Motion

The theme for Abstract Thursday is Motion, so I took a shot of a print using ICM.  Thanks to Ingeborg for hosting AT.  
I want to give a shout out to Dr. Lester-Irabinna Rigney, a very good friend of ours, so I used the print Bush Tucker by the Indigenous Australian artist Julie Nabangardi Shedden. We bought it when we travelled to Australia in 1994. I was fortunate to represent the Indigenous teacher education program I worked with (NITEP) in an exchange with the Yunggorendi First Nations Centre for Higher Education and Research at Flinders University in Adelaide. G travelled with me, and what an experience we had visiting that centre, and Indigenous schools and programs in Adelaide and Alice Springs. I gave several presentations about NITEP and learned so much about the similarities between Indigenous education in Canada and Australia and the problems faced by the people to succeed in western systems. It was at Yunggorendi that we met Dr. Lester-Irabinna Rigney. We stayed with him and his wife Jo for a week. We reconnected with Lester in 1996 in at a conference in Albuquerque, and Lester had to leave early because his daughter Tikari was about to be born. We've since met Tikari and Tarniwarra, their second daughter, and they've become our Australian family. Tiki and Tarni are close in age to our two granddaughters. Lester-Irabinna stayed with us for awhile when he was writing one of his books, and the family has also stayed with us. We spent time with them when he was a visiting professor at UBC. Such an unexpected and wonderful connection.
We recently learned that Lester has been made a Member of the Order of Australia, such a well deserved honour! 
Here's some information about him:
"Prof. Lester-Irabinna Rigney from the Narungga, Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri nations is a prominent Indigenous educationalist and commentator. He grew up at Point Pearce Mission on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, and on leaving school initially completed an apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic. He then studied for a B.Ed. and later went on to obtain a M.Ed. and a Ph.D. He has worked as a secondary school teacher and as a university lecturer and researcher, and was for many years Director of the Yunggorendi First Nations Centre for Higher Education and Research, at Flinders University. He is Dean of Aboriginal Education and Director of the Wilto Yerlo Centre at the University of Adelaide. Within academia, Rigney has gained widespread recognition for his work on Indigenous education and research methodologies. He has been a visiting research fellow at a number of overseas universities, including Cambridge University, Fort Hare University, and the University of British Columbia. He has served on the editorial board of several national Indigenous Studies journals, and has been regional editor of the International Journal of Post-Colonial Studies. He was inducted into the Australian College of Educators (ACE) in 1998, and was elected to the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Research Advisory Committee in 2002. In 2009 he received an honorary United Nations award for his work on Indigenous Education. In the public sphere, Rigney has been a prominent spokesman on Indigenous matters, and has served as a committee member and adviser to a number of government agencies."
"2021 recipient Order of Australia - Member of the order of Australia (AM) For significant service to Indigenous education, and to social inclusion research."
Website: https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A95714

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