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typists, those working in the publication centre, and, above all,
those responsible for leadership.
Young people are led to a choice from these identities offered,
and interact with the typification of such an identity. They are
supported and encouraged in this by the approval of the significant
others in their world.
Since the young people are integrated into the total group,
choices are not made simply within the confines of a nuclear family.
Identity, and roles, are located within the total social structure,
and in view of the good of the whole. Choices are made within this
framework and are supported by the whole group.
At every step leading to identity formation, there is no
situation structured for failure.
In the traditional world uncles look after young boys, and in a
one to one situation guide and support them through the stages of
initiation.
Education, both in its broadest sense and in the new, narrower
sense of schooling, is structured in a manner that leads to success,
not failure. Young people are watched, their potential, their
leanings assessed, their strengths encouraged. They are not, in
any area of their lives, in competition with others that downgrades
their own worth. The notion of grades and grading is irrelevant.
Schooling, taken from white society, has been fused into this world
view. Schooling is not divided into 'stages’ as in the model of the
white world. For example, the notion of education as being ’secondary’, and
of everyone being entitled to a secondary education, is irrelevant.
It is the development of the individual personality that is important
through whatever processes of education deemed to be relevant. Thus,
sheepbreeding programmes in the white model would be characterised
as ’secondary education’. In the Aboriginal world however, in the
Stucturing of formal education, such categorisation is meaningless.
Schooling is directed towards an end, rather than being an end in
itself; the gaining Ofaqualification, as such, is not important.