Go With the Flow: Indigenous Science in the Language Classroom

In 2017 a team from the College of Education at Washington State University received a grant from the National Science Foundation to work on a project called Culturally Responsive Indigenous Science (CRIS). In this essay we explore a small piece of the CRIS project with our Coeur d’Alene partners and the lessons we learned from it. These lessons include building and using a culturally responsive lesson plan template and the challenges associated with doing so, learning together and teaching each other how science belongs within a language classroom, and examining beautiful examples of an Indigenous teacher using traditional educational methods with his students. We close with contemplations on further learning and work that can come from this project and the collaborations and relationships we have developed and continue to nurture

Theorizing Indigenous Student Resistance, Radical Resurgence, and Reclaiming Spiritual Teachings about Tma’áakni (Respect)

Indigenous dispossession and environmental devastation are intertwined outcomes of settler colonialism’s cycle of violence. However, indigenous people continue to draw from cultural and spiritual teachings to resist such forms of violence, and engage in what Leanne Simpson calls “radical resurgence.” Our paper analyzes the Yakama elders’ teachings about Tma’áakni (Respect), to examine principles and forms of indigenous resistance and resurgence, demonstrated by indigenous students in support of the NoDAPL(No Dakota Access PipeLine) movement. Elders’ teachings, which are rooted in spiritual traditions held by indigenous peoples since time immemorial, are useful for understanding and articulating the importance of the contemporary indigenous student activism. We assert that indigenous people, drawing from intergenerational forms of teaching and learning, provide systemic alternatives that can simultaneously protect the sacred, and heal social and ecological devastations by reclaiming indigenous cultural teachings and traditions that resist settler colonial paradigms

A Personal, Indigenous Feminist Experience with Centering Relationships During COVID-19

I am an Indigenous woman, a mother, a researcher, a scholar, a partner, a daughter. In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the value and consequence connection with others has on my life has become more apparent. During this time, I am finding that technology can both help and hinder in building and maintaining relationships. Perhaps I can illuminate a bit for others who are struggling with the same things I am. I share Indigenous feminist theories and I believe these ways of knowing and being in the world help us to reclaim our past and to reimagine our futures

Centering the Indigenous in science education: Possibilities and limitations of decolonizing the academy

The current public schooling system in the United States attempts to remove culture and values from science education. Science is completely entwined in the culture, art, languages, and everyday lives of Indigenous peoples; therefore it is not a discreet knowledge or entity. A narrative of failure is being produced that falsely portrays Indigenous students as ‘underperforming’, not ‘good at’ science, and that perpetuates the perception of an achievement gap. However, the real problem is the way we look at, think about, consider, and teach science in US public schools, particularly for Indigenous students. Curriculum and pedagogy that present science education out of cultural context is problematic. Indigenous students need to learn science in Indigenous ways, and then the in western paradigm. In this study I employed a qualitative design, consisting of interviews and observations with students and their instructors. I conducted a semi-structured interview with each participant, then, based on an initial analysis, chose three students for in-depth case studies. I attended a number of science courses with the students and faculty, and conducted interviews with two main faculty members. I presented my initial analysis and invited my participants to give further feedback. There are possibilities for doing decolonizing work within the academy. We need more Indigenous folx as professors, and we need non-Indigenous faculty to apply decolonizing and indigenizing curriculum, pedagogies, and practices. Examples of this can include bringing students together with Elders and other tribal experts, employing place-based educational practices, intergenerational learning, learning through story, and oral traditions. Supporting community and reciprocity is also important for our Indigenous students. Faculty face tensions in doing good work with and for their Indigenous students, including the challenge of how to adequately address the field’s expectation of students while still being responsive to student needs. Instructors also talked about balancing their connection to students with maintaining appropriate boundaries, and one instructor shared insight regarding gender differences and imbalances. These instructors voiced the desire and need to enhance their teaching skills and requested training in how to teach effectively and in a caring way for their specific communities

