Students in this course will self-reflect on their own learning in relationship to indigenous pedagogies and explore if indigenous informed educational philosophies can represent a practice of healing. This course will examine The Assimilation Era, 1870s to 1970s, when governmental educational institutions were employed to disrupt and disappear the complex educational systems practiced by native people since time immemorial. The common practices of pre-colonial indigenous pedagogies will be illuminated and engaged to critically explore the colonizing pedagogy forced on students in government-sanctioned schools. Indigenous pedagogies have proven so resilient that they help to illustrate how indigenous people have continually renewed and revived their cultures through education despite the ongoing oppression of colonization. This class may include students from multiple sections. (Formerly HIST 215, Social Sciences, Elective)
Course Outcomes
- Create a working definition of indigenous pedagogy, and employ that definition to reflect on different eras of American Indian education from pre-colonial times, through to contemporary efforts at healing and renewal.
- Demonstrate understanding of terminology key to Integrated Indigenous Studies that includes but is not limited to, the following—indigenous, pedagogy, culture, cultural genocide, historical trauma, sovereignty, self-determination, Colonization/Decolonization, and Treaties.
- Participate in the co-creation of the classroom community.
- Recognize the importance of varied forms of “text” that include traditional text, written sources such as poetry, narratives, fiction, memoir, government documents, archival photographs, material historical sources, video, music, dance, and ceremony.
- Apply local relationships of place to the broader context of historical research.
- Use the tools of indigenous and historical research to demonstrate methods of attribution and citation in a way that properly respects the people being researched.
- Apply self-assessment to evaluate their own learning.