Amid the crisis surrounding the education of Aborginal children in Australia, there is a ray of hope. The unlikely source: Israeli teachers. Forgotten Children chronicles a team of Israeli teachers as they travel to the Australian outback to introduce a new method for teaching at-risk kids.
When professor Marcia Langton, head of Indigenous Studies at Melbourne University, heard about Hebrew University’s innovative program of accelerated learning targeting disadvantaged students, she immediately saw its potential for combating the challenges faced by indigenous populations in remote regions of Australia, many of whom were unable to speak or write English.
In 2004 she saw the method applied first hand, to Bedouin children in Israel. Upon her return, Langton established YALP, a three-year educational intervention program aimed at raising the scholastic achievements of indigenous students. The first Israeli team arrived in 2005. Over the next three years, the teachers traveled in pairs-via small airplanes-to remote schools in The Kimberley, Alice Springs and Shepparton to train indigenous teachers.
