Ways of Learning: Indigenous Approaches to Knowledge: Valid Methodologies in Education

Abstract

A friend, whom I had not seen for some time, recently asked me what I had been doing overthe last several months. I replied, ‘I have just spent the past year in the most incredible headspace.’ This elicited an excited curiosity from my friend to hear more and I began to explain. At fifty-six years of age I had made the decision to return to academic life as a student and pursue a degree in Australian Indigenous Studies. This had been suggested and encouraged by my Aboriginal sister, Jackie Huggins, and so, with herguidance I applied and was accepted to attend the University of Queensland within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (ATSIS) Unit of the Arts Faculty. It was a major step for me, for although I had been presenting lectures and workshops on aspects of traditional and contemporary Native American culture in the educational and public arenas for a decade, I had not been on the student side of the lectern for 40 years. In the first few weeks of semester one the impact of my decision was almost overwhelming. I had completed secondary school in Canada, being the first person in my family to achieve that and now here I was going to university, another first in my family.