Disrupting Settler Innocence: Teaching for Survivance

• In Event: Settler Colonialism and Education

Abstract

Teachers in urban schools often learn little as students in their K16 education about current Indigenous issues and survivance (Vizenor, 1999) of Native Nations and Peoples today. This study looks at the experiences of 22 in-service teachers taking part in a voluntary professional development session to learn about the Lenape (Delaware) Nation. The study informs teacher educators, curriculum designers and those concerned with social justice in education about how we might reconsider educational possibilities for teachers learning about Native Peoples as an important requirement in moving us collectively away from a stance of settler innocence and instead toward Indigenous futurity.

Authors

• Rachel Talbert, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Natacha Robert, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Nancy Tavarez, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Neal Paul Schick, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Charlotte Vinson, Teachers College, Columbia University