Ways of teaching traditional knowledges

This chapter will help you to:• identify different ways of engaging with how you can teach Traditional Knowledges in your classroom• identify the importance of place to the classroom• explore the meaning of Country as an important reference point in your teaching of place and Traditional Knowledges• be open to the creative uncertainty of teaching Traditional Knowledges.Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander experiences and the knowledges of those experiences have emerged from the continent and island landscapes in a diverse way of situated or place-based understanding. These knowledges are referred to as Indigenous Knowledges (IK) or Traditional Knowledges (TK) or for that matter Traditional Ecological Knowledges (TEK). Different authors will talk about IK or TK or TEK; however, for the sake of this chapter you should understand:• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have continued to maintain and adapt to ways of living pre-invasion and post-invasion.• Continuity and adaptation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples can emerge from IK or TK or TEK assumptions.• These terms also help to describe and represent different ways people think about the relationship Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have with Country.This chapter refers to TK; however, the use of either IK or TEK conceptualisations also represents the relational qualities of knowing and being on Country, and can be considered in similar ways. Those terms also help to describe how these relationships can communicate a focus on the educational setting and the classroom learners who educators aim to connect with in their teaching practice with TK.The section on ways of teaching TK introduces ideas and strategies that are informed by the terms comparative, adoptive, practical, reflexive and integrative. These terms illustrate the potential to learn from the Country around you and may help you to develop an understanding of protocols to engage with TK locally and then to think of TK relationally across the continent through the ways of teaching presented in this chapter.