Learning Resource 2026

Dadirri: ("da-DID-ee")

verb: deep listening, contemplation

From the Ngan'gikurunggurr and Ngen'giwumirri languages of the Daly River region.

It involves quiet, patient attention without rushing or interrupting, allowing understanding to emerge naturally.

• Dadirri is about being fully present and connected — to stories, places, people, and the natural world.
• It fosters a calm, reflective awareness that guides thoughtful action and respectful communication.
• More than just an Aboriginal practice, Dadirri is a universal capacity for deep listening and inner knowing.
  
  Dadirri is a vital element of the Poem Forest Pedagogical Framework because it grounds education in deep, attentive listening that connects students intimately with Country. By prioritising Dadirri, students move beyond passive observation to become active participants who cultivate calm, respectful awareness — essential for engaging poetically, ecologically, and culturally with the living stories of the land.

“Dadirri is in everyone. It is not just an Aboriginal thing.” (Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann AM, Aboriginal Elder, Educator, Artist and Senior Australian of the Year 2021 )

When we speak of “Country”, we mean more than just land, water, and sky. Country includes:

• All living beings in a place — bugs, birds, and bushes
• The knowledge held by a place — its stories, history, and medicine
• Cultural practices — song, dance, and ceremony
• Responsibilities connected to a place — such as river people caring for rivers

The Sounds of Country invites you to listen closely to the many voices of Country. By paying attention, Country teaches us how to care for plants, animals, and places with respect. Listening with both our ears and hearts helps us give Country a voice through our words.

Through everyday songs and rhythms, The Sounds of Country encourages curiosity, imagination, and a deep love for the land you are on. It is about learning to listen and create with Country.

When we listen deeply — with our whole bodies, hearts, and spirits — we begin to hear Country speaking. In this way, poetry is not simply written; it is heard into being.

As a pedagogical practice, deeply listening to Country is important because it:

• Cultivates respectful relationships between students and the natural world, fostering empathy and care.
• Encourages holistic learning that integrates ecological, cultural, and emotional knowledge beyond traditional classroom boundaries.
• Empowers students to become active participants in their environment, recognising their role within living systems rather than as detached observers.
• Supports cultural understanding and reconciliation by honouring First Nations ways of knowing and connecting learners to Indigenous perspectives.
• Nurtures creativity and imagination through poetic engagement, helping students express and share their connection with Country authentically.

This approach creates a grounded, meaningful learning experience that inspires stewardship and belonging.

The Poem Forest Way of teaching and learning is rooted in First Nations perspectives that emphasise process over content, inviting educators and students into a relational, experiential engagement with knowledge. Unlike conventional Western education, which often treats knowledge as fixed, neutral information delivered by experts, the Poem Forest Way understands learning as a dynamic interplay between people, place, culture, and time. Meaning emerges through relationships: between the poem and the reader, the learner and their community, and importantly, between humans and Country. This approach honours that all things exist through connection and context, making learning a deeply personal and communal journey.

Central to the Poem Forest Way are three guiding principles: relationality, storywork, and Country-as-teacher. Stories are not just texts to analyse but living teachers carrying knowledge, ethics, and responsibility that engage heart, mind, body, and spirit. Learning comes from listening attentively to place, the land, water, seasons, and more-than-human life, recognising that knowledge is something lived through care and responsibility, not merely memorised.

Educators facilitate this by creating space for Country to teach, encouraging students to respond poetically and thoughtfully to their surroundings. This way of learning invites reflection, curiosity, and respect, fostering a deep connection with the world that nurtures both cultural understanding and environmental stewardship.

The Poem Forest way aligns with the The 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning. 8 Ways is a pedagogy framework expressed as eight interconnected pedagogies, and it is perfectly suited for deep engagement with Sounds of Country.

8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning

1. Story Sharing: Approach learning through narrative. We connect through the stories we share.
2. Learning Maps: Explicitly map/visualise processes. We picture our pathways of knowledge.
3. Non-verbal: Apply intra-personal and kinaesthetic skills to thinking and learning. We see, think, act, make and share without words.
4. Symbols and Images: Use images and metaphors to understand concepts and content. We keep and share knowledge with art and objects.
5. Land Links: Link content to local land and place. We work with lessons from land and nature.
6. Non-linear: Produce innovations and understanding by thinking laterally or combining systems. We put different ideas together and create new knowledge.
7. Deconstruct/Reconstruct: Model and scaffold, working from wholes to parts (watch then do). We work from wholes to parts, watching and then doing.
8. Community Links: Centre local viewpoints, apply learning for community benefit. We bring new knowledge home to help our community, our mob.

Put simply, there are 8 ways to start the learning process:

1. Tell a story
2. Make a visual plan
3. Think and do
4. Draw it
5. Take it outside
6. Try a new way
7. Watch first, then do
8. Share it with others
   

How will you share the 8 Ways with your students? Remember to prioritise the Relational, Storywork and Country-as-Teacher.

SEE IT IN ACTION
Take your students outside.
Could they draw the 8 ways in sand, or replicate the diagram using bark, stones, school bags?
Together, can you identify 8 landmarks in your area and assign them a Way?
Why not make up a hand-clap (you’ve got 8 fingers!) or a dance?
Can you make up a story with 8 characters based on the 8 Ways?
Where do your students see 8s in the world (flower petals, notes in a scale) and how could these become part of Sounds of Country learning?
Why not create 8 small groups who are responsible for ensuring their Way gets a fair go during Sounds of Country time?

Try something different. Share your learning with us!

The Sounds of Country is not just about doing a bunch of learning activities — it’s about reimagining the very ways we approach our learning. We think relationally, we think in story, and we think Country-as-teacher.

We also think in circles and cycles (Cycle Thinking) rather than straight lines. That’s where our Sound Learning Cycle is helpful:

We listen, we reflect, we create, then we share.

Just like the seasons, The Sounds of Country is designed so you and your students can keep returning to learning. Everybody knows that this summer will have similarities to last summer, whilst also being new and different. In the same way, you and your students will benefit from returning to The Sounds of Country activities, places and ideas again and again.

When you share, I listen. This is how the Sound Learning Cycle repeats.