“Why Aren’t Other Teachers Like Teachers at My School?” Repositioning Pedagogy for Anticolonial Teacher Education

• In Event: Repositioning Youth of Color in Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives/Purpose
In Spring of 2023, students and staff from an alternative high school serving youth on a reservation visited a university several hours from their home. During the visit, youth shared stories of schooling and “survivance” (i.e., resilience + survival; Vizenor, 2008) with teacher candidates (TCs) and faculty. The experience proved transformative for TCs, staff from both the university and high school, and youth. This presentation highlights ways Indigenous youth’s stories of survivance and schooling helped TCs learn—pedagogically—to confront settler colonialism and support cultural revitalization.

Theoretical Framework
Although they are central stakeholders, youth are rarely consulted within K-12 research, curriculum development, and teacher education, and for Indigenous youth, this exclusion compounds the effects of intergenerational trauma, cultural genocide, poverty, and isolation. This project integrates repositioning pedagogy and Indigenous storywork to intentionally hold space for Indigenous youth experience and expertise. Repositioning pedagogy is an approach whereby “youth are invited into the physical spaces of teacher preparation as educational consultants to teach future educators about issues related to schooling” (Authors, 2020). Indigenous storywork engages participants in processes of co-constructing and sharing stories to increase their own agency, learning, and cultural understanding (Archibald, 2008). Together, these approaches offer an innovative model for teacher education, as they recognize the essential expertise of Indigenous youth in advancing anti-colonial education.

Methods/Evidence
The goal of the project was to reposition Indigenous youth as teacher educators, particularly in terms of sharing their expertise surrounding settler colonialism and culturally revitalizing education (McCarty & Lee, 2014). To meet this goal, the project consisted of three phases. First, teacher educators and high school teachers collaborated to identify resources and activities to introduce TCs to repositioning pedagogy, culturally revitalizing education, sovereignty, and ways schools respond to trauma caused by settler colonialism. Second, we facilitated a university visit, during which the high school students toured campus, attended classes, shared stories of schooling and survivance with TCs and faculty, met with Indigenous university students/staff, and participated in focus groups to discuss their experiences. During the third phase, we facilitated follow-up activities for TCs to reinforce learning and encourage transfer of learning to commitments to action.

Results/Scholarly Significance
The project resulted in positive outcomes for high school students, teachers, teacher educators, and TCs. This paper focuses on TCs’ learning—as expressed through follow-up discussions, teaching philosophy statements, and letters to the high school students—which demonstrated increased pedagogical understandings surrounding settler colonialism and cultural revitalization. For example, during the visit one youth had asked, “Are the teachers at the university like the teachers at my school?” This inspired conversation about differences between high schools and universities, reservation schools and “other schools,” Indigenous-serving schools and predominantly white institutions, etc. Later, this question served as the focal point for TCs’ commitments to pedagogical action (lesson planning, sharing teaching philosophy statements, writing letters to the high school students). TCs shared ideas for peer mentoring programs, expressed plans to take courses on trauma-informed education, and integrated culturally revitalizing content and practice into lessons and teaching philosophies.

Authors

• Christine Stanton, Montana State University

• Nicholas Rink, Buffalo Hide Academy