Jen Houston, a singer songwriter from the centre of New York City, has one thing in common with Indigenous children in remote communities in the Kimberley’s – and that’s understanding the importance of storytelling in maintaining a sense of community.
Show Radio today featured a clip from Jen’s song about the need for us all to self-isolate, I’m Gonna Just Stay Home, which is a loose parody of Bon Jovi’s Who Says You Can’t Go Home? But with a million hits in just three days, Jen’s song has reverberated with people across the globe, because it explains in its lyrics what we are doing universally for community, while giving us a bopping country song to sing along too when it all gets a bit too much.
Celebrated children’s author Susanne Gervay OAM spoke to us about the importance of story to indigenous children and their education when she shared her stories about her visit to the Kimberley’s in an extremely remote school, which took a bumpy flight in a small plane and 10 hours in a four-wheel-drive to reach. Susanne told us that story is central to all learning at the school, whatever the subject under discussion, and that by incorporating part of the Aboriginal way of learning – visual as well as by story – we will all benefit from putting our learning journeys into a context of value to our own neighbourhoods, in the city or the bush.
Susanne explains the power of storytelling below:
