AAEE Learning Circle: Reinvigorating Country as Teacher in Outdoor and Environmental Education

Please join us for our AAEE May Learning Circle: Reinvigorating Country as Teacher in Outdoor and Environmental Education 

Who: Monty Nixon, PhD student at the University of Canberra and a member of the AAEE ACT Chapter Executive Committee.

When: Tuesday, 13 May || 5-6.30pm AEST.

Where: Online via Zoom.

What: 

‘All we are is a story, and a good story is one of obligation and connection’ – Damu Paul Gordon.

For over 60,000 years, Indigenous people in Australia lived a good story, one bound in relational reciprocity. At the heart of this story, for many Indigenous cultures across Australia, was the knowledge that Country is and always was the central knowledge holder. Subsequently Australia’s first Outdoor and Environmental Education was primarily about young people sharing direct experiences with, and learning from Country and Earth-Kin, largely facilitated by their grandparents and grounded in cross-kinship systems. In this workshop participants will be invited to reflect on the current socio-ecological narrative and how education might open-up new possibilities by taking lead from from Australia’s first environmental educators. To this end, this workshop introduces Country as Teacher, as a pedagogy for Country-and-student led-inquiry, a teaching and learning approach that maintained socio-ecological well-being for millennia. We will explore the foundational understanding of a modern approach to Country as Teacher, based on Senior Custodian for Karulkiyalu Country Damu Paul Gordon’s re-interpretation of this old way of teaching and learning, the 6Ls. As Milroy and Milroy (2010) write the birthright of all children to connect with and learn from Country, coming to know, love, and understand how to care for her through relational reciprocity. Subsequently, this workshop invites participants to consider the pedagogic opportunities to honour this old way of teaching and learning and, in doing so, to help us all live our birthright, a good story of connection and obligation.

Biography:

Monty Nixon is a PhD student at the University of Canberra interested in how Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing can help create more sustainable education systems. Growing up walking through the mountain ranges of Arrente Country in the central deserts of Australia ignited Monty's passion for spending time with Earth-Kin, inspiring a move to Dja Dja Warrung Country, to study Outdoor and Environmental Education. Monty has spent the previous four years as a research assistant on the Country as Teacher project in the Centre for Sustainable Communities at the University of Canberra. Drawing on his experiences on the Country as Teacher Project at the University of Canberra and his background in Outdoor Education, Monty's PhD aims to help develop Outdoor and Environmental Education programs that enable students come to know, understand and care for the places they live.

Please join us! All welcome. This session will be recorded and will be available afterwards to AAEE members via our Learning Circle library on our website.