This week the Year 3 neighbourhood has reflected on the experiences of indigenous Australians. As part of their reflection the students listened and responded to the book, Took the Children Away by Archie Roach. Some of their responses were:
Arabella: It made me feel really emotional. The words and the song made me feel emotional about what’s happened.
Edie: A connection to Arabella is that is also made me feel emotional because of everything we’re watching and the lyrics and how he was singing. It all sounded really sad.
Nina: All the start of the song about them taking children way he was singing in a sad voice then when we started singing about the children coming back he sang in a happy voice.
Decca: You could see by his face and the lyrics and the background how he was feeling. He would have been feeling down when he came back and his parents weren’t alive anymore.
Francie: I tried to imagine what it would feel like being taken away but I think it was very hard to imagine.
Koen: That was amazing. It was a really emotional and amazing song.
Makaila: It would have been really hard for him because just imagine if that happened to you.
Owen: This is a question: when they said the father stood his ground and he said touch my children and you’ll fight me.
Jack K: The saddest thing about it is that they probably wouldn’t know what was happening because they were too young.
Blai: I like when he had the kids when the kid was on the grass.
Alex: I noticed when he was singing the children came back that all of his friends and his wife came back to him to sing with him.
The students also listened to Briggs – The Children Came Back ft. Gurrumul & Dewayne Everettsmith.
Their responses to this work were:
Frances: I think they feel pretty good about being Aboriginal. I saw that there were lots of white and dark people together. I think it was really good.
Nina: I liked this one better because it showed how powerful Aboriginal people are and how they don’t get bullied. It made me feel like in Black Lives Matter how people were saying black people are bad… just because people have black skin doesn’t mean they are bad.
Tucker: One thing about what Nina said and Kofi is that Kofi is African. A thing about the song is that the second one was more upbeat.
The Year 3 neighbourhood