Decolonizing Dialogues; The auto-pedagogical potential of encounters with Indigenous art
By Shannon Leddy
March 28, 2024
Indigenous education has emerged in recent decades as one of the key priorities in both curricular reform and educational policy in Canada. Many teachers, particularly those who have completed their teacher education in the years since Indigenous education courses have become a required part of curriculum, have taken up this challenge in earnest and relationally ethical ways, feeling increasingly confident in their ability to navigate the emotional labour this work often involves. But there are probably just as many who still feel unsure about their knowledge base in Indigenous histories, knowledges and pedagogies. And still there are a few who are resistant to these shifts in curricular priorities and the learning required to undertake them (Leddy& O’Neill, 2021).
The words decolonization, reconciliation and Indigenization get a lot of air time in educational discourses these days, but many of us still struggle to understand what these words mean in the context of our daily work. We all stand at different places on the spectrums of Indigenous learning and relationships, and sometimes it feels hard to find the middle path and the common ground. Through this writing, I hope to shed some light on the value of encounters with Indigenous art as a mechanism to help move us along in the learning journey engaging in Indigenous education requires us to take.
There have been many prominent Indigenous scholars of educational discourses over the past number of years who have made clear the need for changes in the way mainstream educational practices and curriculum include and address Indigenous students, their cultures and histories within schools (Battiste, 2004; Dion, 2008; Donald, 2009; Schick & St. Denis, 2004; St. Denis, 2011). They point to the fact that colonial logics and agendas have excluded, reduced, distorted and erased Indigenous cultures, languages and knowledges in curriculum for decades. This is important when we think about the many Canadians who have become teachers having risen through the very systems of education that were perpetuating ignorance and misunderstanding. Indeed, in my early days of teaching Indigenous education to pre-service teachers, many expressed anger and dismay when it became clear to them what was intentionally not taught to them in schools.
But here is where I have found my long-time passion for both creating and teaching about and through art. to be of significant benefit. I have witnessed the power of art to help me teach in ways that call my students in, rather than calling them out. Art, as noted by Dewey (1934) and Greene (2000), has the power to help us transcend our own consciousness as we encounter the reality of another, presented through their manifestation of ideas into art. This is particularly relevant when it comes to encounters with works by Indigenous and other BPOC artists. Indigenous writers and thinkers have also offered ample evidence of the power of Indigenous visual expression to transmit culture, teachings and values (Cajete, 1994; Reid, 2012), making them rich sources with which to dwell and reflect.
In the work that I do in teacher education, I rely heavily on the power of art to spark insight and transformative understandings in my students, using a set of guiding questions (what am I looking at, what does it remind me of, what do I like about it, what do I dislike, and what do I need to learn), and offer them ample time to dwell with each work to which I introduce them. Importantly, this is also done with the caveat that there are no wrong answers – we each bring who we are to these encounters and our responses are our own and legitimate in their own right (Leddy, 2014; Leddy & O’Neill, 2021). We view works by artists such as Ruth Cuthand, Brian Jungen, Skeena Reece, Kent Monkman, Rebecca Belmore, and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, each of whom brings their own talents, concerns and thematic tropes to the fore in the art they create.
For my students, these encounters with art can bring a range of emotional responses from dismay, anger, rage, and shame, to elation, connection, relief and clarity. For some, these encounters validate their own identities. For others, their identity, particularly as Canadians, is challenged, upended, and problematized in unexpected ways. But when we do this work together, when we have the courage to share our
responses and thoughts in this process, even those who are most uncomfortable often find support in their learning, and inspiration in the insights of their classmates (Leddy, 2023).
To be clear, these encounters with art do not need to occur only the my classroom, or in an art gallery. Plays, novels, films, music, poetry and dance can all open the same windows of discovery. The point is, we need opportunities to encounter them; to learn whose work we are drawn to, and to spend time considering how we feel during our encounters. Art, in nearly all of its forms, has the power to show us what we thought we knew, reveal to us what we don’t know, and point us in the direction of the relearning we need to do. Further, these counters are not only suitable for post-secondary contexts – this work can be done in any classroom, with students of all ages and does not require the teacher to be completely fluent in the process. We are never too old to co-learn with our students, and may we always remain humble enough to do so.
