# data[].attributes.body
EVERY PLACE, EVERY PEOPLE, HAS ITS OWN UNIQUE PEDAGOGIES.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Aboriginal Pedagogy

# data[].attributes.headline
8 Ways of Aboriginal Learning Fact Sheet

# data[].attributes.subject
8 Ways of Aboriginal Learning Fact Sheet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This series was designed to help K-12 teachers delve into how they can infuse Indigenous texts in their classrooms in meaningful and respectful ways. Teachers will appreciate the Q&A format, age-appropriate literacy strategies and children's Indigenous book recommendations. This set of materials can be used for self-study or can be used in a larger professional learning context.

In an effort to support the infusion of Foundational Knowledge across the curriculum, ARPDC consultants along with Tłı̨chǫ Dene Author, Storyteller, Educator Richard Van Camp collaborated on this project.

Q&A Videos

A series of eight videos with Richard Van Camp and two local Indigenous Consultants. (Videos are 1 - 7 minutes in length). See the collection below.

Learni ng Guides

A series of eight learning guides designed to facilitate reflection and discussion following each of the eight Q&A videos. See the collection below.

Google Slide Decks

Three slide decks that can be used and/or modified for professional learning sessions with school staff. Available at three grade levels:
K - 3 Slides
Grades 4 - 9 Slides
Grades 10 - 12 Slides
Book Talks

A series of 7 book talks with Shelby Laframboise-Helgeson. See the collection below.

Q&A Videos and Learning Guides & Book Talks

Q1-When selecting Indigenous texts for use in classrooms, what would you suggest to teachers?

Length: 6:07
Download Learning Guide

Resources Proudly Developed By:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
K-12 Infusing Indigenous Texts in Classrooms - Empowering the Spirit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This series was designed to help K-12 teachers delve into how they can infuse Indigenous texts in their classrooms in meaningful and respectful ways. Teachers will appreciate the Q&A format, age-appropriate literacy strategies and children's Indigenous book recommendations. This set of materials can be used for self-study or can be used in a larger professional learning context.

# data[].attributes.body
Resources, Background and Context

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Background and Context

In addition to the local Esquimalt and Songhees people, BC is the home for 203 First Nations bands whose languages represent 17 distinct linguistic groups. This diversity means that there traditionally has not been one homogenized expression of educational principles as there might be in a single group of Indigenous peoples; however, there are still strong similarities in the ways of knowing and learning, and commonalities in cultural constructs and worldviews among Aboriginal peoples that could serve to enhance the public education system for all students, and these are found in the First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL).

Provincial Resources

SD61 Specific Resources

SD61 First Peoples Principles of Learning for Teachers (.PDF)

This document represents the thoughts, experience and research of various First Nations and Metis elders, teachers, students and academics. It was produced by the Aboriginal Nations Education Division (ANED), Greater Victoria School District #61 (2017). It is intended to be a guide to conversation and to exploring new perspectives and practices. As such, it will grow and change, as knowledge always does.

Aboriginal Drumming Songs (Google Folder, requires your SD61Learn.ca account to login)

Aboriginal Nations Education has been working to support the district music and choir teachers to weave traditional Aboriginal music and drumming songs into our music curriculum. We have finalized the cultural protocol with three members of the Vancouver Island Nations for the rights to teach and sing their traditional composed songs in our school district. The three singers and composers are Bradley Dick, Lekwungen/Mamalilikala, Jessica Sault, Nuu chah nulth and Gigalis Avery Nelson, Dzawaitaneuk/Snuneymux

Community Resources

Sierra Club Outdoors K-8 (see .pdf brochure)
Royal BC Museum - Eagle Program Salish Weave Box Sets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In addition to the local Esquimalt and Songhees people, BC is the home for 203 First Nations bands whose languages represent 17 distinct linguistic groups.

# data[].attributes.body
Indigenous Knowledge and Science coming together to make new knowledge

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Biodiversity inventory, monitoring, and species-recovery efforts can be advanced by a dynamic collaboration of Western, citizen, and ethnoscience. Indigenous and local traditional knowledge of place-based biodiversity is perhaps the oldest scientific tradition on earth. We illustrate how an all taxa biodiversity inventory network of projects in collaboration with the Comcaac (Seri people) in northwestern Mexico is advancing not only biosystematics but also species recovery, habitat restoration, language conservation and maintenance, and the maintenance of traditional livelihoods. We encourage scientists to establish collaborations with indigenous and other place-based communities to better understand the wealth of knowledge held in local categorization systems. It is essential to not merely seek out one-to-one correspondences between Western and indigenous knowledge but also to recognize and respect the creative tensions among these different knowledge systems, because this is where the most profound insights and fruitful collaborations emerge.

With the accelerating losses of biodiversity, habitats, and native languages, indigenous knowledge-including the study of traditional ecological knowledge of species and landscapes maintained by native nations-has become ever more significant. Globally, 20% of described species are likely to face extinction over the next two to three decades (Maffi 2001, Cardinale et al. 2012). Current extinction rates exceed background rates among vertebrate taxa by 114 times under the most conservative of calculations (Ceballos et al. 2015). Simultaneously, Rogers and Campbell ( 2015) estimated that one language goes extinct every 3.5 months and that 3134 of the 6901 known living languages are endangered. Linguistic and biological diversity are tightly coupled and face similarly grim futures (Gorenflo et al. 2011).

Collaborative efforts to document local biological classifications and associated traditional knowledge of species distributions and habitats are time sensitive. Many ancient place-based knowledge systems pre-date the formal articulation of Western and Eastern scientific tenets by thousands of years. However, adaptive ecological knowledge is rapidly shifting if not dramatically eroding (Loh and Harmon 2014). This is especially true among communities suffering from the declining use of their languages. As such, there is an urgent need to support communities attempting to revitalize their native tongues and maintain their traditional livelihoods based on local natural resources. Fortunately, there are growing efforts to incorporate indigenous cultures into projects that restore habitats of declining species and resuscitate lost practices and knowledge. Examples range from large-scale indigenous-led monitoring efforts of wildlife populations (Luzar et al. 2011) and carbon stocks (Butt et al. 2015) in Amazonia to the mapping of traditional lands in the little-known Darién province of Panama (Herlihy 2003).

The long-term success of conservation initiatives hinges on a pluralistic and interdisciplinary course of action. Recently, citizen scientists' monitoring efforts have been the focus of research aimed at better understanding global biodiversity (Theobald et al. 2015). Laudable endeavors are underway to reengage a broader segment of the population in making natural-history observations of biodiversity imperiled by climate change and discussing the moral implications of such changes (Nisbet et al. 2010, Miller-Rushing et al. 2012). These efforts are complemented by drawing attention to the wisdom embedded in traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). Defined as "knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings, including humans, with one another and with their environment" (Berkes 2012), TEK has guided efforts that protect habitats of endangered or culturally important species (e.g., Nabhan 2000, Johannes and Yeeting 2001). In some cases, TEK has also assisted conservation planning (e.g., Fraser et al. 2006).

Here, we wish to continue this trend and direct attention to the value of indigenous knowledge embedded in local taxonomies. A realm of collaboration-a new era of citizen science with indigenous foragers, fishers, hunters, farmers, and artisans who have a sophisticated grasp of place-based changes in biodiversity through time and space-awaits. Accommodating their knowledge should be of interest to those scholars working to bridge the environmental sciences with social sciences, arts, and religion. Doing so will better engage diverse constituencies in addressing the biological and cultural consequences of global change (Nisbet et al. 2010). It may also avoid a truncated approach to knowledge that limits the horizon of discovery.

Indigenous science as compared with academic and citizen science

As never before, direct comparisons of classifications of species, habitats, and landscapes from Western and indigenous perspectives are now possible. The different ways of perceiving and cataloguing biodiversity is a bountiful realm for collaboration and respectful cross-cultural learning. The nexus of diverse worldviews can be the departure point for future efforts to both document and conserve. Interestingly, disparate cultures have not necessarily arrived at parallel typologies and classification structures for discerning the lives and habitats around them (Atran 1998). Why are there widely heralded cases of one-to-one correspondence of Western and local classifications but intriguing divergences as well? Can the indigenous names and mythology of the geographic origins of species serve as the basis for testable hypotheses just as scientists' observations have been used?

The knowledge base of most indigenous science is rooted in place-based natural-history observations gathered over centuries or millennia, distilled in the lexicon, calendars, place names, maps, and other practices of indigenous resource managers. Indigenous scientific knowledge is in many ways complementary to-not contradictory or redundant with-academic science or citizen science (table 1). In fact, local taxonomies already bridge detailed place-based natural-history observations with moral dimensions and artistic, effective communication strategies that some biodiversity and climate scientists are now striving to encompass in their own work (Nisbet et al. 2010).

As linguistic loss accelerates and traditional natural resource-based livelihoods decline, there is a concomitant loss of traditional ecological knowledge (Loh and Harmon 2014). This compromised knowledge base-as indicated by the disuse of lexemes that refer to particular organisms or ecological interactions-may hamper indigenous communities and humanity at large in gaining a holistic understanding and management framework for dealing with imperiled species, habitats, and the stresses currently being placed on them (Berkes 2012). In addition, there is an increasingly skewed distribution of speakers and languages globally. Half of the world's population speaks 1 of only 24 of the world's approximately 7000 languages, whereas only about 0.1% of the world's population, or about 8 million people, currently speak about 3500 of the world's languages (Loh and Harmon 2014). Nevertheless, the distributions, habitat needs, and behavior of locally declining or endemic species may remain better known by indigenous or local peoples than by Western-trained scientists (Nabhan 2000). We urgently need such place-based knowledge to help guide both species-recovery and habitat-restoration efforts. These efforts may also be essential in supporting the persistence of resources on which livelihoods for indigenous fishermen, foragers, or hunters are based (Berkes 2012).

Fortunately, for decades, individuals in the biological and social sciences have worked with indigenous leaders to document the biocultural diversity still extant in First Nations' lands and waters (Maffi 2001). Until recently, only a minority of studies were formally guided or directed by traditional tribal elders, with technical support being provided by professional scientists (Gupta et al. 1993). However, more than ever before, indigenous leaders are taking full leadership in documenting the diversity in their territory. Foremost among them are the ethno-ornithological, mammal, and traditional medicinal plant inventories in the Kuna Yala homelands of the Kuna in Panama (Ventocilla 1995).

There remain creative tensions to be dealt with when attempting to integrate information, values, and cosmologies from distinct cultures. Perhaps there has been a prevailing ideological bias among linguists and biologists toward finding "universal principles" of classification embedded in folk biological taxonomies. Such apparent commonalities have been enough to convince some scientists that the prevailing one-to-one correspondences of folk and scientific taxonomies indicate that such taxa are "biologically real" entities and not just arbitrary constructs (Begossi et al. 2008). Such oversimplified use of universal principles risks ignoring the very essence of diversity itself. Instead, we believe that particular attention must be paid to the anomalies, the unique cultural expressions, and the collisions of dissonant taxonomic structures. Historically, although linguists or taxonomists may have favored certitude over incongruence, we no longer wish to risk doing so at the expense of the very diversity we wish to honor.

Profiles of select traditional knowledge and biocultural conservation initiatives

Here, we present a brief panorama of what can be gained by incorporating indigenous knowledge in scientific studies in order to provide different ways of understanding biodiversity and its conservation. Increasing efforts over the past two decades have identified and documented perspectives that broaden Western science-based approaches and engage with local indigenous communities in knowledge transmission, in both directions. Likewise, projects of empowerment aim to support and train indigenous leaders and institutions in efforts to protect their landscapes and seascapes. The avenues of collaboration are as vast as our disciplines of study can accommodate.

Indigenous worldviews supporting long-term resiliency strategies

For over 3000 years, Maya people have inhabited diverse landscapes in the Yucatan Peninsula, Southern Mexico, and Central America. As could be said of many place-based societies, the way Yucatec Maya people relate with their surrounding landscapes pivots on a system of values, beliefs, and symbolic representations of the natural world. As small-scale cultivators, Mayan soil taxonomy uses over 80 descriptive terms for biodiversity in soils, soil heterogeneity, and the adaptive practices required for successful cultivation in changing landscapes. Maya knowledge of the environment is applied through multiple use strategies such as the milpa or maize production, agroforestry, gardening, beekeeping, hunting, gathering, and fishing (Barrera-Bassols and Toledo 2005). The social and ecological resilience of the Maya is intertwined with the sacred, in which the interweaving of the spiritual and practice realms is encoded in a healing ritual with the land that sustains a biologically diverse landscape (Barrera-Bassols and Toledo 2005, Berkes 2012).

The same characterization of indigenous communities can be extended to local place-based communities that have unique adaptations and cultures, which face the same challenges of modernization as indigenous societies. One such community is that of Los Californios, ranching families in the remote sierras of the Baja California peninsula, decedents of eighteenth-century soldiers, sailors, and servants brought to assist missionary and military endeavors during the settlement of Baja California (Crosby 1981). Hundreds of families still live much as their colonizing ancestors did more than two centuries ago: Ranch life is both self-sufficient and noted for leathermaking and gardening in the oases of the sierras. The close connection between Los Californios and the land mirrors that of other indigenous communities across the world.

Congruent knowledge systems

The integration of traditional ecological knowledge and that of evolutionary biology can be particularly relevant to biodiversity conservation in isolated areas, where intraspecific diversity can go unrecognized in both systems of knowledge. Examples of indigenous knowledge of biologically real entities below the species level contributing to conservation planning include caribou ( Rangifer tarandus), bowhead whale ( Balaena mysticetus), Pacific herring ( Clupea pallasi), green sea turtle ( Chelonia mydas), and bumphead parrot fish ( Polbometopon muricatum; Fraser et al. 2006).

The integration of TEK among the Eeyou Istchee Cree First Nations people with biology is a clear example of how indigenous knowledge contributes to conservation planning (Fraser et al. 2006). Traditional knowledge of the brook charr ( Salvelinus fontinalis), known as màsimekw by the Cree, was contrasted with previously obtained Western science in the context of seasonal migratory habits and population biology. This compilation of knowledge provided concordant and additional information about population viability, breeding areas, and migration patterns of divergent populations, which was used in the maintenance of population diversity.

Indigenous biodiversity documentation, stewardship, and learning

Participatory research involving the documentation of biodiversity is being undertaken in Diidxazá, or Isthmus Zapotec spoken in La Ventosa, Oaxaca (Pérez Báez 2015). Together with biologists, a photographer, an applied linguist, and local assistants, they have collected over 1360 plant samples of over 400 species deposited in herbaria, which are paired with over 1000 lexical entries and over 5000 high-quality photographs. This effort is based on addressing local community concerns regarding the loss of lexical items and local knowledge associated with plants. In addition, the project aims to create consciousness of the loss of biodiversity among children through 10 intergenerational workshops with 6 local teachers and the development of bilingual (in Diidxazá and Spanish) material regarding the local flora.

Recovering, revitalizing, and passing on traditional knowledge across generations

Over the last century, the means by which traditional ecological knowledge is passed on between generations have shifted dramatically as formal education and social media have eclipsed oral transmission from elders. Nevertheless, Zent ( 1999) and others (e.g., Nabhan 2003) have pioneered means by which indigenous communities can track the rate of loss of traditional knowledge between generations and use environmental education programs to counter these losses.

Traditional knowledge is most comprehensively transmitted by elders to very young but attentive children through subsistence activities in camps, harvesting sites, and traditional hunting and fishing grounds rather than in indoor classrooms (Hunn 2002, Nabhan 2016). It is our experience that the elders of indigenous communities have welcomed the collaborations of field biologists who have helped take youth and their elders to field sites of rare and endemic species and to culturally symbolic or spiritually important gathering grounds. While in situ, oral histories as well as conservation-oriented harvesting practices can be transmitted both through native languages and hands-on practice, aiding retention (Nabhan 2016).

Knowledge transmission and indigenous leadership

Indigenous-led social institutions provide the means by which societies can act on their local knowledge to support livelihoods based on the environment (Berkes 2012). For example, the Northern Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA) is a modern indigenous-led institution that interfaces with the Australian government and academic institutions to facilitate land stewardship across the Aboriginal lands of northern Australia. NAILSMA does this through the Kimberly Ranger Network, a group of 14 Aboriginal land-manager units that collectively manage over 25 million hectares of land (NAILSMA 2016). The Ranger Network provides robust tools, skills, and training that enable the rangers to apply both traditional ecological knowledge and Western science, as well as train other indigenous conservation leaders from around the world, including the Comcaac discussed in the case study found in this article (Kennett et al. 2010).

