These are my notes from the one day of the HTAV conference I attended last year, 10 November.

Keynote
Hayden Keenan (film-maker) and Gary Foley (historian; works with Melb Uni Education bods), talking about Ningla-Ana, about the Tent Embassy

*Making the film: cameras had become smaller, more mobile, longer-lasting and quieter, which democratised film-making.

*Timeline:
1938 – Day of Mourning (sesquicentenary of invasion/colonisation)
1965 – Charles Perkins Freedom Ride
1966 – Gurindji walk off station
1967 – referendum (passed by 9:1! Aborigines allowed to vote etc)
1969 – Black Power organised (inspired by Malcolm X and the Black Panthers; failure of referendum to really change anything. Dennis Walker, Paul Coe).
1971 – South African rugby tour
AND Black Moratorium demonstrations: basically anti-Apartheid types who were challenged to suuport Aborigines in their own country.

*Tent Embassy: four boys turned up to make a point about PM Billy McMahon’s declaration against land rights. Police said as long as there were only 11 tents, they could stay! Tourists came along… they set up a post box, and three days later mail arrived! VIPs also came along. International media attention started turning their way.
**McMahon changed the laws, making it illegal to camp on the lawns of Parliament House. Ten minutes later, the Aborigines moved off, some were arrested/injured. Two days later, 2000 Aborigines came to the ACT and re-erected the tents, protected by bodies. Some violence; 18 arrested (22 July).
**30 July, 3000 demonstrators set up the tents again. Kooris not resisting, just watching.
** Six months later, McMahon was out and Whitlam (Labor) was in (had visited the Tent).

***Ignorance leads to intolerance.
cf. Koori Web

Seminar 1
*Stories are valid ways of telling history, teaching, etc.Kids will learn when they are engaged!
*Selling textbook.

Seminar 2
VELS unpacked.
**Question dice
Matrices for assessment, especially against VELS
Deep learning is important
Viking interviews/build a village
Buy a Viking hat (ignore the anachronism)
Actively teach thinking skills, concepts, words – ‘classify’, not ‘put into groups’.

Seminar 3
Such a Life: Ned Kelly incursion, done by the Old Melbourne Gaol people. Done by just two actors, playing five roles between them.