Why decolonising education matters: Al Fricker’s story

Whether he’s teaching fresh-faced preps or lecturing at university level, Dr Al Fricker is endlessly passionate about the power of great teaching and education. So deep is this passion that Fricker is determined to unpick the fabric of our current education system – a system based on colonial history. 

A Dja Dja Wurrung man and Deakin University’s Associate Director of Teaching and Learning for Indigenous Studies, Fricker’s connection to country and pride in First Nations people sits at the heart of just about everything he does – particularly education.  

Sitting down with Dom Hennequin for the latest Stories of Wonder podcast, Fricker talks about the power of a great education, his desire to decolonise Australia’s education system, and the importance of indigenous Australian representation in academia. 

Meet Dr Al Fricker 

Despite being a self-described ‘ratbag’ in school, the precocious Fricker seems to have been destined for academic success. Out of high school, Fricker jumped into an Ancient World Studies degree, following his parents inheading to university.

‘Two factors that really impacted me was, my mom was one of the early women in science graduates back in the late seventies, early eighties at Monash Uni,’ Fricker says. ‘So, she’d gone to university well before I was born. My dad, who is Aboriginal, had dropped out of school early, done a couple of apprenticeships, ran his own business, and he started his university journey when I was in my final year of high school.’ 

Finding few job choices for an Ancient Studies graduate and inspired by working with kids as a basketball coach, it wasn’t long before Fricker decided to return to study. He took up a post-graduate degree in education, focusing on history, humanities and mathematics. As a young teacher, Fricker taught at a small community school in the Dandenongs, teaching students from prep to year 12.  

Now, at Deakin University, Fricker has a higher–level role – maybe his most important yet.  

‘I’m ultimately the person responsible for all of the Indigenous Studies units that we teach across Deakin University,’ he says. ‘So, every year, we’ll probably work with one to 2000 students across all of the units that we offer. The majority of them are non-Indigenous students, and they have engaged with the discipline, because I think many of them recognise that there’s a gap in their knowledge, and they’re looking to fill that gap.’ 

Al Fricker’s story: From teaching to transformation 

Fricker’s time as a school teacher was rewarding, but it opened his eyes to some systemic difficulties in the Australian education system – especially for First Nations people. 

‘I found myself navigating the schooling system as a Dja Dja Wurrung teacher and finding myself in a really challenging position, where I was being required to enforce those same colonial ideologies that underpin what schooling should look like, feel like,’ Fricker says. 

‘Whether it’s quite punitive at times, whether it can be exclusionary, whether it can be quite the term that some of my research touches on, that idea of ‘carceral logics’ – so the same ideas that sit and underpin judicial system are often manifesting within a classroom as well, so the classrooms almost feel like a prison, in some cases.’ 

Though the system makes for a tough experience – for both Fricker and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students – Fricker’s time as a teacher inspired him to follow a new path toward decolonising education.  

‘I thought, “You know what? Maybe, potentially, if I step out of the classroom, I might be able to affect some kind of system reform which potentially could support better outcomes for not only Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids, but also non-Indigenous students as well”,’ he says. 

What does decolonising education mean?  

Education has been happening on country in Australia for tens of thousands of years, says Fricker. The contemporary education system, though, is very much the product of European colonialism.  

He describes this system as prioritising ‘productivity and compliance’ – work-preparedness, essentially – which represents a big difference in the philosophy of Western knowledge versus Indigenous knowledge. 

Fricker says that the idea of decolonising education is about extending education beyond the capitalist, colonial lens of career work and productivity.  

Instead, decolonised education can be about ‘the joy of experiencing accomplishment, gaining knowledge and wisdom, gaining insights, critical thinking skills.’ And, to educate in this way, Fricker says we ought to look to First Nations people as an example. 

‘When we think about decolonising education, what my research argues is that we’re the oldest continuous cultures in the world,’ Fricker says. ‘We know that culture’s not innate; we know that you are born into culture, you’re not born with it. So, it stands to reason, therefore, that if we’re the oldest continuous cultures, then Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have the oldest learning and teaching knowledges and pedagogies in the world. So why wouldn’t we want that to be accessible by all of our students so they can gain the benefits of that too?’ 

