The following is a brief elaboration on a presentation I made to tribal college faculty and educational leaders at a workshop for the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) ...
Standing on
the Bridge
Honoring Indigenous Science at Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs)
Ted Williams
AIHEC Indigenous STEM Pedagogy Institute 2019
Albuquerque, New Mexico
July 29, 2019
I
give thanks to the people whose land we are meeting upon and to my parents and
ancestors. My ancestors’ experiences, including Nazi Germany and war, form who
I am and how I live.
I
called this presentation “Standing on the Bridge” because we are standing on
many bridges, including the bridge between Indigenous science and Western
science. As Dr. Gregory Cajete has described, that bridge offers many
opportunities for collaboration to meet the urgent challenges that the world is
currently facing. There are many other bridges we are addressing at this
conference – the bridge between the past and the future, Native and non-Native
faculty, TCUs and mainstream colleges
and universities, and many more. How we negotiate those bridges makes all the
difference to how we move into the future and how we do our work at Tribal
colleges.
Part I: Reflections on 23 years of
working at Northwest Indian College
In
this presentation, I will share some reflections of my own journey as a Tribal
college educator, share some suggestions for how to navigate those bridges, and
finish with some reflection questions to consider.
The
journey of STEM education at Northwest Indian College (NWIC)
I worked at Northwest Indian College for
over 23 years. Here are some key markers during that time:
· *Inception and early programs of study - Lummi Indian
School of Aquaculture in the 1970s which led to the founding of Lummi Community
College in 1983, accredited 1993. Certificate programs in skill areas,
including office professions, construction trades and associate’s programs in
life sciences, health, and applied engineering.
· *TENRM – the Tribal Environmental and Natural Resources
Management coordinated learning community lasted for seven years and was very
successful in retaining and graduating students.
· * TCUP First year experience – First year experience
project using the learning community model employed in TENRM.
· *BS in Native Environmental Science – created in 2007,
first graduates in 2009, NWIC received accreditation at bachelor’s level in
2010 retroactive to 2007. Has gone through several refinements to increase
student choice and to incorporating Indigenous content
· * Teaching and Learning Initiative – started in 2007 and
building on prior faculty development work. The Teaching and Learning
Initiative was a multifaceted approach to build the capacity of faculty to
teach at a tribal college. More details will be given below.
· * Current – the teaching and learning of STEM at NWIC is
in flux, particularly as it relates to alignment with Indigenous educational
paradigm.
The Indigenous educational paradigm for Northwest
Indian College is based upon the Honorable House of Learning, which is
represented by the following image.
As stated in the NWIC catalog for 2015-2017, the
Honorable House of Learning tells the journey of Indigenous education at the
Northwest Indian College. In this house, traditional knowledge is our canoe -
it leads us towards cultural sovereignty.
The Indigenous education paradigm for Northwest Indian
College was incorporated into an integrated academic curriculum design,
delivery, and assessment model that we called the longhouse model, as shown in
the following image.
As
stated on the NWIC assessment website (nwic.edu/assessment), Northwest Indian College is committed to advancing
the vision of our ancestors by providing a quality Indigenous education through
which every student is able to strengthen their personal and Tribal identity.
The institutional outcomes are foundational to a framework based on the pillars
of Indigenousness and Sovereignty which informs all aspects of the design,
delivery, and assessment of the college’s programs and courses.
Another
component of teaching and learning of STEM education at NWIC that supports
alignment with the Indigenous framework of the Coast Salish people, on whose
homelands the college lies, is the NWIC teaching and learning initiative. The
teaching and learning initiative was supported by the Woksape Oyate (Wisdom of
the People) project through the American Indian College Fund. The teaching and
learning initiative, started in 2007, was built upon prior faculty development
work at NWIC and was intended to build the capacity of NWIC faculty to teach at
a Tribal college, both full-time and part-time at the college’s extended campus
sites on reservations throughout the Pacific Northwest. The teaching and
learning initiative is described in detail in the article (click to download) “Relationality and Student Engagement: Connecting
Teaching and Leaning at a Tribal College.
