Sophia-maria’s sorry day schooling for school's

Sophia-maria and Anna-maria’s podcast in a Q and A style interview rehash a beautiful speech by Sophia-maria to her year 2 class on Australia’s national sorry day. 
This speech was inspired by the Kuarna cultural centre at Warriparinga. There is an artistic display that signifies the colonisation of the lands by displaying standing chopped trees linked together with chains. The art display provoked further questions by Sophia-maria about the lands and the history of the settlers. 
Sophia begins her story with how the Queen of England’s family came over and colonised the lands. Sophia-maria talks about the lands changing so dramatically in respect to the days where buildings of cement and paved cement roads did not exist. Sophia-maria mentions the quality of the water, stating that the water is not at an adequate standard and questions why this is happening on these lands (O'Brien & Baker, 2019), a valuable observation had by such a young child.

Image (Namatjira, 2019)
Namatjira, V. (2019). Art is our weapon – portrait of Tony Albert. In (pp. acrylic on army surplus camouflage material). Art Gallery NSW.

Sophia - Maria pt.1

Image (Namatjira, 2019)

Pt. 2 Q and A with Sophia-maria.

Amy (Thunig, 2018) talks about how as a teacher she see’s many people who have a lack of awareness surrounding the truths of the lands they live on. This Q and A makes one wonder if the year 2 primary students of these lands are ready for more truth than they are currently being told. 
Sophia-maria makes a powerful statement when sharing her view on sovereignty and how the Queen is no better than any other person (Lucashenko, 2018) as she speaks about how we could improve the importance of sorry day to those who still are suffocated with whiteness. 
Sophia-maria leaves room for further questions, questions from the voices of the children in her class, voices that teachers should hear. Sophia-maria’s class are curious to learn more about how the children were removed from Aboriginal families, what the conditions were surrounding removal and re-housing and it would serve Sophia-maria’s generation well to know that this occurs in covert ways in her generation still. Sophia-maria’s mother believes that Sophia-maria’s generation would benefit from hearing stories such as Ali Cobby Eckermann’s (Thunig, 2018) that are alive and occuring in the decade of Sophia’s birth. To hear first hand how children are still coming back to their families. 
Sophia-maria finishes her piece by inviting further conversations, asking people to take the time to talk to one another to keep asking questions, to keep the truth coming out from the shadows, to understand where sovereignty lay and where sovereignty should lay. 
The more we talk about things, the more we can release the fear of the conversation, back to where it belongs, which is not in the hearts and minds of the young and those who have felt it through out these difficult years (Harjo, urbanrenewalprogram).


Reference
Harjo, J. (Producer). (urbanrenewalprogram). Joy Harjo A Poem to Get Rid of Fear. 
Lucashenko, M. (2018). Writing as a Sovereign Act. MEANJIN QUARLTERLY. Retrieved from https://meanjin.com.au/essays/writing-as-a-sovereign-act/
Namatjira, V. (2019). Art is our weapon – portrait of Tony Albert. In (pp. acrylic on army surplus camouflage material). Art Gallery NSW.
O'Brien, L. Y., & Baker, A. G. (2019). Wardlipari Homeriver: Vulnerable observations. Artlink, 39(1), 48-53. 
Thunig, A. (2018). Educator resource: ‘But I am NOT ABORIGINAL I don’t know how to do this stuff!’.  Retrieved from https://thebabyacademic.com/2018/09/07/but-i-am-not-aboriginal-i-dont-know-how-to-do-this-stuff/