Community-Engaged Culturally Sustaining Social and Emotional Learning as an Approach to Speculative Education (Poster 12)

• In Event: Designing for Racial Justice Through Speculative Pedagogies: Learning to Build Liberatory Futures

Abstract

Conceptual Framework
This proposal aims to share our team’s journey in collaboratively building a space to dream as an alternative approach to education, an example of speculative education (Mirra & Garcia, 2020). We conceptualize speculative education as an educational system that is willing to leverage local culture and heritage to promote interest in learning (Khan et al., 2021), and as a space to provide flexible and creative approaches to learning for children from communities who have been systematically marginalized and oppressed within society.


Specifically, we share how integrating speculative education into culturally sustaining social-emotional learning (SEL) can be a radical approach to addressing structural colonialism and racism that has shaped today’s education policy and practices for Indigenous children (Sazbilian, 2019). In sharing our collaborative journey in building the partnership, and co-designing and implementing a place-based and culturally sustaining SEL program for students, educators, and families, this proposal presents an innovative approach to supporting Indigenous children’s well-being that centers Indigenous knowledge, values, and stories. We argue that integrating speculative education into Indigenous ways of knowing provides opportunities to foreground the voices of Indigenous communities, therefore shifting away from the assimilation of Western notions of learning and pedagogy.

Co-designing and Implementing the SEL Program
In our project, tribal leaders, community members, school administrators, and educators collaborated with university researchers to identify research questions, examine community resources, co-create a multi-layered SEL program for elementary school children, educators, and families, implement the program, and evaluate its impact. Through a five-year partnership, the SEL program was co-designed to center on Indigenous values, culture, and interests, including learning Indigenous language in public schools and creating a deeper connection with nature in the curriculum.

For example, under the central goal of Sicstmist (‘do one’s best’ in the Indigenous language of the local tribe), the SEL program foregrounds the values emphasized by this particular Indigenous community— Yoywals (resilience), Puteʔstxʷ (respect), Xʷc̓štwexʷ (reciprocity), Nputeʔtn (reverence), and Kʷše Olqʷšiʔit Esyaʔ (responsibility)—into the teaching of social-emotional wellbeing. Community members collaborated with adult Indigenous language learners and first-language Indigenous speakers to define and translate the core values into English. When learning the Indigenous vocabulary, students also understand how the core values are represented in daily life.

Journal writing is an example of how students used dreaming and reflecting as a speculative practice in our project. Art, including drawing, writing, collecting mementos, and creating art books, is a powerful tool to engage in imagination to answer “what if” and “how might” questions (Bolin, 2009). Through journal writing, students reflected on current challenges and used their imagination to respond to the journal prompts.

Significance
Speculative education carve out space to build upon the strengths of minoritized students, like Indigenous students. In this proposal, we shared our journey of establishing a partnership to co-design and implement a culturally responsive SEL program for Indigenous students. We argue that our story presents a practical approach to speculative education with concrete strategies that scholars and educators who work with Indigenous communities and other marginalized communities can employ.

Authors

• Jingjing Sun, University of Montana

• Ronda Howlett

• Debbie Hogenson

• Lindsey Nichols, University of Wyoming

• Anisa Goforth, University of Montana

• Sisilia Novena Kusumaningsih, University of Montana - Missoula

• Niki Graham, University of Montana

• Emily Brooke, University of Montana