As
part of the teaching and learning initiative, NWIC faculty and instructional
leadership developed the NWIC Philosophy of Teaching and Learning. In order to
create the philosophy statement, faculty and instructional leadership used
multiple modalities to envision the philosophy, including written work,
discussion, group drawings, and quilting. The process resulted in the logo for
the teaching and learning initiative, as shown below, and the written statement
for the NWIC philosophy of teaching and learning which can be viewed online by clicking here.
The full teaching and learning website can be viewed by clicking
here.
The
resulting image,
shown below, represents the interrelationship of land, ancestors, family, natural world, home,
culture and language, universe, art, economy, and the journey that education
represents.
As a basis for teaching and learning at NWIC, the philosophy statement faculty
build and model community of learners, relationships, responsibility, and
wellness, foster inquiry and critical thinking, and facilitate the progressive
thinking necessary to fulfill our institutional mission.
The
NWIC teaching and learning philosophy is based on the understanding that NWIC
provides education that is:
1)
place-based within a learning environment that intentionally focuses on
cultural context and integrated cultural experiences;
2)
informed by the highest expectations that students be self-motivated,
disciplined, and willing learners;
3)
committed to the development of the skills of our students to address issues of
social justice and support the vision of their communities;
4)
intergenerational with a specific focus on the development of young leadership;
and
5)
holistic in support of students’ understanding of who they are and their sense
of place.
One
of the key components of the teaching and learning initiative has been the
annual teaching and learning institute at which has full-time and part-time
faculty from the college’s extended campus sites convened together for two to
three days of presentation, discussion, and planning. . Thus far, there have
been ten institutes, typically held the beginning of fall term when faculty
return. During the early institutes we had keynote presenters from For the past
four years, the teaching and learning institute has been led by Indigenous
educators from within NWIC. One of those Indigenous leaders, Greg Mahle, PhD,
developed a framework for implementing the philosophy of teaching and learning
as a capacity building activity which faculty could then put into practice
throughout the academic year. In the
framework, a faculty member (usually non-Native or otherwise not immersed in
the local Indigenous worldview) first
learns the indigenous context of that place, reflects, then makes changes in
teaching practice, reflects, then does action research in the classroom based
on learnings, reflects, and expresses one’s learning in modeling wellness,
reflects, and the cycle continues by learning the context more deeply. The
following diagram illustrates the framework for teaching and learning:
Another
image developed as part of the teaching and learning initiative depicts how the components of teaching and
learning contribute to student success at NWIC. Students are at the center of
this model with the college mission and the themes that constitutes the
college’s commitment to student success – identity, achievement, engagement,
and leadership (the full commitment to student success, developed as the
Achieving the Dream definition of student success at NWIC, can be viewed by clicking here).
This model, based upon an indigenous model with the Earth at the center and the
sky and universe surrounding it.
To
complete this first part of my presentation, I would like to share following
reflections of some key learnings from my time at NWIC:
1 *
I never stop
learning about the people, the worldview, and myself in relationship – One of
the main dangers of being trained and raised in the mainstream is ever thinking
that I truly understand the Indigenous worldview. As my experience working in
an Indigenous community deepened I have had to remind myself that I am only
touching the surface of a deep culture. One of the most important learnings has
been about who I am in relationship to others.
2 * I am constantly
learning what it means to be an ally, a guest – I learned that I cannot call
myself an ally to the Indigenous people I seek to support. It is only through
their feedback that I know if I am on track. To be a good guest on their lands
means to offer my skills in support of their vision.
3 * If it’s easy,
then I’m probably not really doing it – it is hard work to be in any authentic
relationship. It is easy to deceive myself about my role and it requires
constant and sometimes painful self-examination.
4 * Negotiating
institutional change is difficult – Organizations are complex places. Working
in an Indigenous organization adds additional complexities. Because tribal
colleges were created to educate Indigenous people from the worldview of that
place while following a mainstream educational structure, there is a constant
tension and risk of drifting toward assimilation since that is how colonization
works. Everyone at a tribal college exists within that tension.