Prioritizing actions

As Gewin ( 2002) has described, there are many new emerging collaborations aimed at adapting taxonomic inventories for the Internet age. These innovative approaches often involve broader collaborations and participatory strategies to inventory the world's remaining biodiversity before it is too late. Some of these engage citizen scientists as "parataxonomists" to assist academic scientists with All Taxa Biodiversity Inventories, such as those initiated in the Guanacaste Conservation Area of Costa Rica (Janzen 2004); the NaturaLista program, spearheaded by the Mexican National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO, http://conabio.inaturalist.org); and those in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the United States (Sharkey 2001). However, we encourage comprehensive collaborative work toward documenting inventories of indigenous and Western knowledge for local biodiversity, such as the case study we present below. We stress that knowledge maintained in rural communities is equally valuable to that of Western origin.

Given that the crisis in biocultural diversity is more complex and time sensitive than that of merely inventorying species, we argue that before more species and languages (or merely lexical items) are lost, indigenous, rural, citizen, and professional scientists should collaborate to accomplish four tasks:

1. Document in understudied/minority and endemic languages not only the local names (simple or compound lexemes) for but also the descriptive natural-history knowledge about as many plants and animals as possible, with particular focus on endangered endemic species, as well as species that appear to have culturally influenced distributions and abundances.

2. Document more precisely the convergence and congruency between local taxonomies and Western-knowledge schemas, as well as how they are aberrant or incongruous with the Western (or Linnaean) scientific classification system.

3. Engage indigenous or local communities in biodiversity documentation and stewardship through culture-driven intergenerational learning, using native language-based approaches as well as other ecological knowledge tools and strategies.

4. Empower and support indigenous or local communities that choose to develop their own programs for managing and recovering rare species in their homelands and waters as a means to maintain or revitalize native languages and customs in order to sustain traditional livelihoods.

Case study involving the Comcaac of the Gulf of California, Mexico

Let us consider as a case study the progress made on these four tasks through long-term collaborations between the Comcaac (Seri people) of Sonora, Mexico, and a group of linguists, ethnobiologists, anthropologists, geographers, land managers, and conservation biologists that has gained momentum over the last quarter century (figure 1). The Comcaac are a seafaring and hunter-gatherer culture. They or their ancestors or predecessors have lived in the arid coastal region of the Sonoran Desert and Gulf of California for millennia (figure 2; Bowen 2009). There are around 900 speakers of Cmiique Iitom (the Seri language) as of 2007 (Lewis et al. 2015), almost all of which are bilingual in Spanish. Cmiique Iitom has been described as vibrant and its status as "vigorous" (Lewis et al. 2015), even when taking into consideration its status as an endangered language (Moser and Marlett 2010). Cmiique Iitom is not genealogically related to the neighboring Uto-Aztecan languages, and has been classified as a language isolate, meaning that we do not know with any precision its linguistic relatives.

A group of professional scientists from Mexico and the United States has been engaged with Comcaac community leaders and young "para-ecologists" in what began ad hoc but has emerged as an All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory presented collectively here for the first time (table 2, supplemental material 1). It encompasses both landscapes and seascapes along the Sonoran Desert coast of the Gulf of California of Sonora and among the Midriff Islands, an archipelago that stretches from the Baja California peninsula to mainland of Sonora. These efforts have documented several sets of taxa in Cmiique Iitom and Western or Linnaean scientific terminology to classify the biodiversity of the region.

In recent years, young Seri para-ecologists as well as elders have been coauthors on or listed contributors to several significant studies of biodiversity inventory, habitat conservation, and restoration published in half a dozen refereed journals and four books from academic presses (see supplemental material 2). Substantive collaborative studies with the Comcaac have been undertaken regarding vascular plants, mollusks, fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals; species migration; endangered-species recovery; habitat restoration; and indigenous (economic) uses. These multicultural assessments of biodiversity serve as the departure point for a more refined grasp of a region, in this case the remarkably diverse Gulf of California and the surrounding Sonoran Desert. What follows is a series of examples of the nexus of traditional and Western knowledge in the case study of the Comcaac.

Landscapes and place names

Researchers (e.g., O'Meara 2010) have studied the way that the Comcaac conceptualize and talk about their land and seascapes. Place names that contain abundant references to plants and animals as well as other "affordances" convey the links between humans and their environment. Examples include Moosni Oofija, "what the green sea turtles encircle," which refers to a shoal in the ocean where Chelonia mydas individuals of certain age classes aggregate, and Seenel Iitxo, "where there are many butterflies," an aggregation site around scarce springs, seeps, or floral resources. The latter term may have offered human survival value, because it refers to a place where one would find fresh water after rains on the extremely arid San Esteban Island. These names clearly provide a context regarding biological resources located at culturally significant sites.

O'Meara ( 2010) showed that the landscape domain conceptualized by the Comcaac (based on generic landscape terms) describes unique environmental characteristics. The terminology is primarily made up of a generic term that indicates the material substance being referred to and another term that restricts its reference possibilities. This pattern of a semantically broad term (e.g., ziix, "thing"; eenim, "metal"; or hast, "stone") as the head of a landscape term is a characteristic that permeates the Seri grammar. Consider, for instance, the two nominal expressions ziix coqueht, "ball" or, literally, the "thing that bounces," and ziix cozíp, "round-tailed ground squirrel" or, literally, the "thing that kisses." These highly descriptive expressions provide a glimpse into the way that the Comcaac conceptualize the world around them.

We also see that, unsurprisingly, the Comcaac have generic names for the various parts of the intertidal zone that border between the sea, xepe com, "seawater lying," and the beach, xepe quih iteel, "edge of the sea." These intertidal zones are home to many sea creatures and are favorite spots to explore while looking for shells. Understanding the local conceptualization of the landscape where plants and animals live can provide a link to understanding the distribution patterns of local species guilds, their local uses, and their behavior.

Seri place names also encode biological knowledge that has otherwise been lost. The name in Cmiique Iitom for Rasa Island, a small but globally important sea bird island in the middle of the Gulf of California, is Tosni Iti Ihiiquet, "where the pelicans have their offspring." Yet, the island has not had breeding pelicans in the recent past (Anderson et al. 2013). However, a translation of Italian naturalist Federico Craveri's journals from an 1856 voyage in the Gulf reveals the presence of young pelicans on Rasa Island and corroborates the accuracy of the Seri name (Bowen et al. 2015).

New discoveries

The collective knowledge of biodiversity among the Comcaac that evolved over millennia is embedded in complex local linguistic expressions and cultural practices, which contributes new and often surprising information to regional conservation efforts, particularly with regard to endemic or endangered species (Nabhan 2003). Collaborations have often led Western taxonomists to populations of plant species previously uncollected in the region, as is the case with the wild tepary bean ( Phaseolus acutifolius or haap), a once-important food crop for the Comcaac who lived in the interior of Tiburón Island (Felger and Moser 1985, Felger and Wilder 2012). Tiburón was thought to be too arid to support this variety of native bean. However, botanist Richard Felger was led to the remote site Haap Caaizi Quih Yaii, "tepary bean users' place," by a Seri elder, Rosa Flores, who had not been to this volcanic hill for over three decades. However, multiple kilometers inland and on the other side of a large mountain range, there was a healthy population of haap growing up through the rocks (Felger 2000). The Comcaac have also documented observed behaviors and interspecific interactions not initially encountered by academic scientists (Nabhan 2000), such as the undocumented overwintering population of sea turtles previously thought by scientists to migrate away from the region during cold periods (Felger et al. 1976).

Other studies reveal major knowledge gaps, such as the names of mollusks that refer to species currently unidentified by scientists or have possibly been locally extirpated (Marlett 2014). Accounts of mythological sea creatures and reptiles also unknown to Western science are embedded within the songs and stories of their ancient navigation journeys throughout the Gulf of California (Monti 2002).

