Indigenous Academic Support News
Indigenous Academic Support Unit
Indigenous Academic Support Newsletter; E-Journals; PublicationNT
2008-08-01
This publication contains may contain links to external sites. These external sites may no longer be active.; Made available via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT).
Date:2008-08
English
Aboriginal Australians -- Education -- Research -- Periodicals; Aboriginal Australians -- Education (Higher) -- Northern Territory -- Periodicals
Charles Darwin University
Darwin
issue 7
Check within Publication or with content Publisher.
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/153173
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/718128
ISSUE # 7 | AUGUST 2008 STAFF PROFILE: SHARON SPENCER I am an Indigenous woman from Central Australia, who has worked in the fi eld of Early Childhood and Education for over 25 years. I left school to work at one of the local childcare centres and after a few years was encouraged to do a childcare course but back then there was nothing available in Alice Springs and so I had to move interstate. Well, I went as far as possible and ended up in Geelong, Victoria now that was a culture shock and after 2 years I completed the childcare course and returned to Alice Springs. I continued to work in childcare for several more years and then I got the crazy idea to follow my sister into the Army, so I joined up and went into the Armys Nursing Corp. This was a great experience but for various reasons I returned to Central Australia after completing three years. I went back to working in Childrens Services and my time in the Army gave me the confi dence to study and I have since completed an Associate Diploma in Arts Aboriginal Studies and a Bachelor of Adult Education. With my qualifi cations in hand, I was employed as a Lecturer at the local Alice Springs TAFE. It was known then as Centralian College and I worked in the Indigenous Support Unit (now Akaltye Centre) as well as the Colleges Childrens Services and Education departments. With the merger of Centralian College and the Northern Territory University into Charles Darwin University and subsequent changes, my position was relocated to the School of Education and I have since completed a Batchelor of Early Childhood. Currently, I am completing a Masters of Indigenous Knowledges, with a focus on Indigenous childrearing practices and with lots of neices and nephews this seemed logical. As a qualifi ed Workplace Trainer and Assessor, I am now able to use my extensive knowledge and skills to adapt and contextualise training and assessing to the benefi ts and needs of those students undertaking study through CDU. More importantly, I think it is vital to encourage and support all Indigenous students and to be a positive role model for our children. Sharon Spencer 3