Country as Teacher, Graduate Certificate
This graduate course is offered as three, four-credit point units over eighteen months. Individual enrolments will only be accepted as part of a cohort resulting from a business-to-business negotiation between a school, school cluster, educational region or jurisdiction, or university faculty with the Faculty of Education, UC. The first cohort has 32 teachers from ACT ED schools enrolled, all who are participants in the CaT 2 research project.
This course draws upon and honours Indigenous knowledge systems and pedagogies as fully legitimate and valid in their own right. For the vast majority of time humans have inhabited this place we call Australia, the knowledge and capabilities necessary for living social and ecological balance and harmony came through direct experience and learning from Country and Earthkin. This through accessing an array of ways of knowing, being and doing – intergenerational, intuitive, kinesthetic, instinctual, affective, sensory, as well as rational/analytical/ conceptual. Students will initially cultivate their own practice of relational reciprocity with Country to directly experience Country as Teacher, before designing, enacting and evaluating units of work for their students to engage similar experiences and learnings.
The Graduate Certificate: Country as Teacher is located at Level 8 of the Australian Qualifications Framework.
It is envisioned that this graduate certificate will articulate into a Masters of Education program through the completion of a second graduate certificate in Education.