Introductions and extirpations

The role of humans in the current distribution of plants and animals is often overlooked (Nabhan 2002). There is an ever-growing body of evidence from around the world that supports the causal link between human agency, either deliberate or unknowingly, and anomalous species distributions (e.g., Heinsohn 2003, Rangan and Bell 2015). Several studies in the Seri region have specifically focused on refining the scientific taxonomy and geography of desert plants and animals in this region in the context of the Comcaac as agents of dispersal. Nabhan ( 2003), among several case studies, examined the translocation of the chuckwalla ( Sauromalus varius) between San Esteban and Alcatraz islands. It is widely regarded among the Comcaac that these reptiles were taken from San Esteban to the smaller islands-often breaking the legs of the lizards to aid their transportation-for food. These actions are believed to be responsible for the continued and otherwise mysterious presence of this species of chuckwalla on Alcatraz today. Using genetics, Davy and colleagues ( 2011) examined a similar situation by directly testing the hypothesis that humans mediated the divergence of two species of spiny-tailed iguanas on islands in the Gulf of California (Ctenosaura conspicuosa and C. nolascensis). In line with Seri traditional knowledge, which holds that C. nolascensis was not brought from San Pedro Nolasco Island to San Esteban Island, their molecular data show a divergence time between these two island populations predating human colonization of the New World. The study by Davy and colleagues ( 2011) showed how TEK can be harnessed as a basis for hypotheses: In this case, genetic analyses corroborate knowledge of the Comcaac. Bowen ( 2003) investigated the possible explanations, including the Comcaac as well as microclimate, past climate change, and bat dispersal, in the rare occurrence of the organ pipe cactus ( Stenocereus thurberi) on San Esteban Island. Studies that combine traditional and Western scientific approaches can continue to refine which plant and animal taxa the Seris culturally dispersed among islands and coastal habitats.

Scholarly research can also be incongruous with knowledge held by indigenous societies. Seri mythology and historical records supported a long-standing absence of desert bighorn sheep on Tiburón Island. The recent finding of 1500-year-old dung of this ungulate on Tiburón demonstrates its presence there prior to its unintentional rewilding to the island in 1975 (Wilder et al. 2014). This is a situation in which science is finding something traditional knowledge has not preserved. We see opportunities to increasingly use Seri knowledge, such as place names (e.g., islands named for plant or animal species no longer found there), cultural practices (e.g., burying the placenta of newborns next to translocated columnar cacti that often have anomalous distributions), and mythology (e.g., Comcaac ancestors fleeing a giant flood and turning into boojoms, Fouquieria columnaris, still seen in Sonora-the only occurrence of this species outside of the Baja California peninsula) to inform scientific hypotheses to be tested through cross-cultural collaboration.

Challenges

The Seri and other indigenous communities are experiencing persistent external pressures on their language and homelands. The loss of traditional livelihoods is linked to economic pressures and changes in their way of life as they adapt to globalization processes. Efforts to appropriate indigenous territory and natural resources by outside forces are unabated in many parts of the world. Strategies to conserve and honor TEK must take into account the rights of indigenous communities for self-governance, intellectual property, prior informed consent, and the maintenance of their language and culture while seeking sustainable economic-development options as affirmed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2008. Conservation and language-maintenance or -revitalization projects can benefit collaborators not only economically through remuneration but also mentally and emotionally through skill building and empowerment.

A host of challenges also exist in the collaborative process. One of the larger hurdles is how to have projects continue and not require the full time presence of the external collaborator. Often, projects are successfully implemented but quickly dissolve or take less effective directions shortly after the external researcher leaves. Collaboration among the diverse stakeholders and partners is likewise complicated given limited time, budgets, diverse mission statements, and schedules. A pervasive issue in collaboration with indigenous communities is the failure to return information collected by outside researchers in a format that is legible, either in their native or adopted language, and understandable by nonacademics. The lack of follow-through with the results and benefits of the collaboration hampers incentive for further joint efforts.

Next steps

Active efforts are being made not merely to archive but also to share this knowledge within indigenous communities. With respect to language conservation and maintenance, Moser and Marlett ( 2010) have compiled and published a trilingual Seri-Spanish-English dictionary documented over the course of a half-century. Their efforts also encompass the publication of numerous monolingual booklets of stories in Cmiique Iitom for community use (Marlett SA 2013). Intensive courses and workshops on native-language literacy have been offered in recent years, which support language maintenance and restoration that have involved dozens of younger Seri individuals. Thanks to these efforts, various Seri adults have some reading and writing ability in their own language. Now, the younger generation can assure that the traditional knowledge held by Seri elders is being documented, retained, and celebrated in their communities.

Seri individuals who underwent para-ecologist training are now working for Mexico's Commission for Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) and the tribal natural resources program. The quality of their work has been recognized by the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of the American Indian, National Geographic, Conservation International, Slow Food International, and many other international organizations. Many of the participating researchers (academics and Comcaac alike) are now members of the Next Generation Sonoran Desert Researchers (N-Gen; Wilder et al. 2013), a network of more than 350 of the leading scientists in the region-50% based in the United States and 50% based in Mexico. Indigenous leaders from different cultures together with academics in the region have convened the Biocultural Network of Sonora, an affiliate of the national Biocultural Network in Mexico, to address some of the most pressing ecological challenges confronting their communities.

Current efforts of the Biocultural Network, N-Gen, CONANP, Prescott College, and others are focused on supporting the Comcaac as leaders in science and conservation projects. The Program for the Development of Sustainable Conservation (PROCODES) of CONANP has been a significant stimulus and supporter of indigenous-proposed and -led projects. Under the PROCODES program, funding from the Mexican federal government is allocated to community-led projects throughout Mexico. These projects provide funds for both activities and moderate salaries for one year. The importance of financial compensation for natural resource-based livelihoods as an alternative to extractive and consumptive development-based earnings cannot be understated.

However, there is a profound gap in basic education and capacity training, including proposal writing, budget preparation, data analysis, and fiscal management, among many others. The collaborating organizations mentioned above are working with the Comcaac to provide opportunities to address these knowledge gaps through intensive field-based ecology courses, ongoing educational opportunities with Prescott College and outside researchers, and exchanges with other indigenous communities. Actions are also focused on strengthening intergenerational knowledge-transmission processes to engage the next generation in biodiversity stewardship. The collective goal of these efforts are to provide the Comcaac with the skills needed to lead efforts that address community-identified priority topics and create opportunities for livelihoods.

Conclusions

The complex nuances of local classification systems, both among the Comcaac and indigenous cultures worldwide, are a bountiful repository of understanding crafted over the millennia that is rapidly diminishing in scope and detail. By not fully honoring the real and potential value of indigenous science as it does professional academic and citizen science, our institutions risk ignoring the opportunity for consilience among the many sources of knowledge. The challenges we face both collectively as a species and independently as nations, societies, communities, and individuals are too great to not seek out knowledge that can advance our response to an impoverished world.

Many individuals among the Comcaac, fellow researchers, foundations, universities, nonprofit organizations, and federal agencies have been instrumental in making this collective work possible. Thank you in particular to Richard Felger, Lloyd Findley, Cathy Moser Marlett, Thor Morales, Héctor Pérez Puig, and Jorge Torre for assistance in developing the ethnotaxa and Western diversity numbers in the territory of the Comcaac. We particularly thank our many collaborators and students in the two Comcaac communities of Punta Chueca and Desemboque for what they have imparted to us in terms of knowledge and values. Foremost among supporting foundations have been the MacArthur Foundation; the Overbrook Foundation; the Agnese Lindley Haury Foundation; the Pew Charitable Trust; the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; the David and Lucille Packard Foundation; the Christensen Fund; the National Science Foundation; and Mexican federal and state agencies such as Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP), Culturas Populares, and Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia; the US Fish and Wildlife Service Sonoran Joint Venture and Wildlife Without Borders; UC MEXUS; Comunidad y Biodiversidad; Prescott College Kino Bay Center for Cultural and Ecological Studies; and the Centro de Information y Desarrollo Indígena (CIAD).

Supplemental material

The supplemental material is available online at .

References cited

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Importance of Indigenous Knowledge in Curbing the Loss of Language and Biodiversity | BioScience | Oxford Academic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Biodiversity inventory, monitoring, and species-recovery efforts can be advanced by a dynamic collaboration of Western, citizen, and ethnoscience. Indigenous and local traditional knowledge of place-based biodiversity is perhaps the oldest scientific tradition on earth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
School District 27 Residential Schools and Reconciliation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Martin Nakata's seminal research on the cultural interface, initially applied to Torres Strait Islanders' perspectives and experiences (1997) and consequently discussed more broadly in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies and education (Nakata, 2007), can inform Indigenous education in Australia. The theoretical concepts of the cultural interface have been applied to the Australian school context, working on the interface of local Indigenous ways of knowing, being and learning and the demands of mainstream curricula (Yunkaporta & McGinty, 2009; Lowe & Yunkaporta, 2013). Further, the cultural interface informed research and development of Indigenous pedagogies (Yunkaporta, 2009; Yunkaporta & Kirby, 2011).

