Teaching Jessica Mauboy: when two Top End 12-year-olds met an Australian pop star

Dean teaching Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in Mangarrayi to Jessica Mauboy as part of the Indigenous Literacy Day national digital event. Photograph: ILF

Last month, 12-year-old Derek was home in his estuary-fringed community on Melville Island, north of Darwin, where he likes fishing for barramundi, catching snakes and going to school, when he took a call from pop star Jessica Mauboy.

To have Mauboy appear in Milikapiti – it was a video call – was, understandably, a big deal.