Title: Collaborating Native Plant caminata, Planting Pedagogical Possibilities Beyond Colonial and Censured Curriculum

• In Event: Cultivating Caminata Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning while Walking with Emplaced and Embodied Knowledges in Texas

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to: a) through visual and oral Indigenous storywork methods (Archibald, 2008), share lessons learned from the pedagogical practice of native plant caminata from the practitioner perspective of a teacher educator and a community-engaged scholar working with pre-service teachers in Central Texas; b) demonstrate an “in-relations” (Tachine et al. 2022) methodology employed to collaboratively create and facilitate these caminata as curriculum; and c) point to the pedagogical possibilities that they offer us beyond the colonial and censured curriculum and climate we face as educators in Texas, towards (re)centering on familia and comunidad-based saberes, Indigenous ancestral and land-based knowledges.

Theoretical Frameworks
This paper is guided by Black (&) Indigenous scholarship that critiques colonial conceptions of land and curriculum and points to the significance of the teachings of the natural world, more-than-human relatives, and the roles that families, communities, and ancestors play as our first teachers (Gonzales, 2014; Nxumalo, 2019; Urrieta & Martínez, 2011). The pedagogical practice highlighted in this paper is rooted in epistemologies of the land and those who carry and pass on these knowledges, such as abuelos and community elders (Muñoz, 2018). It moreover draws on the knowledge that a local Lipan Apache Elder and Medicine woman, her student have shared with us.

Methods
This paper employs an in-relations methodology and Indigenous storywork to recount, through an oral and visual narrative of a particular caminata with a bilingual education class the political context in which the native plant caminata emerged and weaves together the core relations and the lessons that make up and emerge from this pedagogical practice.

Objects and Materials
This paper utilizes materials gathered by the author, a teacher educator, collaboratively creating and primarily implementing native plant camintas with undergraduate students for two years including reflective audio recordings and their transcripts, photographs, reflective memos, and teaching materials (lesson guides and notes from lessons led by community members).

Warrants for Point of View
Indigenous, land-based, and family and communities’ of color epistemologies have long been suppressed by the colonial institution (Smith, 1999) and are increasingly under attack in the state of Texas (Valenzuela et al., 2025). The featured pedagogical practice and narrative in this paper highlights how caminata based on the local plant and trees create the conditions to (re)center on Indigenous, family, and community, and land-based knowledges in Texas.

Scholarly Significance
This paper responds to the current sociopolitical and environmental climate that we face as teacher educators in a state like Texas and the resounding calls led by Indigenous (&) Black scholars to enact decolonial approaches education centered on land-based epistemologies (which are inherently tied to human and non-human relations and educators) that transcend what colonial institutions deem as curriculum and resist the current increasing climate of censorship. The paper demonstrates how, through these caminata, local Indigenous elders and Indigenous (&) Latinx students are (re)positioned as educators sharing presently and historically suppressed knowledges that flow from the local lands along with their families and communities as part of our curriculum.

Author

• Marial Quezada, University of Texas at Austin