In this post, the cultural interface and related concepts are used to inform a culturally-responsive teaching practice in relationship to both non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australian school students. Such practice includes the development of culturally safe classrooms, the selection and presentation of culturally-appropriate curriculum content and the application of inclusive pedagogies. The post starts with introducing the theoretical foundations and concepts of the cultural interface, in particular the 'corpus' of Indigenous studies, 'contested knowledge spaces' and the 'Indigenous standpoint theory'. Next, the cultural interface is applied to the classroom context, discussing implications for teaching Indigenous students, making curriculum choices and developing a culturally-safe teaching and learning space.

Next, the cultural interface is reviewed in terms of how it can inform the teaching of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, highlighting potential issues around representation of Indigenous content and knowledge. This is followed by investigating the 8 ways of Aboriginal learning (Yunkaporta & McGinty, 2009), a culturally-responsive pedagogical framework, as well as related Indigenous pedagogical concepts that draw upon the cultural interface to embed Indigenous perspectives (e.g. Grant, 1998; Graham, 1999; Carter, Cooper, & Anderson, 2016). The post concludes with a reflection on how the cultural interface can influence the teaching practice.

Summary of key concepts

Martin Nakata (2007) describes the dichotomy of non-Indigenous and Indigenous knowledge systems as a cultural interface of . The disparate nature of western and Indigenous knowledge systems include different cosmologies (what can be known and the role of belief in evidence), ontologies (what makes knowledge), and epistemologies (who can be the knower, how truth is established and tested and the nature of inferencing). The cultural interface is also the contested knowledge spaces intersection between non-Indigenous and Indigenous ways of:

knowing - including teaching and learning, making sense of the world,

being - including self perception and perception of realities, as well as the process of making meaning, and

doing - what and how knowledge gets operationalised, including cultural and social practices.

Many aspects between western and Indigenous systems are different and on the surface can often appear contradictory and incompatible, such as a scientific geological description of landscape evolution versus its corresponding local dreamtime story. However, inherent in the cultural interface is the potential for a non-oppositional space of dialogue and reconciliation. Nakata and others (e.g. Green & Oppliger, 2007; Bala & Joseph, 2007; Yunkaporta, 2009) highlight opportunities for working at the cultural interface in a spirit of synergistic dialogue, mutual respect, reconciliation, and developing higher-order knowledge and innovation. In order to realise these opportunities, the recognition of institutionalised unequal power relationships between non-Indigenous and Indigenous participants in mainstream schooling, curricula content and pedagogies is essential. This recognition must come from a place of acknowledgment of the long and ongoing history of distorted representations of Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in Australia.

Nakata (2007) introduces the Indigenous standpoint theory as a tool for Indigenous participants to navigate the cultural interface . The standpoint theory is a theoretical approach that originated out of the feminist movement and articulates the experience of marginalised social groups who have been assigned a place and voice in society by others (Hartsock, 1983; O'Brien Hallstein, 2000). Accordingly, the social position of the knower defines his/her starting point, scope and experience of and engagement with potential knowledge. The Indigenous standpoint is produced by Indigenous experience and is an intellectual device to construct and reconcile an experiential subjective truth with dominant non-Indigenous theoretical knowledge. It allows Indigenous peoples to speak from their own cultural standpoint, maintain their forms of knowledge and present their own epistemological truth (Foley, 2006). The standpoint theory elevates the fact that knowledge, truth and experiences are intersubjective between participants. It also provides a rationale that not all conflicting truths need to be resolved (Nakata, 2007). Therefore, the Indigenous standpoint theory provides a conceptual entry point to a more level discourse otherwise framed by dominant western ontologies, epistemologies and objectified knowledge about Indigenous cultures.

Corpus is a term used in linguistics to describe a collection of samples of 'real world' data or texts. Nakata (2007) adapted the term in his Indigenous standpoint theory to describe and criticise the corpus of objectified knowledge, a body of cumulative knowledge produced Indigenous peoples by non-Indigenous researchers studying Indigenous people, cultures and beliefs. This corpus is generated across academic disciplines, legislative and administrative bodies, and is distorted by the perceptual limitations and social agendas of the non-Indigenous knowledge makers. The corpus has historical foundations in anthropology. A good part of the corpus of objectified knowledge about Indigenous people is construed to justify and rationalise views of social Darwinism and white supremacy (Francis, 1996). It continues to define non-Indigenous and Indigenous relationships such as justifying the imposition of bureaucratic, managerial and disciplinary actions, and promoting deficit-framed stereotypes (Yunkaporta & McGinty, 2009; Fforde et al., 2013). Today, the corpus is increasingly inclusive of authentic Indigenous voices, but remains firmly seated within western knowledge-making traditions and paradigms (Nakata, 2007).

Implications of the cultural interface for working with Indigenous Australian students

Indigenous students are located at the cultural coalface of contested positions between traditional cultural knowledge, contemporary and often socially marginalised realities, projections of objectified "Indigenous" knowledge, and western curriculum demands. Life at school and at home can be a constant negotiation between contrary viewpoints, a tug-of-war between demands for alignment with either side, conflicting allegiances, a choice between opposition and assimilation. This can lead to ambiguity, internal conflict and physical and mental exhaustion (Nakata, 2007). The situation is compounded by the fact that Indigenous students often lack initiated traditional knowledge and the academic English meta-language to explain and argue their views and challenge the objectified corpus and any stereotypes.

In this situation, the first step towards working with Indigenous students in the classroom is to create a culturally-safe space. This can be achieved by a number of initiatives. At the classroom level, an inclusive environment must be established. Representations of Indigenous stereotypes and any deficit-framed depictions must be avoided, such as an overly focus on exhibiting traditional "primitive" tools and tokenistic artwork without local context and meaning (Yunkaporta, 2009). Instead, these representations can be replaced by a 'Welcome to Country' delivered by a local Elder, regular 'Acknowledgment to Country' (McKenna, 2014), representations of contemporary Indigenous culture and role models such as Indigenous sport heroes, artists, writers, inventors or Australians of the Year (Korff, 2016). Further, engagement with Indigenous parents and community leaders in the selection of authentic and meaningful material for displays can make a real difference in creating a culturally-responsive teaching and learning space (Harrison & Greenfield, 2011).

At the next level, valuing and utilising Indigenous staff and parents, including Indigenous teachers and teacher aides can make a significant impact in helping Indigenous students to navigate the cultural interface at school (Sarra, 2005; Queensland Government, Department of Education and Training (DET), 2015). The Queensland Government framework ' Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives in schools (EATSIPS) (2015) provides additional guidelines for planning and developing culturally-appropriate curriculum materials, including aspects of how to best incorporate authentic Indigenous perspectives in content selection, as well as advice on culturally-appropriate pedagogies that value knowledges and resources Indigenous students bring to the classroom, elaborated in more detail below. Perhaps the most important aspect for working with Indigenous students at the cultural interface in school is to engage synergistically in the overlap between non-Indigenous and Indigenous realities and ways of knowing (Yunkaporta & McGinty, 2009).

Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and representation of Indigenous peoples and cultures

Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content in the classroom requires a number of considerations. The first relate to the selection of teaching and learning material. Martin Nakata is explicit about problems inherent in the corpus of objectified knowledge about Indigenous Australians (2007). Many resources can be distorted and questionable, by promoting inaccurate generalisations, stereotypes and deficit perspectives. In order to address the potential for misrepresentations, the State of Queensland, Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCCA) provides additional guidelines for embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in schools by recommending five criteria for evaluating Indigenous teaching and learning resources (QCCA, 2010):

1. Authenticity - including accuracy of statements made about Indigenous Australians, misrepresentation of Indigenous land use (e.g. terra nullius myth) and Indigenous resistance to European occupation, any generalisations made across multiple different groups of Indigenous peoples

2. Balanced nature of presentation - critically review material for author bias, trivialisation and over-representations (e.g. importance of men's roles, exclusive focus on Indigenous art in curriculum), negative stereotypes, overly focus on traditional and exotic cultural aspects

3. Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander participation - participation and acknowledgment of Indigenous authors in the research, writing and presentation processes

4. Accuracy and support - looking for local relevance of material and endorsement by the relevant local Aboriginal education consultative and/or Indigenous community groups

5. Exclusion of content of secret or sacred nature - engage in consultation with local Indigenous community to review material for any presentations of secret and/or sacred items, practices, sites, representations, as well as photographs and the names of deceased

While the above criteria address some of the main concerns about appropriate selection of Indigenous resources for the classroom, a critical application of the cultural interface concept is also concerned with how this material is presented (Nakata, 2007). First of all, there is the integrity of the knower, knowledge and practices. Some knowledge must be learned from the traditional holders of knowledge (i.e. Elders), while other knowledge is limited to local context and might require initiation. The teacher needs to develop a critical awareness on what can be presented, how and why, reviewing the value and application for her or his students, as well as any potential commercial or political interest behind resources. Finally, there is the peril of framing Indigenous knowledges in opposition to culturally-valued paradigms, such as Science. As Nakata remarked, Indigenous knowledge cannot simply be inserted into the curriculum without first developing critical awareness and acknowledgment of differences in knowledge spaces, in particular the discursive practices of the subject, differences in paradigms, philosophical positions, production technologies and practices and, last but not least, languages (2007). However, despite all these difficulties navigating the cultural interface between different systems of knowledges, the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge and perspectives into the classroom is an invaluable opportunity for students to generate dialogical exchange, reconciliation and create new knowledge (Bala & Joseph, 2007).

