Preservice teachers’ learning with Yuin Country: becoming respectful teachers in Aboriginal education

Abstract

The ownership of Aboriginal knowledge and the Aboriginal perspective presented in school curriculum is always with Country. A number of preservice teachers were taken to a sacred story, “Gulaga a Living Spiritual Mountain,” to participate in an elective subject to engage in respectful reciprocal relationship with Country. The spirituality of Country is unknown to many preservice teachers, consequently the concept of Country as teacher in a respectful reciprocal relationship was unfamiliar. Engaging in Aboriginal ways of knowing, learning, and behaving provides an opportunity for preservice teachers to initiate a relationship with Country to respectfully implement Aboriginal perspectives in their own teaching. This article not only examines how preservice teachers developed a relationship with Country, but also importantly demonstrates how a relationship between Country, researcher, all the participants, and the research can inform respectful behaviour in reculturalising Aboriginal perspectives.

Keywords:

• Aboriginal perspectives
• communities
• country
• experience
• partnerships
• preservice teachers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Bakawa Country is in north east Arnhem Land (Bakawa Country et al., 2013).

2. Sister in this context means a non-Aboriginal woman who understands that spirit is not black nor white, it is one in the same.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anthony McKnight

Anthony McKnight is an Awabakal, Gumaroi, and Yuin Man. Anthony is currently a lecturer and enrolled in a PhD in the Faculty of Social Science at the UoW.