This made me reflect on my education in high school art, and how I want to conduct my art classrooms. Having done the IB program in high school, and now as part of the IB cohort, I am noticing that the course load for IB art is gruelling for both the teachers and the students. I hope to be able to create a space or time especially for IB classes where students can engage in more collaborative artworks and group discussions. 
 In university I realized the benefits of having open informal discussions, and experienced first hand how the discussed aided our creativity and idea generating process. I think having open informal talking circles weekly, or bi-weekly where students can discuss a variety of topics will help with the sharing of different knowledge, community/group building, and can help with sparking creativity. 

Reflecting on my privilege as an educator in a western colonial system, I recognize that I have had the opportunity and access to higher education. I have been supported by my family financially which has allowed me to see more financial, educational, and medical stability. I have also had the privilege to travel and have access to resources more conveniently. I recognize, having some from a colonial systems, the complexities of a colonial education system and society. As educators we also have the privilege to shape the knowledge and values we share with the next generation. 
 With Indigenous education, I have felt discomfort in presenting Indigenous resources as I am cautious not to disrespect any individual or community by sharing a story/resource in an incorrect manner. However, with this course, and the practicum coming up soon I’m feeling more prepared and confident in knowing how to share respectfully and getting permission. 

Two things that really stood out to me during this session were the idea of acknowledging more than one perspective/acknowledging other ways of learning, as well as a question (and answer) that came up about how to decolonize/Indigenize assessment. 

Carolyn Roberts made us think about how, as teachers/teacher candidates, we can bring in other/multiple/different perspectives into the classroom. The idea of acknowledging and talking about more than one perspective, as well as acknowledging different ways of learning, really resonated with me. Carolyn explained the idea of perspectives through a lesson plan on dams, and gave examples of questions we could ask students (ie. who is the dam impacting? Whose livelihood depends on the dam being here? What animals are being affected? Who chose to put the dam here?). It reminds us that there is more than one side to a story. It also reminded me that the First People’s Principles of Learning are one of these ways of learning that are not (or have not been) present in our school systems. This encourages me to talk about these perspectives in the classroom, which could help students make different kinds of connections to what they are doing or what/how they are learning.

I interpreted the different ways of learning as acknowledging that all students are in different places in their learning journey, regardless of the “grade” they are in (which was also talked about by Carolyn). I suppose an advantage of the art classroom, in terms of age/grade level, is that there is often a range of grade levels/ages/abilities in each class (or at least, what I know from my experience up until now). This has me thinking about how I can keep assignments open ended, or allow for many different possibilities for learning depending on the student/learner. Schools can often put students into boxes, but I hope that students will feel like they have a bit more freedom and autonomy in the classes I teach.  

The second thing that stood out to me was the question about decolonizing/Indigenizing assessment (I think Selena asked the question!). For those of us taking the assessment course right now, I’m sure many of us read the most recent reading about getting rid of rubrics, which I am very on board with. Again, I’m thinking in terms of an art classroom here, so I don’t know how this would work in other subjects or how teachers from other subjects feel about this, but I really love the idea of having discussions and giving verbal/written/personal feedback rather than rating students on a scale. Even a proficiency scale that isn’t a letter/number grade is still a scale. Earlier today in that assessment class, someone brought up how there is a conflict between honouring that students are at different parts of a learning journey, but that we still having to assess them against a competency/curriculum. Selena's question in the symposium chat reminded me of this comment. It really has me thinking about the impacts of how we assess, and how assessment is a western/colonial system used to rate and kind of decide who moves ahead and who doesn’t. I have/do benefit(ed) from this system. It has me feeling a bit frustrated because I know in the current school system, even if we don’t give a grade for assignments, we have to give a final course mark. But I don’t think grades are always proof of learning... It becomes a bit daunting thinking about how to dismantle this... During the Q&A at the end, Arlo Kempf mentioned something about teachers (or professors?) who were getting punished or fired for giving students As as long as they were engaged with learning (I think I heard this right?! ie. the grade was kind of arbitrary, the teacher/prof just wanted the students to feel like they were learning no matter what). I remember asking one of my professors last semester if I could just give all the students As as long as they were just willing to show up and learn, so this comment definitely made my eyebrows raise a bit when I heard it (if I heard it correctly!).

Some final (pretty big) takeaways for me from this evening’s talk were about stepping into discomfort, being “Imperfect Accomplices”, and situating ourselves/our perspectives in the work that we do. It feels scary for sure, to be uncomfortable, and as Arlo mentioned, and Sheila reiterated in her post, as a white person I’ve had the luxury of walking away from uncomfortable situations. But not taking action is starting to feel more uncomfortable (if that makes sense). I know I need to put in the work, and actually do the work (not just think about it or say it).

There was so much more from the talks this evening that I feel like I still need to process… I’m thankful for the opportunity to have attended.