Educating for Indigenous Futurities

K-12 classrooms are important sites for anti-colonial and Indigenous critiques of the settler-nation, neoliberalism, and globalization, all of which undermine Indigenous futurities while simultaneously fueling climate change. We draw from our experiences as Indigenous university educators, and from the experiences of our students who are training to become elementary and secondary classroom teachers in the U.S. We analyze student journals in which students documented what they were learning, reflected on how a university course on Decolonization was shaping their understanding of their own K-12 educational experiences, and articulated aspirations for their own future teaching practice. In our work with Indigenous students who are training to be classroom teachers, we frame education as part of the larger project in which we can better understand our ancestral Indigenous teachings for the purpose of deepening our Indigenous identities and knowledges; inherent in these teachings is a responsibility to our human and more than human relations. In our paper, we argue for the importance, and provide examples of, using the Western educational system in a way that supports Indigenous teachings and Indigenous identity development. Doing so is not just important diversity, equity, and inclusion work that benefits Indigenous peoples, but rather is critical work that benefits all peoples, as Indigenous knowledges contain within them answers to some of society’s most pressing problems, including climate change. In this process, we affirm the importance of Indigenous educators who are learning to become good ancestors for future generations, which is a vital part of what Potowatomi scholar, Kyle Powys Whyte (2018) calls collective continuance. Our work in educating future teachers emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinarity, something Indigenous knowledge systems have always known and which will be critical for addressing climate change. Within Indigenous cultural teachings, it makes no sense to separate the so-called hard or natural sciences from the humanities. Why would humans see themselves as separate from the natural world? Why would our histories not be interwoven in teaching and understanding our sciences? The larger goal of our work is to center Indigenous knowledges in K-12 education. To do so, we call upon Indigenous peoples to be in front of the classroom and lead within our elementary and secondary schools, to teach about caring for Lands and relations and connecting this learning to addressing climate change caused by colonial practices. We also call upon non-Indigenous educators to educate themselves about Indigenous knowledges so that they may play an important part in collective continuance and ensuring Indigenous futurities

Theorizing Indigenous Student Resistance, Radical Resurgence, and Reclaiming Spiritual Teachings about Tma’áakni (Respect)

Indigenous dispossession and environmental devastation are intertwined outcomes of settler colonialism’s cycle of violence. However, indigenous people continue to draw from cultural and spiritual teachings to resist such forms of violence, and engage in what Leanne Simpson calls “radical resurgence.” Our paper analyzes the Yakama elders’ teachings about Tma’áakni (Respect), to examine principles and forms of indigenous resistance and resurgence, demonstrated by indigenous students in support of the NoDAPL(No Dakota Access PipeLine) movement. Elders’ teachings, which are rooted in spiritual traditions held by indigenous peoples since time immemorial, are useful for understanding and articulating the importance of the contemporary indigenous student activism. We assert that indigenous people, drawing from intergenerational forms of teaching and learning, provide systemic alternatives that can simultaneously protect the sacred, and heal social and ecological devastations by reclaiming indigenous cultural teachings and traditions that resist settler colonial paradigms

Indigenous Cultural Values Counter the Damages of White Settler Colonialism

Settler colonialism is a violent process that harms all beings. We build upon environmental justice frameworks and argue for Indigenous values affirmation as a strategy for countering the violence of settler colonialism. We discuss the findings of a pilot project to create an Indigenous values affirmation tool with Indigenous peoples in the U.S. to provide context for our argument. We draw from Indigenous-centered literature, including Bacon’s colonial ecological violence, and assert that settler systems, and analyses rooted in settler logics, are inadequate because of their inherent inability to meaningfully and critically engage with colonization. This ignorance causes academic fields of study to be damaged-centred in their gaze on Indigenous peoples, or to ignore or render Indigenous peoples invisible or disappeared. Equity is not imaginable, and justice is impossible, within these frameworks. Centring Indigenous people and values have great potential to contribute to environmental sociology. We urge environmental sociologists to honour Indigenous ways of knowing and being in efforts to counter settler colonial violence that plagues all peoples. Doing so will open up new possibilities for healing the environment, and humans’ relations with Mother Earth and all beings