“Xinachtli pedagogy is a way of being”: Stories from an Indigenous Educator Program in Central Texas

• In Event: Land, Language, and Intergenerational Learning: Indigenous Pedagogies of Place, Kinship, and Continuance Across Generations and Geographies

Abstract

Education in Texas continues to be an arduous sociopolitical battle, with many initiatives started by and for communities being uprooted and debilitated. In this paper, we center the liveliness and imperative work of an Indigenous-led educator training program in central Texas led by the Miakan-Garza Band of Coahuiltecans. We argue that although educational strife continues in our home state, the Tānko Institute has continued to center place-specific and local Indigenous knowledges and ways of being for future and current educators. Drawing on Xinachtli pedagogies, the understanding of multiple transformations and possibilities, we suggest that participants of the Tānko Institute are actively recovering, (re)imagining, and (re)learning Indigenous pedagogies toward educational liberation.

Authors

• Pablo Montes, Texas Christian University

• Marial Quezada, University of Texas at Austin

• Jose Omar Serna, Texas Christian University

• Yvette M. Regalado, University of Texas - San Antonio

• Leticia Garza, University of Texas at Austin

• Toni Moreno, Texas State University

• Gabby Campos, Texas Christian University