Part 2: Systems Thinking and Honoring
Indigenous Science in STEM Education
As
a way to explore the interrelationship between Indigenous science and STEM
education, I will use the tool of systems thinking and polarity management. Very
briefly, I am sharing this perspective because I have found it useful in
exploring and understanding seemingly opposing perspectives. Here are some reflections
on systems perspectives that, I hope, will help to illuminate the topic of
teaching and learning STEM in an Indigenous context.
Movement
in the system often is between one polarity and the other, as depicted below.
One
of the most straightforward examples of this interrelationship is respiration.
Respiration requires both inhalation and exhalation. It is a dynamic
interaction of these two parts of the respiratory cycle – once we breathe in
oxygen, the body builds up excess CO2, which needs to be exhaled, and then it
has a shortage of O2, so inhalation must start again, as shown below:
While
it is obvious that both of these polarities, inhalation and exhalation, must
co-exist for the cycle to be complete and for a living animal system to be in
balance, it is not necessarily so obvious when considering other polarities.
As
Shawn Wilson noted in his 2008 book, Research is Ceremony, the respiration
cycle also exists for the planet as a whole, “That which the tree exhales, I
inhale. That which I exhale, the tree inhales.”
In order to explore polarities and how they interact, it is important to not
conflate polarities in order to minimize the intrinsic tension between those
polarities. The creative edge is at the fractal interface between two
polarities and often at the interface between a chaotic and a ridged
relationship with those polarities.
As
Lexie Tom noted in her 2018 PhD dissertation, An Indigenous Teacher Preparation
Framework, “Many of our community members’ worldview is shaped by a
Euro-American centric worldview and their relationality is impacted by it. “We
are all one” emerges from the Euro-American centric point of view. It reflects
the great American melting pot ideology. We are not all one. We have our own
language and culture. Decolonization allows us to look at these concepts and
shift them back toward Indigenization. We are unique.”
To
me, relationality, or relational accountability, is the awareness of our interrelationships
and my responsibility to maintain those relationships with all beings, with the
land, with all that is living and non-living, in the past, present, and future.
Western
science and STEM education often treats scientific inquiry as separate from the
observer and does not include relational accountability. Other differences
between Indigenous and mainstream (Western) science paradigms include holism
vs. divide and conquer, inclusion of spiritual aspects of the world vs. pure
empiricism and reproducibility.
In
terms of pedagogy, as Cowichan elder Ruby Peter has stated, “You have to get
them to see that we always governed ourselves, and our way of government
focused on teaching our children who they are.” Mainstream pedagogy is often
quite different and does not include sense of identity in relationship with the
people. Again, not including relational accountability. Another difference that
I have seen between mainstream and Indigenous pedagogy is the notion of
failure. In mainstream education, whether in school or outside school, students
and young people can fail in learning, whereas, all that I have heard of Coast
Salish education is that there is no notion of failure in education but rather
that students are “not ready yet.”
Indigenous
approaches, in my experience, are more generative, coming to conclusions through
approaches that seem circuitous to the non-Indigenous mind. Mainstream
approaches focus more on short-term, “get to the point,” outcome-based
approaches.
Another
polarity that I have experienced is the notion of insider vs. outsider. I am an
outsider in the Coast Salish community, as are Indigenous people from other
places. Being aware of being and insider or outsider has a profound influence
on how people work together in a tribal college. Another aspect of this
polarity is that the worldview of some tribal members, as noted in Lexie Tom’s
dissertation, is formed through a mainstream lens, which I have heard called
“in-betweeners.”
One
last example of a polarity between Indigenous and mainstream worldviews that
affects the teaching and learning of STEM concerns inherent vs. acquired
rights. Inherent rights emerge from the Indigenous worldview and are not formed
by or modified by the mainstream worldview, particularly when it pertains to
the law. One example that I participated in that demonstrates the tension
between these polarities was in the creation of the NWIC Intellectual Property
Policy. I worked with both mainstream administrators and Indigenous knowledge
holders to craft a policy that addressed both worldviews (click here to view the approved Intellectual Property
Policy). In the process of review and
approval, STEM faculty expressed strong concerns that the policy would inhibit
the freedom of students to perform research. I believe that expressions of
these concerns and dialogue about them are crucial in the ongoing effort to
support STEM education in an Indigenous framework.
