Being Taught by Raven: A Story of Knowledges in Teacher Education

Abstract

In this article, we consider our collaborative efforts supporting teacher candidates ina mainstream Bachelor of Education program at a research-intensive Canadian uni­versity, to engage with Indigenous knowledges, pedagogies, and perspectives in theiremerging classroom practice through a mandated course. In our course planning, werelied on the theoretical ideas of Indigenous scholars Dwayne Donald and George J.Sefa Dei to frame the complications of engaging Indigenous knowledges in Westernacademic and societal contexts that are immersed in ongoing colonial relations andknowledge practices. In this article, we rely on Jo-ann Archibald's Indigenous story-work methodology to further develop theoretical understandings of the questions thatemerged in the experience of engaging these ideas with our students. We see thismethodology as thoroughly intertwined with our theoretical commitments in this piece.From our emerging understandings and questions, we look to the writings ofNuu-chah-nulth hereditary chief and scholar Richard Atleo to help us understand our ex­perience of resistance with Raven and her friends in the classroom. Considering theexperience of resistance as being out of balance and harmony, we recognize the restora­tive potential ofAtleo's principles of consent, recognition, and continuity as part of aresponsive pedagogy. We also are guided by Atleo's specific ways to understand boththe students and our own resistance as needing to transition through phases. In thisarticle and our work in the course, we centre Indigenous theories and theorists fromour part of the world as a decolonial practice related to geo-political concerns in knowl­edge-making practices.