Pedagogical frameworks working at the cultural interface and embedding Indigenous perspectives

A number of pedagogies have explored ways to embed Indigenous cultural knowledge and lived experiences in ways that engage Indigenous students in the curriculum (Martin, Nakata, Nakata & Day, 2015). Perhaps the single most comprehensive pedagogical framework informed by the overlap of Indigenous and non-Indigenous learning processes at the cultural interface is the 8 ways of Aboriginal learning (8ways) (Yunkaporta & Kirby, 2011).

This framework was developed by the James Cook University School of Indigenous Studies in collaboration with the Western New South Wales Regional Aboriginal Education Team and DET staff in 2007-2009 and emphasises Indigenous processes of knowledge transmission as opposed to the introduction of "indigenised" curriculum content. All eight pedagogical approaches are mutually beneficial for non-Indigenous and Indigenous students and include (Yunkaporta, 2009):

1. deconstruct/reconstruct - starting all teaching and learning activities or texts with the big concepts and connections before going into details, elsewhere also referred to as holistic learning (Ryan, 1992)

2. learning maps - developing concept maps and visual models as an anchor and reference point to the learning subject, elsewhere explored as narrative-spatial mapping of songlines as a culturally-specific and traditional mnemonic device (Uttal, 2000)

3. community links - encouraging student engagement by positioning teaching and learning episodes in relation to community life and values, based on the premise that motivation for learning comes from social inclusion and building relationships (Kearney, McIntosh, Perry, Dockett, & Clayton, 2014)

4. symbols and images - using concrete images and abstract symbols to support visual-spatial learners and to generate symbolic cues and anchors for teaching and learning units (Yunkaporta & McGinty, 2009)

5. non-verbal - allowing students to critically test new knowledge non-verbally through experience, introspection and practice (Wheaton, 2000)

6. land-links - place-based education building on Indigenous connections between place/space and knowledge, supporting experiential learning and emphasising local relevance, ecological applications and outdoor education (Cameron, 2014)

7. story-sharing - actively involving students in introspection and analysis through personal narratives, a traditional knowledge-transmission format that is central in all Indigenous pedagogies (Wheaton, 2000)

8. non-linear - by supporting non-sequential, cyclical and lateral thinking, any perceived dichotomies of opposing views at the cultural interface can be avoided by allowing for complementary experiences and knowledges, as well as encouraging creative thinking (e.g. De Bono, 2010)

Elements of the the 8ways pedagogical framework can be found in other pedagogies working at the cultural interface. Uncle Ernie Grant's My Land My Tracks (1998) connects the concept of land, language and culture in the context of time, place and relationships, thereby focusing on land links and community links. YuMi Deadly Maths (Carter et al., 2016) emphasises aspects of working with symbols and images and the deconstruction and reconstruction of knowledge. Aunty Mary Graham emphasises the importance of non-linear logic in accommodating logically opposing knowledge systems at the cultural interface (Graham, 1999). The 8ways framework is also compatible with the Productive Pedagogies framework that emerged out of the Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study and informs inclusive teaching practices in Australia with particular emphasis on high intellectual quality, relevance and connectedness to students' lives, creating supportive classroom environments, and valuing and working with difference (Mills et al., 2009). The promotion of high intellectual expectations combined with the provision of high support and scaffolding is an important addition to the 8ways pedagogical framework and addresses the first goal of the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians which explicitly states the importance of promoting high expectations for the learning outcomes of Indigenous students (Barr et al., 2008).

Relevance of the cultural interface for teaching practice

The 'cultural interface' between non-Indigenous and Indigenous participants in a teaching and learning community is one of contested knowledge spaces framed by challenges as well as great opportunities (Nakata, 2007). In order to navigate this interface, teachers first and foremost need to be respectful of and interested in Indigenous cultures, perspectives and knowledge-making practices. Teachers will also need to be critically aware of their own cultural capital and be sensitive to its potentially marked incongruence with the cultural and social capitals or "virtual schoolbags" of their students (Thomson, 2002). Indigenous students face many "foreign" curriculum demands, economic, political, ideological, linguistic and pedagogical practices in mainstream schools. This situation can result in the rejection of and opposition to a school system perceived as disempowering and irrelevant (Groundwater-Smith, 2009). Therefore, teachers need to be clear about the historical and cultural nature of the curriculum and discipline knowledges, and not simply assume the dominant heuristic method to be universal and superior to others. It is essential for teachers to refuse the misperception that schools can only offer constrained choices between non-Indigenous and Indigenous knowledge and perspectives. Here, working with the cultural interface can offer a shared or third cultural space (DET, 2010) with promises of cogenerative dialogue, reconciliation, and new knowledge creation (Nakata, 2007; Bala & Joseph, 2007; Yunkaporta, 2009).

Teachers needs to be careful not to teach a simplistic and imagined Indigenous past. Instead they need to support students with the knowledge, skills and practices that will allow them to confidently establish their unique perspectives in our complex, ever-evolving and increasingly global world. Indigenous knowledges are best included in respectful consultation with socially-recognised 'knowers' among Indigenous parents and the local Indigenous community (Kearney et al., 2014). Teachers need to be aware that some knowledge requires a spiritual and location-based context that might extend beyond the possibilities of their classroom (DET, 2015).

The constant demands of navigating multiple cultural ways of valuing, being, doing and knowing (Lowe & Yunkaporta, 2013) can create physical, cognitive and emotional tensions in Indigenous students, their parents and carers (Nakata, 2007). Therefore, it is essential that teachers create a culturally safe and inclusive teaching and learning space in their classrooms, and look for opportunities in the curriculum to include authentic and relevant Indigenous perspectives and content. Perhaps most importantly, teachers should work with culturally-responsive pedagogies in "doing knowledge" that engage and empower all his students (Woods, 2013). Finally, teachers must challenge the institutionalised deficit induction around Indigenous students and their capabilities (Yunkaporta & McGinty, 2009) by setting high academic expectations (Sarra, 2005; Mills et al., 2009; Woods, 2013; Chaffey, Bailey, & Vine, 2015).

All of this can seem a daunting task. However, the fact that education is one fundamental pathway towards offering Indigenous Australians a more prosperous future, strong and positive identities and opportunities to better support their families and communities, can serve as a strong motivation. Teachers will receive support on the way of their professional journey, through recognition of their efforts by Indigenous students, parents and community members, as well as across the teaching profession which increasingly recognises the need to improve educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students (Barr et al., 2008; Burgess & Berwick, 2009; Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2014, i.e. Australian Professional Standards for Teachers 1.4 & 2.4).

References

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Martin Nakata's seminal research on the cultural interface, initially applied to Torres Strait Islanders' perspectives and experiences (1997) and consequently discussed more broadly in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies and education (Nakata, 2007), can inform Indigenous education in Australia.

# data[].attributes.headline
Indigenous Metissage and the Teaching of Residential Schools History

# data[].attributes.subject
Indigenous Metissage and the Teaching of Residential Schools History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Posted by David Scott
16 February 2015 - 11:21am

In March of last year I had the opportunity to attend the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Edmonton (2014). One of the most memorable moments of this national event occurred on the last day when the Minister of Aboriginal Relations, Frank Oberle, made the announcement that from this point further all kindergarten to Grade 12 curriculum in Alberta will include mandatory content on the significance of residential schools. To a packed hall, Minister Oberle declared: "starting with the youngest members of our society, Alberta commits to residential school survivors, their families and communities, that Albertans will hear your stories and know your truths" (Cotter, 2014).

This news was met by an enthusiastic standing ovation from the over 2,000 people in attendance. However, as I rose with the other attendees to applaud, I was aware that the teaching of the Canadian government's policy of forcibly removing Aboriginal children from their homes and communities into church-run schools was already part of the grade 10 Alberta Social Studies Program (2007). I was further aware that the teaching of this topic in social studies classrooms often relies on informational, transmission-based approaches to teaching history, where students learn about residential schools largely through textbooks and worksheets.