There are so many more elements of this work I would be happy to share, including connections to other curricular areas and to land-based, experiential and holistic pedagogies as well. My passion for Indigenous education never seems to fade because I know how important it is to Indigenous families, including my own. I know how important it is for Indigenous students to see themselves reflected in the curricular 
resources to which they are exposed. But the best part is that Indigenous approaches to education demonstrably benefit all of our students, making the work of decolonizing and Indigenizing all the more pertinent and pressing (Restoule, 2017). When we teach with attention to Kirkness’s 4Rs of Indigenous education, respect, reciprocity, relevance, and responsibility, then we model what it means to build and maintain good relationships with ourselves, others, and what we must all learn together. When we use holistic frameworks, such as the Medicine Wheel, in our pedagogical and planning considerations, we can plan lessons and learning experiences that address our students as the intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical beings that they are. And when we undertake to do the work of decolonizing ourselves, we become better at preparing our students for the world they will inherit, putting the Eurocentric practices of the past behind us where they belong.
References
Battiste, M. (2009). Naturalizing Indigenous knowledge in Eurocentric education. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 32(1).
Cajete, G. (1994). Look to the mountain: An ecology of indigenous education. Kivaki Press.
Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. Perigree Press.
Dion, S. (2007). Disrupting moulded images: Identities, responsibilities and relationships – teachers and Indigenous subject material. Teaching Education, 18(4), 329-342. (Available through UBC Library)
Donald, D. (2009). Forts, curriculum, and Indigenous Métissage: Imagining decolonization of Aboriginal-Canadian relations in educational contexts. First Nations Perspectives, 2 (1), 1-24.
Greene, M. (2000). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. John Wiley & Sons.
Leddy, S. (2014). Using art to open postcolonial dialogues with pre-service teachers. SFU Educational Review, 7.
Leddy, S. (2023). Indigenous Visual Expression as Pedagogy; Developing Decolonial Literacy through Dialogic Encounters with Indigenous Art. Relate North. 36. InSEA Publications.
Leddy, S., & O’Neill, S. (2021). It’s Not Just a Matter of Time: Exploring Resistance to Indigenous Education. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 67(4), 336-350
Reid, M. J. (Ed.). (2012). Carrying on” Irregardless”: Humour in Contemporary Northwest Coast Art. Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art.
Restoule, J. P. Chaw-win-is (2017). Old ways are the new way forward. How Indigenous pedagogy can benefit everyone. The Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s IdeaLab, 1-18.
Schick, C., & St. Denis, V. (2005). Troubling national discourses in anti-racist curricular planning. Canadian Journal of Education/Revue canadienne de l’éducation, 295-317.
St. Denis, V. (2011). Silencing Aboriginal curricular content and perspectives through multiculturalism: “There are other children here”. Review of education, pedagogy, and cultural studies, 33(4), 306-317.
Shannon Leddy (Métis ) is a Vancouver based teacher, writer, Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, UBC and IPE/BC Fellow. She has also worked as an instructor at SFU’s Faculty of Education, teaching courses in pedagogy and Aboriginal Education. Shannon is committed to finding new and meaningful ways to incorporate Indigenous content into the school curriculum and is particularly interested in engaging pre-service teachers with Indigenous art as a way of decolonizing education.
The bigger problem here comes down to the teacher increment ladder. Educators are underpaid for the nine to ten years it takes to reach full salary – the regular rate for the job. This encourages implementation of an extractivist approach to the use of educator labour. Extractivism is a concept developed by David Harvey, Veronica Gago, Nancy Fraser and others to describe power relationships which afford those in control the ability to confiscate or extract rising shares of value from their subordinates.
which allow for the migration to other areas of work. Less stress? Better pay? Reduced feeling that your commitment to work is being used against you? Hey, why not make that move?
It’s time to think “outside the box” and look for innovative ideas to deal with a problem that is likely only to get worse. We can all support the call for more funding resources for public education but there is also a need to look at practical options for making better use of whatever resources are provided to support public schooling.
There’s an evening program for adults – with courses in everything from belly dancing to introductory business skills to gymnastics – and there’s a ceramics studio with a kiln and slip and glazes that’s used by the kids during the day and adults at night.
In a portable in the parking lot behind the school is a re-entry program for teenagers who’ve been out of school for at least 6 months. The school recruits those students through local social service agencies, high school counselors and the media.
who advise and decide on the various programs, advertise, and explain what’s going on at the school to their neighbours, and advocate to the School Board and other governments and agencies for the various programs and activities at the school. Some of them are parents of kids at the school. Some of them aren’t.
The early warning indicators are already here. Community members without teacher qualifications are placed in some classrooms. A lack of teachers on call are available to fill in behind teachers away because of illness. Staff lose their planning time as they are pulled in to cover thousands of classes without their regular faculty member. Students with disabilities are sent home, deprived of their right to education because their specialist teachers are required to cover classes for missing colleagues.
