Echo Creek

Ernie Grant is an elder of the Jirrbal people from the Tully area here in North Queensland. He spent his first nine years living in the rainforest getting a grounding in the traditional life of the North Queensland rainforest people.

Many academic researchers have been keen to draw on his knowledge in the fields of ethno-botany and spirituality/mythology. Uncle Ernie (as he is commonly known) has had a long and varied career, and a lifelong passion for education and for sharing his understandings with educators.

For many years, Ernie has been working as a Cultural Research Officer in the Queensland Department of Education. He presents at numerous state and national education workshops and conferences. He has extensive knowledge and experience working within traditional Aboriginal, urban and regional Aboriginal, and the wider non-aboriginal communities in Australia.

Very few Indigenous educators have the knowledge and experience of both traditional lore and western academic approaches to education. Ernie brings this to his work and that underpins his Holistic Teaching and Learning Framework. The key to understanding the holistic framework is the primary relationship that Aboriginal people have between their Land, their Language and their Culture. It is the inseperable nature of these elements and the ways they depend on each other for meaning for which Uncle Ernie has a uniqueness.