A
last comment I have about addressing the tensions inherent in dealing with any
polarity is about how we experience those polarities within ourselves. As both
a mainstream trained scientist and being trained in human systems, I learned a
useful tool for addressing polarities inside myself. Before explaining the
process I want to be clear that this does not mean giving up your perspective,
such as your Indigenous worldview, but rather as a way to hold the polarities
in order to see them more clearly (i.e., manage the polarities) in order to
make wise decisions.
Begin
by visualizing a horizontal line with the two polarities at either end of the
line, as follows:
______________________________________
Indigenous Mainstream
science STEM Education
As
a non-Indigenous scientist trained in mainstream science, I might start on the
right side of the line and imagine moving toward the left, considering what it means
to include Indigenous science and the Indigenous worldview into teaching and
learning. When I feel a sense of internal resistance I stop and spend a few
moments experiencing that resistance. When it subsides some, I slowly move a
little further to the left and repeat the process. After several iterations, I
imagine a triangle, as follows, and imagine moving up to the apex where I have
a different perspective of the polarities. I consider this a self-reflective
activity that has helped me to deepen my understanding and to bridge between
mainstream educational approaches and Indigenous approaches.
Part 3: Suggestions and Questions for
Consideration
I
would like to end with suggestions for how to build bridges between worldviews
without collapsing those worldviews. As the image that can be seen as either a
young woman or an old woman demonstrates, how you look at things makes all the
difference in what you see.
 |
| source:anonymous |
Suggestions
for individuals and colleges on how to align STEM education with Indigenous
science and the Indigenous paradigm of the place:
·
*Practice
self-reflection, humility, and respect – the etymology of the word respect,
re-spect, means to look again
·
*Practice
vulnerable courage – this is difficult work to do authentically. I have found
that I constantly have to be courageous in holding my preconceived notions
lightly – to practice beginner’s mind. It can be especially difficult to be
aware of and to relinquish my personal agendas. It is not possible to be an
ally if I am motivated by personal agendas
·
*Build resilience
– I am using the term “resilience” as the ability to hold and to stand in the
tension of polarities without collapsing into either polarity – often a very
difficult task
·
*Engage shadow
work – Shadow, in the psychological sense, is the parts of ourselves that we
are not consciously aware of. Self-reflection helps to illuminate the shadow
and bring it into conscious awareness. As part of the shadow, we all have
implicit bias which unconsciously affects our perspectives and our decisions.
There are many ways to do shadow work.
·
*Cultivate
communities of learners – these are good words that we can all get behind but
cultivating and sustaining a community of learners requires ongoing work. Every
organization will have its own way of cultivating an open and trusting environment
and will have its own challenges to maintaining that environment.
·
*Return to the vision
of the ancestors – decolonizing methodologies – As a non-Indigenous person, I
consider it my ongoing responsibility to continuously engage the Indigenous
people of this place to make sure that my efforts are on track and that I am
not unintentionally contributing to colonization. I have found that the more I
practice this work the more willing my Indigenous colleagues are to tell me when
and how I am off track. To me, being told that I am off track is an honor and a
sign of respect.
·
*Prepare guests
and learn how to be a guest – Tribal college employees are a mix of people from
that place, Indigenous people from other places, and non-Indigenous people. The
colleges need to be cognizant of the disorientation and the assumptions people
from other places experience and help orient them. As a guest, I have found
that I am responsible to continuously orient myself to be in service of the
people of that place.
Here
are three questions to consider in aligning STEM education within the
Indigenous worldview of place:
·
*How do I practice
relational accountability in teaching and learning STEM?
·
*What are the
factors that have either been supportive or have been challenging in teaching
and learning STEM in alignment with the unique worldview of my TCU’s place?
·
*
What steps can I
take to deepen my capacity to teach and learn STEM in alignment with the unique
worldview of my TCU’s place?
EEndnptes:
The longhouse model was informed by Tom Sampson, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Lexie
Tom, Cheryl Crazy Bull, Sharon Kinley, the faculty and staff of NWIC, and
higher education assessment models.
The NWIC
teaching and learning logo was rendered by Bob Paltrow based on a kaleidoscope
of drawings and words created by NWIC faculty and instructional administrators.
