Re-storying Indigenous Education: Weaving Indigenous Teacher Educators' Pedagogical Pathways in Teacher Education Programs

Abstract

In Washington State, teacher educators are tasked with the integration of Indigenous ways of knowing and being into a required course in teacher education programs (TEPs) (Madden, 2015; Rhea & Russell, 2012). The 2018 Senate Bill 5028 in Washington State, requires teacher education programs to integrate a mandatory college course on preparing teacher candidates to teach tribal history, culture, and government. This calls for Indigenous teacher educators to negotiate and forge pedagogical pathways for centering Indigenous education, which do not align with traditional, colonial models of TEPs. In this qualitative study, I draw from the Indigenous research methodology (IRM), Diné Story Rug (Tachine, 2015), to re-story the stories of how nine Indigenous teacher educators' identities and educational journeys inform their pedagogical pathways for teaching a state-mandated Indigenous education course in four university-based, teacher education programs across the state of Washington. To do so, I engaged in IRM to weave a metaphorical and physical story rug. The metaphorical story rug reflected the qualitative research process in tandem with the process of weaving a Diné rug (Tachine, 2015), and the physical story rugs represented the nine Indigenous teacher educators/relatives' stories. The symbolisms found within the story rugs captured core stories from relatives' identities, educational journeys, pedagogical pathways, and visions for re-storying Indigenous education. The findings revealed that the nine Indigenous teacher educators asserted pedagogical approaches in line with their identities and educational journeys. These pedagogical pathways included engaging senses/ancestral teachings, place-, land- and water-based approaches, and federal Indian law through belonging, storytelling, and co-planning/-teaching approaches.