As provincial jurisdictions of education across the country increasingly make the teaching of this dark chapter in Canada's past a mandatory part of the school curriculum (see a previous blog on this topic here), the question becomes: how can educators take up this difficult topic in more meaningful ways?

In response, history educators have offered a variety of viable conceptual possibilities. For example, teachers employing processes ofTo prepare students to respond to these questions, they might be presented various historical documents including video testimony from survivors, copies of pertinent government legislation, correspondences of government agents, as well as newspaper editorials from the time (see also a previous blog with further suggestions for integrating residential school historical thinking (Denos & Case, 2006; Seixas, 2000; Seixas & Morton, 2014) might use this an opportunity to explore the ethical dimensions of history. Specifically, borrowing the framework related to the interment of Japanese Canadians during WWII (Denos & Case, 2006, p. 59), students might be invited to act as a legal team representing former students of the residential school system to deliberate and decide upon: Who bears ultimate responsibility for the residential school system? Similarly, students might be asked to consider: What debt does the Canadian government owe victims of residential schools? (Seixas, 2000, p. 8). photographs with historical thinking).

For assessment, students could be asked to draw on historical evidence to write a report on who they believe bears the greatest responsibility for the establishment of the residential school system (i.e., the churches involved, government agents, the Canadian government, Canadian society as a whole). This response might then be followed by specific action/s the Canadian government should take beyond an official apology, (i.e., specific reparations, mandatory instruction for all Canadian students, prominent memorial etc.).

While the historical thinking model provides a viable means for taking up the teaching of residential schools, one of the limitations of disciplinary approaches to teaching history is that they rely on Euro-Western structures of knowing. Perhaps one of the demands that the teaching of residential schools places on non-Aboriginal educators is to take up this topic through approaches that honour Indigenous ways of knowing and being that the institutionalization of the residential school system sought to eradicate.

In searching for models of what this might look like, a good place to begin is with the theorizing of Donald (2009) and colleagues (Chambers et al., 2008) who offer an approach to historical inquiry termed As Donald (2009) outlines, many sites in Canada possess contentious histories where the stories that Aboriginal people tell of them do not correspond with how many Canadians view these sites. Indigenous Métissage. Drawing inspiration from braided sweat grass, this approach to engaging history positions educators "as the weaver of a textual braid" (Chambers et al., 2008, pp. 141-142), who sets alongside Indigenous stories of artefacts and particular places on the land now known as Canada, in relation to official Canadian perspectives. Through the process of braiding stories together, the intent is to re-interpret and re-frame the historical and contemporary interactions of Indigenous people and Canadians.

To do this educators begin with Indigenous perspectives relating to an artefact or site and show how stories framed within a colonial narrative have filtered and altered these perspectives. Donald (2009) argues that this weaving of conflicting and divergent narratives can ultimately produce something that the larger Canadian society can recognize as their own; while simultaneously prompting Canadians to question the depth to which they understand "the familiar places they call home" (p. 10). In this way historical engagements are no longer a Eurocentric master narrative, but a complex dialogue about the shared reality of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

Currently Donald (personal communication, April 19, 2014) is working on an, as yet unpublished, paper exploring what such an encounter could look like in relation historical perspectives on residential schools. The artefact that forms the pathway into this inquiry is the Bishop Vital Grandin Mural situated at the main terminal of the light rail train station in Edmonton, Alberta. The mural depicts an early Catholic pioneer who arrived in the city in the late 1800's (Frooq, 2011). Positioned prominently to the left, Bishop Grandin stands in the foreground wearing his black frock and crucifix, while a Catholic nun stands behind him holding a, presumably, Plains Cree child. To the right, and behind them both, is a residential school with Aboriginal children playing in front. It is summer time, the grass is green, and small clouds dot a clear blue sky.

Using the process of Indigenous Métissage, educators could ask students to consider the different stories that are present within this mural. To do this, students would be asked to move beyond an objectivist stance and imagine that they were inside this story. Beginning with a story by one of the survivors of this residential school, teachers could then weave in the voice of a contemporary Albertan who valorizes the role Bishop Grandin played in the history of Alberta. These stories could then be woven back and fourth with other stories that might be connected in this mural.

Following King's (2003) insight that if you want a different ethic, tell a different story, the historical weaving of narratives would not end here. An educator using Indigenous Métissage would also want students to consider how a new mural, depicting a different story, might help Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people live together on this land in more ethical and balanced ways. Here, students could learn of Plains Cree stories of interdependence between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans during the fur trade era, as well as Aboriginal perspectives on treaty agreements that were signed in the late 1800's between various Cree nations and the Canadian Government. In learning about the original spirit and intent of the treaties, young people would be exposed to the notion that:

The treaties teach that we are called to work together in ways that bring benefits to all people who live on the land together. These teachings place emphasis on learning from each other in balanced ways and sharing the wisdom that comes from working together in the spirit of good relations. (Donald, 2013, p. 2)

Rather than showing Aboriginal peoples and Canadians as isolated and independent, Indigenous Métissage involves the process of presenting stories that highlight the complex and entangled relationship of Indigenous peoples and Canadians so that people can see the lives of these groups as "both simultaneously and paradoxically antagonistic and conjoined" (Donald, 2009, p. 11).

As Donald writes, rather than two separate worldviews and spheres forever opposed and distinct, a possibility exists for a movement toward "relationality and connectivity that comes from living together in a place for a long time" (p. 6). It is Donald's (2009) hope that the consequent re-reading and re-framing of historical situations can cause people to interrogate their assumptions and prejudices as limited and limiting, "and thus foster a renewed openness to the possibility of broader and deeper understandings that can traverse perceived cultural, civilizational, and temporal divides" (p. 5). In this way, the work of Donald seeks to cultivate an ethical space among Aboriginal peoples and Canadians that can foster a collective rethinking of the relationships that currently exist, towards more ethical and balanced interactions.

As an educator with nine years of experience teaching in public junior high and high schools, one of the refrains I have often heard from students learning about residential schools in the later grades is that they already know about this. As such they ask why do we have to learn about residential schools again? One of the questions that this chorus invokes concerns how teachers could take up this important, and now mandatory, topic in ways that redefine what it means to engage in history.

As Donald (2013) helps us appreciate, taking up historical inquiry in more storied ways that places an emphases on relationships, both past and present, provides a means to overcome the solid and independent identity binaries that colonial traditions have handed down to us. The message here is that identity is never a stand-alone phenomena, it is always scaffold through Others. While the rational autonomous self seeks to rob the world of human fellowship and connection, Indigenous Métissage provides narrative pathways to teach us how to renew and repair the relationship between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Ultimately, the need for such an engagement rests on the reality that, as Kanai elder Andy Blackwater stated, settlers and Aboriginal peoples now all "live together in the same place and their tipis are held down by the same peg. Neither is going anywhere" (Chambers & Blood, 2012, p. 50).
References:
Alberta Education. (2007). Program of studies: Social studies, kindergarten to grade 12. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Education.

Chambers, C., Hasebe-Ludt, E., Donald, D., Hurren, W., Leggo, C. & Oberg, A. (2008). Métissage. In A. Cole and J. Knowles (Eds). Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues (pp. 141-153). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Chambers, C. & Blood, N. (2012). Love thy neighbour: Repatriating precious Blackfoot sites. One World in Dialogue Journal, 2(1), 38-51.

Cotter, J. (2014). Study of residential schools now mandatory in Alberta curriculum. Maclean's. Retrieved from http://www.macleans.ca/education/high-school/residential-schools-now-man...

Denos, M. & Case, R. (2006). Teaching about historical thinking. Vancouver, British Columbia: Critical Thinking Consortium.

Donald, D. (2009). Forts, curriculum, and Indigenous métissage: Imagining decolonization of Aboriginal-Canadian relations in educational contexts. First Nations Perspectives: The Journal of the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre, 2(1), 1-24.

Donald, D. (2013). Teachers, aboriginal perspectives and the logic of the fort. Edmonton, Alberta: The Alberta Teachers' Association.

Frooq, M. (2011). Edmonton LRT rider views station mural through a historical lens. Edmonton Journal. Retrieved from http://foraninclusivesociety.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/edmonton-lrt-rider...

King, T. (2003). The truth about stories: A native narrative. Scarborough, ON: Harper Collins Canada.

