A Pedagogy for Becoming Family with Place

http://video.deakin.edu.au/media/1_8g2aptbm

In this presentation, we show how Indigenous-led Transformative Sustainability Education (TSE) links with one of the oldest continuous environmental education systems in the world. We explain the pedagogy we call becoming family with place. We emphasise that because of its 60,000+ year history, Australian environmental education carries an obligation to support Indigenous cultural resurgence through TSE, and we describe what this might look like in the context of environmental education. Because every Australian landscape is Indigenous and storied, all Australians have an inherent right to learn that joy in place, along with the responsibility to care for place and its narratives. Teaching and learning a relationship with place as family, is one way that environmental education can lead a movement for change. The pedagogy integrates four ways of learning, which are experiential, creative, propositional and participative – a way of knowing for human flourishing. It is for celebrating a love of place and for coming home to Country.

We acknowledge Aboriginal custodians and traditional knowledge holders past, present and emerging, of the places we all live and work.