The intergenerational transmission of traditional language and culture is at the core of Yolŋu Indigenous knowledge practices. The homeland of Gäwa in remote Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, was established by Warramiri clan kinship networks to provide an appropriate place for this crucial role to continue. Technologies have long played a part in this transmission process, but can databases, websites and other digital storage mediums harmonise with existing Yolŋu epistemological and ontological frameworks? In considering an alternative approach to digital development, we rely on the Yolŋu elements of performative epistemology, multiple perspectives and a fundamental, narrative base. We then apply this approach to the construction of the 'Warramiri website ' (2011-2015) which houses and structures various resources, outlining its applicability to the current educational practices at Gäwa.

Abstract‘Bothways’ was an expression first utilised by Yolŋu educators in the late 1980s to convey the profound intercultural epistemological foundations of Yolŋu society that should also apply to modern Balanda (white) schooling systems. Despite the pressures from national, standardised curriculum and assessment regimes, ‘Bothways’ has not been abandoned by remote Yolŋu communities in the 21st century. In this paper we briefly revisit the first iterations of the ‘Bothways’ philosophy to demonstrate its symmetry with the Yolŋu transculturation heritage (of the Warramiri in particular), developed through many centuries of contact with sea-faring visitors. Lastly, we present data from community research at Gäwa, a Warramiri homeland on Elcho Island, which demonstrates that through a series of ‘multiple balances’, negotiation around issues of bilingual pedagogy, cultural knowledge transmission, parental engagement and student–teacher dynamic continues to renew the ‘Bothways’ approach.

Too many 'two-ways'? 'Gawa is a two-way school': clarifying approaches to remote Northern Territory Indigenous education | Ben van Genderen Too many 'two-ways'? 'Gawa is a two-way school': clarifying approaches to remote Northern Territory Indigenous education | Ben van Genderen

In the famous Djuranydjura story from North-East Arnhem Land, when the visiting ‘Macassan’ offers the Yolŋu ancestral dog rice, shoes and blankets, he rejects them all, in favour of his own land and resources. At Gäwa homeland on Elcho Island, this powerful story is reinterpreted to include the arrival of balanda (white) teachers, and their focus on English literacy. However, it is not that English literacy is devalued, but that it must maintain its proper place; negotiated to sit alongside the foundational literacy of the land, and Warramiri language itself. An approach of applying such a ‘Bothways’ pedagogy through utilising the ‘Accelerated Literacy’ methodology for both languages and cultures is outlined to demonstrate that strengthened identity is attainable when the community moves together.

Growing Our Own is an innovative and unique program for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in the remote Northern Territory. As a partnership between Catholic Education, Northern Territory (CENT) and Charles Darwin University (CDU), lecturers travel to remote Indigenous communities to deliver unit content to local 'Assistant Teachers’ enrolled in the Bachelor of Education: Primary degree. However, it is much more than an effective scheduling exercise; the program has been intentionally established to function under the ‘two way’ pedagogy whereby the pre-service teachers, their mentors and lecturers engage in a process of epistemological dialogue and exchange. There is also a place-based emphasis, with a clear pattern of teaching ‘on country’. Overall, such a process of genuine negotiation to incorporate localised Indigenous Language and Knowledge within the Australian Curriculum is opening up new and exciting possibilities for (school) student learning and a tertiary Indigenous ‘standpoint’.Growing Our Own was established in 2009 and has been refined over the years to meet the increasing demands on Initial Teacher Education and local community desires. This paper is both a report concerning the successes of the program thus far and a critical reflection on some of the key findings that have evolved in regards to such a ‘two way’, place-based, Indigenous andragogic approach.