Dog school
Wanja is a riot of a story — ten pages, 114 words — about a blue heeler who lives on The Block in Sydney's Redfern. The book was written by Aboriginal elder Aunty Barb Stacey and illustrated by Adam Hill. Their Wanja is a streak of movement against horizontal surrounds: part flying kangaroo, part street mutt. The palette is tightly controlled: red, yellow and black. The bubble lettering evokes the tradition of the 1970s political poster.
Aunty Barb also lives on The Block and the real Wanja came to live with her when still a puppy. I don't know Aunty Barb, but I do know Wanja — the dog — quite well because Wanja — the book — was the subject of a parental complaint and much school discussion in my first year of teaching.
Wanja is a Guided Reader, a book designed to assist reading development in the early years of schooling. In simple language it describes how Wanja was a normal dog, how she enjoyed visiting friends, sleeping, playing ball, chasing sticks and footy. It also tells us of Wanja's talent, the special skill that garnered the book's subtitle: One Smart Dog. Wanja, you learn, could smell a cop at 20 paces. Wanja, you'd hear, would defend her turf. Wanja, you see, couldn't help but get her paddy up when she saw that paddy wagon coming down the street.
A set of parents, who were not Indigenous, voiced a concern about the positive representation of Wanja's anti-authoritarian attitude: 'Then Wanja would see a police van. Wanja loved to chase the van. Wanja loved to bark at the van. Wanja loved to bite at the wheel. The police van would drive away.'
With sincere conviction the parents argued that Wanja presented a confusing message for young children. Part of the child protection program at kindergarten age is that the police are people you can trust. Police are your friends. They are there to help you. Wanja was removed from the school's Guided Reading program.
Is Australia a racist country? Ask any Aboriginal person and you'll get an unequivocal answer. The statistics of systematic disadvantage are at once well-known and shocking.
Nowhere is the disparity between black and other Australians starker than in the area I work in, education. This year's National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) figures reveal that four out of every ten Aboriginal students sitting literacy and numeracy