about learning how to use negotiation skills, using strategic skills to think out how to achieve goals with persuasion and suggestion, rather than confronting people with demands. Interviewees said they had learned this at Tranby from watching staff and other students, but also from taking part in the diverse range of activities taking place at Tranby from newsletter production to demonstrations. Thinking strategically wasn’t part of any course work but it came with growing student confidence and the commitment they saw all around them in campaigns at Tranby.

c. Interviewees talked of the way their Tranby experience had helped them to ‘bullet proof’ themselves against racism. Understanding racism more clearly as they learned more political history and learning more too about cooperation and unity in political campaigns were all important. But as many interviewees explained, it was what they learned from other students which had helped them the most to ‘bullet proof’ themselves against racism and discrimination all through their later lives.

NOTES

→ The full report of the findings of the Networking Tranby Research Project [PDF 581KB]

All names of students in the Report are pseudonyms in accordance with university ethics protocols. Tranby Archives will hold copies of all Interview audio and transcript as well the State Library of NSW, with access determined by the interviewees. The Tranby Board holds the Database of Students, 1980 to 1987, holding 1095 records.