Turning inside out: Learning through local phenomena and lived experience

Abstract

This chapter showcases a unique, place-based, living curriculum that has been established for Year 4 students at Ballarat Grammar School's farm in Victoria, Australia. Moving beyond the mainstream classroom, 75 students are immersed in a programme that cultivates an ethical lens through ecological understanding as a primary way of seeing. Through deep listening, students learn to care for self, others, and place. Slow pedagogy frames the experience, encompassing the stories that include the histories, cultures, and values that shape this context. Working alongside local and global communities, paddock to plate, animal husbandry mindfulness, and environmental advocacy are ongoing themes. This programme challenges the anthropocentric lens that has dominated our thinking, repositioning the learner as a symbiotic participant within a complex network of organized ecological systems.