Phony Teachers Just Pushing Us Through: Indigenous Students' Insights Revealing Simulacra in Public Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 4:20 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Settler Colonialism Is Not a Metaphor (Table 1)

Abstract

“Street-smart” Indigenous students and families possess a perceptual skill akin to x-ray vision: the ability to see through educators’ surface actions and empty words as well as educational policies that outwardly appear equitable and effective but in practice perpetuate violence against Indigenous students and communities. We invite readers to try on a pair of our Indigenous community members’ x-ray glasses to confront the tensions between the purported purposes of public education and the experiences of Indigenous students and families—toward efforts that build authentic, bottom-up, and locally-meaningful systemic change. We argue this x-ray-like perspective is essential for evaluating the actual impacts on real youth in the present, regardless of educators’ beliefs about their own effectiveness in creating equitable learning experiences.

Authors

• Linda Orie, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Morgan Mayer-Jochimsen, University of Wisconsin - Madison