The BC government has recognized these other demands and has provided funding for increased training positions in health care, technology, and trades. However, education has been an afterthought, if a thought at all.
It is past time for the government to recognize that public education, like health care, requires urgent attention to staffing shortages.
decline of nearly ten percent in government grants between 2006 and 2020. Annabree shone the light on the fact that this decline has led to risky decisions to seek varied sources of private dollars, which in turn has deprioritized the academic mission in favour of sponsored research. Additionally, it has fed the phenomenon of a burgeoning administration rather than a much needed increase in faculty to keep pace with the growth in student enrollment. Further, Annabree pointed out the folly in relying on revenue from international students to bolster budgets, as was made abundantly clear when the COVID pandemic diminished that revenue stream.
on public education has been in significant decline. In 2001, BC allocated 2.8% to public schools while by 2021, it had reached an all-time low of 1.7%. Had the percentage even just remained steady throughout this period, there would have been an additional $2 billion more in school board budgets. Excessive cost-cutting, as Andree stated, is baked into the current structure of the funding model. We see this at play in yet another round of budget preparation this spring as numerous school boards are considering cuts once again, a reality that was simply not addressed in the provincial budget tabled and touted by the province in February.
adequate support leads to exclusion not inclusion. She has direct experience with the issues and, in her role with BCEdAccess, has spoken to many parents who feel their kids are not welcome in public schools. Due to underfunding and lack of appropriate supports, many students are being excluded from public schools and the full and appropriate range of learning experiences that should be available to them. BCEdAccess has been 
participation. Too many take direction from their management teams, instead of the reverse. Far too much of the public’s business —and school board business is the public’s business — happens behind closed doors or in private emails instead of in public meetings, where it belongs.
Fortunately that’s a minority. I served eight years on the Vancouver School Board (VSB), and was chair for six of those. Many days started before dawn with live radio interviews and reading and replying to hundreds of emails. I would visit schools and attend meetings during the day, and spend afternoons preparing for evening meetings. My district had two formal board meetings a month in my day, along with five standing committees that met monthly, various briefing workshops and other internal and external committees where I represented the board as a liaison trustee, and frequent community events and speaking engagements.
and are willing to stand up for it. We need trustees who understand the role and are willing to use it effectively, not just warm a seat at the board table.
as an act of reconciliation,” recently sponsored by the BC Teachers’ Federation. The panel, moderated by BCTF President Teri Mooring, also included Peggy Janicki, who holds a seat designated for an Aboriginal teacher on the BCTF Executive Committee, and Brian Coleman, the chairperson of the BCTF Aboriginal Education Advisory Committee. Teri opened the session by describing official name changes as small but important steps in reconciliation and decolonization. She reflected on the impact of names on our understanding of people, place, and history, asking, “Whose lives and history do we honour and whose do we erase?”
After nearly a year of work, the committee came to a unanimous decision to propose that the school be named Skwo:wech, which is the Halq’eméylem word for “sturgeon.” The name is particularly significant given the connection with the Fraser River and the importance of sturgeon to Indigenous communities who traveled up and down the river.
board stated, “It’s a name that we’re proud to move forward with, that came from a process that involved a great deal of collaboration and learning already, with more opportunities to build on for years to come.”
The 19 months of the pandemic in B.C. have witnessed almost weekly incidents and events that point to the surge of racism both at a local and a provincial level, some minor, others with wider implications for sectors such as health, policing, education, sports, and politics. This very serious issue affects not just BC but the entire country. Yet, it was deeply disturbing that it was largely ignored during the recent federal election campaign. This, while we bore witness to the traumatic discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of First Nations children at residential school sites.
by students and parents who had the courage to speak out and use the BC human rights process. That’s one positive step; however, it took 
BC’s reckoning with racism is long overdue and we all have a role to play. The creation of a truly inclusive, just, respectful, and caring society needs urgent attention from all levels of government-local provincial and federal. Additionally, it is incumbent on each of us to speak out against racism and, in the context of our all-important public education system, insist that all schools and school districts are modeling the society we seek.
Education policies have significant affects on individuals and the society as a whole and should be open to debate and reconsideration. Informed debate on policies can only take place if the relevant information is publicly available. This requires transparency on the part of government and local school authorities.
Individuals will be less likely to file a request if they have to pay a fee, especially, like most of us, they are not experts at formulating a request in a way that will get the information they are looking for and might have to file multiple requests to get the information necessary.