Seixas, P. (2000). Schweigen! Die kinder! Or, does postmodern history have a place in the schools? In P.N. Stearns, P. Seixas, & S. Wineburg (Eds.), Knowing, teaching, and learning history (pp. 19-37). New York: New York University Press.

Seixas, P. (2006). Benchmarks of historical thinking: A framework for assessment in Canada. Retrieved from http://historicalthinking.ca/sites/default/files/Framework.Benchmarks.pdf

Seixas, P. & Morton, T. (2013). The big six historical thinking concepts. Toronto, ON: Nelson Education.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2014). Mandate. Retrieved from http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=7

Photo Credit: Dwayne Donald.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Indigenous Métissage and the Teaching of Residential Schools History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Posted by David Scott 16 February 2015 - 11:21am In March of last year I had the opportunity to attend the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Edmonton (2014).

# data[].attributes.headline
Indigenous Pedagogy: Respecting Wisdom Activity

# data[].attributes.subject
Indigenous Pedagogy: Respecting Wisdom Activity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Indigenous Pedagogy: Respecting Wisdom Activity - Talking Together

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Participants use a Venn diagram to compare Indigenous pedagogy and Western pedagogy. After watching six short videos from the Respecting Wisdom section of Healing Historical Trauma, participants consider how they can enhance their teaching practices by using strategies from Indigenous pedagogy.

# data[].attributes.body
In order to understand someone else's culture, reflect on your own, bring your highest understandings

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823, by Jennifer S.H. Brown (Editor), Robert Brightman (Editor). Among Anglo-Canadian fur traders of the early nineteenth century, George Nelson stands out for his interest in the life and ways of the native people he encountered.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What defines the stories that we tell, as people and as educators?

Dwayne Donald, assistant professor, Faculty of Education, has devoted his life's work to considering the stories we tell in the classroom, in light of promoting Aboriginal perspectives in education. Born and raised in Edmonton, Donald traces his heritage both to Norway and to the Papaschase Cree people who once lived in the University area. However, growing up in the city, he recounts having little experience with Aboriginal culture or the effects of colonialism. It was not until he travelled to Kenya to volunteer in the Mathare Valley slums that something hit home. "Before I went to Kenya, I did not really understand the colonialism here and the impact it had on my family story and Canadian society. I came back with a much more critical understanding."

Donald later took a teaching job at Kainai High School on the Kainai Blood Reserve in southern Alberta. He remembers the initial sense of culture shock when he stepped into Blackfoot country. "One of the biggest things was this 'ethic of non-interference' that I saw...this idea that the best way to guide children is to not tell them what to do. You suggest things but, in the end, it's up to them to decide. As teachers, we are trained to take a much more confrontational approach. I did that for a while, and it was very poorly received." It was in the years at Kainai that Donald began to recognize a role for himself as a negotiator of the two influences - the indigenous and the settler - which shape his own life. Fittingly, his Blackfoot name, Aipioomahkaa, means "long distance runner," or "messenger," someone who moves back and forth between places.

The philosophical messenger

This constant sense of movement in Donald's life is largely motivated by personal and pedagogical questions. "I had lots of questions as a teacher at Kainai. Why things were the way they were - you've heard the complaints about reserve schools - and what we could do about it... I went to grad school to connect those things. There was a story to tell, to myself if anything." Parallel to this desire to connect the dots was also an interest in curriculum and how, historically and genealogically, it might fit with indigenous philosophy. "I see the work in education as basically a philosophical problem," he explains. "And I think that one of the problems we have with Canadian identity is that we don't have any stories to connect us, to teach us how to treat each other. All our stories have to do with colonization...I think that the deep rootedness of indigenous philosophies and stories, everyone needs them." One of the ways that Donald tackles the philosophical problem of education is in recognizing the foundations for everything we teach. He explains that, oftentimes, our understandings of culture are based on a Euro-Western worldview. When considering Aboriginal perspectives, the tendency is to only take the surface "artifacts" of culture (the beads, the dances, the food, etc.) and to comprehend them under a Euro-Western lens. The foundational indigenous philosophies which provide those "artifacts" with meaning are not considered and so the story is incomplete. In this way, misunderstandings and misrecognitions are perpetuated.

The idea of indigenous metissage

In order to combat these misunderstandings, Donald has developed the educational philosophy of indigenous metissage. It is a story or "life-writing" approach to curriculum that makes use of inquiry learning. The intent is to understand place and the depth of how stories are braided together through the use of artifacts (photos, books, primary source documents, etc.). An example is the Grandin LRT Station. Teachers might take their students to examine the mural of Bishop Grandin standing outside a residential school. Donald then suggests asking students to think about the different stories (or "strands") that are involved in the mural, including their own. "It contests the idea that we all live in separate realities. My commitment is to use the artifacts, the places, the stories, to show that relationships - especially the Aboriginal-Canadian relationship - are a lot more complicated than we were led to believe."

For Donald, this emphasis on story comes through in his teaching at the University of Alberta and in his work with other educators. Having encountered some fear from educators over the years about teaching Aboriginal peoples and history, Donald provides them with a conceptual framework for what they are feeling. He believes much of the unease stems from feelings of guilt, defensiveness or neutrality - remnants of "colonial logics" - all of which can be paralyzing. Conversely, these same logics have also trained indigenous people to overlook themselves and their own communities. Instead, Donald states, "All of us need to own what we have inherited. All of it. We need to own our commitments and histories and only then can we proceed. If we don't have those stories, we live in poverty." His work promotes the idea that, in understanding the places of origin for our own stories, we can recognize values and connections in the stories of others. "Again, it is this indigenous metissage," Donald says with a smile. "It is this sort of curriculum answer to the question of how do you tell the story of your life without choosing sides?"

Miyo-wîcêhtowin: good relations

For this long distance runner, the goal of his work lies in the Cree principle of " miyo-wîcêhtowin " - a word meaning "having or possessing good relations." It is the belief that, if we all face each other with good intentions, something positive will arise. Donald believes the wisdom that is found in indigenous philosophies are vital not only to education but to Canadian society as a whole. He sees his research as a means to respond holistically to the diversity of opportunities and challenges ahead.

"So the question would be," he says, "is what kinds of story are we going to tell now, about all that happened before and of what we hope for in the future? And what is going to guide the telling of that story?"

For Dwayne Donald, it is not so much what defines the stories that we tell, as people and as educators, but who. "In this metissage sort of sensibility, it's all of us," he says. "We're all working together, trying to come up with a better story."

To find out more about Prof. Donald's research, visit: http://www.secondaryed.ualberta.ca/People/AcademicStaff/DwayneDonald.aspx

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
To Tell a Better Story: Dwayne Donald and Aboriginal Perspectives in Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What defines the stories that we tell, as people and as educators? Dwayne Donald, assistant professor, Faculty of Education, has devoted his life's work to considering the stories we tell in the classroom, in light of promoting Aboriginal perspectives in education.

# data[].attributes.body
A Tool to Assess Cultural Content Level

# data[].attributes.body
Risk being uncomfortable for understanding

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Wade Davis: Loss of language and cultural diversity [HD] - ABC Radio National Breakfast

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
http://abc.net.au/rn/breakfast For the past 30 years, Canadian botanist, writer, photographer and filmmaker Wade Davis has lived with and documented indigenous communities in the Amazon, the Arctic, Mali, Mongolia and many other places over the world.

# data[].attributes.body
a thrilling journey to celebrate the wisdom of the world's indigenous cultures.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Every culture is a unique answer to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive? In The Wayfinders, renowned anthropologist, winner of the prestigious Samuel Johnson P...

# data[].attributes.headline
Hiawatha and the Great Law of Peace Part 1

# data[].attributes.subject
Hiawatha and the Great Law of Peace Part 1

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hiawatha - I: The Great Law of Peace - Extra History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sponsored* by DomiNations! Check it out here: http://smarturl.it/DOMHistory Hiawatha wanted peace, but a more powerful chief named Tadodaho opposed him. So he joined forces with a man called the Peacemaker and a woman named Jigonsaseh, who dreamed of uniting the five Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) nations under one Great Law of Peace.

# data[].attributes.headline
Hiawatha and the Great Law of Peace Part 2

# data[].attributes.subject
Hiawatha and the Great Law of Peace Part 2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hiawatha - II: Government for the People - Extra History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sponsored* by DomiNations! Check it out here: http://smarturl.it/DOMHistory After getting the Seneca to join the Great Law of Peace, Hiawatha came up with a plan to convince Tadodaho. But it took Jigonsaseh to confront him and make him become a true leader.