Decolonising curriculum and education: what real reform looks like 

Speaking as a former school teacher, Fricker knows the challenges of decolonising the curriculum and education.  

In reassessing and decolonising education, he supports mandating reform in the classroom – especially when it comes to including the voices of indigenous scholarship. It’s something he’s pushing for at Deakin. 

‘What if we changed the assessment rubrics to require unit chairs to get students to cite Aboriginal and Torres Islander scholarship as part of the research component in their assessments?’, he asks. ‘And if we’re going to includeAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers and scholarship on our reading list, maybe we should look at that as a weekly topic. And that then gets us started so that we now start to create a context where, in the short to medium term, we’ll have units where they’ll have potentially one dedicated week per unit where they engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges through Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research scholarship.’ 

The goal is to have these sorts of mandated reformed curricula snowball, with an increased focus on indigenous scholarship and teaching Indigenous knowledge in the classroom. Ideally, this focus transforms and decolonisesnot just our education system, but employment as well. 

‘Then we start creating a really strong stranded narrative through all units, through all programs, and then we have that really solid basis where our graduates can go out into industry and have that prerequisite knowledge already and start to change the way that they work,’ Fricker says. 

How to be an Indigenous comrade 

For First Nations people like Fricker, decolonising education is something deeply personal. Even for Australians outside those communities, though, it’s vital to be supportive of these important changes and to be an indigenous comrade. In doing so, Fricker expectsdecolonising education to feel uncomfortable – but that’s just a natural part of the process.  

‘We have to prepare non-Indigenous staff, comrades who want to come with us to recognise that they’re going to feel uncomfortable at times,’ he says. ‘And so, when we start using those sort of policy settings to start to encourage people to reform, we create, I think, potentially, far gentler ways of being able to get them to start engaging than ways that immediately get their backs up and they start getting defensive and start rallying against it. The psychology of decolonising is really, really tricky and really, really complex.’ 

Rapid fire questions with Al 

While decolonising education is vital for Fricker, there’s more to his character and story. To finish their Stories of Wonder interview, Hennequin lobbed a few rapid-fire personal questions at Fricker. 

Who’s someone you look up to? 

Fricker is clear that there’s no shortage of idols in his life. From the Elders in his community to the kids he has taught and the leaders at Deakin University, he’s been blessed with people to respect and look up to. Top of the list, though, is his dad. 

‘I think one of the things I love is that he works with me at NIKERI, and he actually was here first, and he was one of the big reasons why I came to Deakin and to NIKERI, because he’s like, “This place is great. Come along. Everyone’s amazing. You know, you’ll be great. You’ll be amazing.” And the time that I’ve been here, I’ve had such wonderful success, and it’s been an exhausting journey, but a wonderful one.’ 

What do you do to unwind? 

For Fricker, unwinding means spending time with family. ‘I have a nephew and a gaggle of nieces who I just absolutely adore, and I love just connecting with them.’ 

Video games are important, too. ‘I just recently bought myself a PlayStation 5, so I’ve got a couple of PlayStation 5 games that I’m sort of getting into. Mostly, first-person shooters and strategy games and things like that. It just helps me switch off for a while.’ 

What is your favourite place?  

Another of Fricker’s favourite ways to unwind is to visit Dja Dja Wurrung country in Victoria’s Central Goldfields. It’s also, by far, his favourite place in the world. 

‘As soon as I get onto Country, I feel like a weight just comes off. Hearing the animals, the birds, feeling the wind, touching the trees, the earth, the soil, there’s nothing quite like it. And having the opportunity to feel held by the ancestors in that space is something that I definitely cherish, and it means a lot.’ 

Fricker’s passion for decolonising education is clear, as we hear for ourselves in his Stories of Wonder interview. But, in the end, his love of Country might be his greatest passion of all.