Interview with an educator The power of a good morning routine Mat Burt
I’ve lived my entire life in Australia, and
have spent over 20 years as an educator.
18 months ago, I made a move to a
remote part of Australia
that has changed my view of my country
and my understanding of what my role
as an educational leader is.
Most of you would know Australia
for its extremes–
its weather, its wildlife and environment,
but it’s one extreme that I’ll focus on today:
social disadvantage and its impact on
the oldest living culture in the world,
Australian Aboriginals.
Our Aboriginal students face some
of the greatest social disadvantages
of our nation’s population.
Families are faced with trauma, domestic
violence, poor health, high mortality,
low literacy and numeracy, and
overcrowding.
The majority of my students live locally,
but some of my students come from
small remote Aboriginal communities
hundreds and thousands of kilometers away.
These communities are extremely
isolated and remote.
They are cut off from the rest of the
world during the wet season,
and there is very little opportunity for
employment.
They have limited access to health
care and education in communities
does not cater for students
who want to finish high school
or further their education.
If students from communities want to
complete high school,
they have to move away from their family,
and this means moving from their
community to a boarding school in the city
thousands of kilometers away.
They are then denied the opportunity to
grow up learning about their native culture
and native language.
These children face enormous
challenges just getting to school,
let alone doing their best once they’re
seated in the classroom.
The only consistency and routine that
they rely on
comes in the form of a
structured school day.
It’s because of this that these students
love school.
Through building trust and positive
relationships,
I’m able to engage students in a
structured routine,
and most importantly, I model a positive
consistent routine to start the school day.
Mornings at our school start with staff
conducting early pickups
in buses and school cars, followed by
exercise, like our football training,
a hearty breakfast, and fresh clothing in
preparation for a successful school day.
After school, students have provided
structured homework classes
and engaging activities, and by doing
this for our most at risk students,
we are able to bridge the gap between
what they don’t have
and what our most privileged students
do have:
structure and routine outside the
timetabled school day.
I’ve been in education for a number of
years, and I had an opportunity
to move to a remote part of Australia
that I’d never been to,
and ended up moving to the Kimberley
in Broome, Western Australia.
It was a bit of a culture shock for me
and my family,
because we had never really engaged
or understood the history of Australia
and the importance of
understanding indigenous culture,
and that the values that that could play
in our education system,
and also in our lives.
So part of part of what I did when I
first moved to Broome
was to commit myself to
listen and understand and learn
about the local indigenous culture,
and also broader communities
throughout the rest of the Kimberley.
So in doing that, a lot of what I learnt
was that what I had been doing
as part of education within the school
setting for what was 20 years
was something that worked in that
setting, but here in the same country
only a few thousand kilometers from
where I’d been working before,
I found I was in a completely
different context.
I needed different ways to engage and earn
trust from the students and the community,
and realised very quickly that what I
needed to do was involve myself
within the lives of these students and
families,
not only within the hours of the school
day, but outside of school,
and involve and learn and listen to
understand what their needs were.
Can’t remember the author
at this particular point in time,
but they talked about the fact that
we can only influence the child
between the hours of 8 and 3, when
they’re at school,
and I thought, that is so so wrong and
so different to the situation that I’m in here.
It was more about, for me,
if I was going to influence a child
between the hours of 8 and 3,
I needed to understand them outside
of those hours.
They feel like they’re coming to a place
where they don’t belong,
where I’ve set up structures that are based
on the school system that we work within
and they have to try and assimilate and
fit into that structure.
So when I’m thinking through and was
thinking through my through line
and what I wanted to bring across,
it was more about what I could do outside
of my normal role here as a principal
between the hours of 8 and 3,
but what can I do and what can others do
to make sure that that role is more effective
and has more of an impact on the success
of students during that school day.
What I’ve learned is that a lot of the
times we’ve got to step outside
to learn about other cultures
and other ways
that people live within our diverse
community.
Now, for me to get to know those students,
better I have to put myself in their shoes.
So I get up at the early time
that they get up,
and then go to football training
and train with them,
as if I was one of the students in that group,
and that way I can start to relate,
and then have conversations and then
open that trust
and that relationship with those
students.
That impact of making sure that we
can build a strong foundation,
means that when there is an issue at
school,
I already have that connection and I am able
to work through situations or challenges
much easier than if we didn’t
have that connection,
and that has been a very fruitful
situation to be in on many occasions.
The other is connecting myself with the
local or the traditional owners of Broome
and making sure that I understand and
am respectful of the needs of the people
that have been here for tens
of thousands of years.
So the process for me in coming up
with this idea and where it ended up
was more about my personal journey
and what I’ve learnt
as someone who had probably been in
a bit of a routine of doing the same thing
year in year out, and putting myself
up here in the remote Kimberley,
and being out of my comfort zone
and learning about a new side of Australia
that I didn’t understand, and I’ve lived
here for over 40 years now
and I’m here still learning and trying
to understand what this place is about
and what I’m about and what I can do
for my country
and help the indigenous people of this
country have a voice
and have an ally in myself
to get that voice to be heard.
And it’s a big part of where I want
to go in the future with this
and really get the voice of our indigenous
people heard and understood, valued,
and given the respect that it deserves.