Learning on and from Country

Learning on and from Country

In this sharing we will yarn about our different research projects that advocate for Indigenous Relational Worldviews, pedagogies and ways to challenge the thinking, separateness and ego that currently sits within the dominant culture and systems. The presenters come from different places in this conversation and are looking forward to engaging in conversation with participants.

Kath Coff: Deep Listening to the wind: a time to carve out an equal space for an Indigenous Relational Worldview in Education

Currently in Australia post referendum, First Nations peoples are struggling to find their place, especially our kids. Now more than ever as adults we need to take responsibility for the pain we carry and walk together on the road that heals so we can show up and hold space for our children, to not give up the work in educating others and opening their hearts to change that includes Country. In this presentation I share an overview of my current PhD research. My project, Deep Listening to the wind: a time to carve out an equal space for an Indigenous Relational Worldview in Education seeks to identify and document the shift in how non-Indigenous classroom teachers see the world from a Western Worldview to an Indigenous Relational Worldview, and how this shift informs their teaching practice. As teachers make this shift in their worldview, and then their practice, this creates the conditions for Indigenous children to thrive, not just survive mainstream schooling. Drawing on teachings from my Ancestors, Country and Community, I use the metaphor of conglomerate rock to make visible the ways that the Western Worldviews and an Indigenous Relational Worldview can come together to create change in pedagogical practices to ensure that Indigenous students (and all students) thrive in education systems. An always reminder that Country is our greatest teacher.

Catherine Hamm: Learning with Place

This paper shares practices for activating the vital role of Place in learning in early childhood, responding to the provocation; How do we learn with our local Places? I share ethographic practices from the Out and About with Kulin seasons pedagogical inquiry on Boonwurrung/Bunurong Country in Melbourne, Australia. Ethographic practices focus firstly on more-than-human ways of life, and then over time draw humans into the story. Ethographic practices generate ways of noticing places differently, where more than human lifeways are foregrounded. In the Australian context, this includes respectfully foregrounding First Nations worldviews, and taking seriously the response-abilities and accountabilities of engaging with ongoing colonial inheritances and activating environmental justice.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

252 Bloor St W 11 164, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Canada