8 Ways Aboriginal Learning Pedagogy

I have been doing some reading lately about the '8 ways' of Aboriginal pedagogy framework. It has been fascinating! It refers to the Aboriginal way of demonstrating how to teach through culture, rather than about culture. In essence, it shows a way that teachers can include Aboriginal perspectives by using Aboriginal learning techniques. We don't learn about culture, we learn through culture. In these 8 ways. 

The 8 Ways pedagogy came from Western NSW; Baakindji, Ngiyampaa, Yuwaalaraay, Gamilaraay, Wiradjuri, Wangkumarra and other nations own the knowledge from which the 8 ways comes from. What it is saying is that processes not necessarily content are what is important.

It is expressed as an eight element pedagogy (see image below, ). I would encourage interested teachers or educators to look into this further for yourselves... get your hands on the book "8 ways : Aboriginal pedagogy from Western NSW", or visit http://8ways.wikispaces.com/

Image: Yunkaporta, Tyson (2009) Aboriginal Pedagogies at the Cultural Interface, PhD thesis, James Cook University