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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. 

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

Reflections on the teacher shortage: how teachers are paid reinforces the problem.

By John Malcolmson

March 16, 2024

BC continues to struggle with efforts to improve class size and composition standards in our schools. Years ago, Canada’s Supreme Court opened the door to restoring protections in these areas after Gordon Campbell’s Liberals took an axe to negotiated provisions in teacher contracts.

BC is not unique in this regard as other jurisdictions – both in Canada and abroad – face similar challenges in finding and holding onto staff. However, what makes BC stand out is that it was Campbell’s legislative assault in the 2000s that dug the crater we find ourselves in. Its sheer depth complicates efforts to find a way out. That plus the fact that most efforts aimed at addressing recruitment and retention challenges for teachers – forgivable loans, locational incentives, dispersed learning opportunities, etc. – are not working the way we hoped they might.

This note focuses on the way we pay educators. Its basic argument is that how we pay teachers is anachronistic and needs to be changed. Why is this? A few reasons stand out.

• The current system, developed many decades ago, assumes that new teachers require formative periods lasting up to 10 years to reach a point where they are fully qualified to do their work, and that it is appropriate to deny full pay until that point is reached.
• The current system incentivizes the acquisition of university credentials, something which is no longer an issue as the latter are not currently in short supply.
• The current system also embeds cultural biases regarding using these credentials to further stratify how teachers doing the same work are paid.

The current model makes sense if you believe that people in teaching positions don’t fully know what they’re doing for the first decade and this warrants the withholding of full pay. The approach is also a good one if you accept the idea that having five years of post-secondary education automatically makes you a better educator than someone with four but not as good as someone with six. The problem is that no one argues like this anymore because the arguments are not credible.  So why pay people differently on the basis of these approaches?

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.[1]  It can apply to trading blocs, countries, regions or sectors of work.  In the case of K-12 education, it comes down to the people we rely on to run our public schools.

Young and inexperienced educators are placed in particularly challenging classroom environments for the early parts of their careers. Their teaching labour is exploited by virtue of substandard pay for this period. Their affective labour and emotional commitment to the work they perform is likewise exploited. Mental and emotional energy is extracted piecemeal by the demands of the job.

Replenishment of this energy is the responsibility of the individual. The system is tailor-made for frustration, resentment, feelings of isolation and failure, leading ultimately to burnout.

This translates directly to increased educator attrition and there is plenty of data out there that affirms this. Many young people entering the profession aren’t prepared for the twin pressures of dealing with the professional and emotional pressures of a new job while having to subsist on compressed pay levels for lengthy periods of time. Data from other jurisdictions shows that a rising percentage of teacher graduates elect not even to go into the public school system when graduating. Many young teachers also carry with them transferable skills 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?

Our public K-12 system relies implicitly on an extractivist dynamic to function with the limited financial resources it is afforded. For some time the model has not been sustainable.  What has made the problem critical is the pandemic-induced breakdowns of supply chains fueling price inflation. The influx of cash by governments to stall the slide into depression did work as intended but at the cost of building asset bubbles in areas like real estate. The knock-on effect has been deepened financialization of housing assets whether for purchase or for rent.  It used to be relatively straightforward to find a place to live within your means.  Not anymore. Not for young educators nor anyone else.  And not just in the Lower Mainland or South Island.

What to do?

We need to look at paying and supporting educators differently because the current model is dysfunctional.  Specifically,

• Phase out the current increment system. Most other occupations, professions included, will have increments recognizing the movement to maximum career proficiency that last three or four years at most.  Why is teacher pay stuck at nine or ten years?
• Raise the entry-level wage/salary so that it no more than 10% lower that the maximum rate. Anything more perpetuates financial and emotional extractivism and frustrates efforts to build system sustainability.
• Give a serious look at the teacher qualification system that rewards people for academic degrees. If this doesn’t automatically make for better educators then why structure rewards as if it does? Perhaps we might build in pay recognition for other professional development activities not so closely aligned with acquiring formal academic qualifications?
• Develop an apprenticeship model drawing on international examples that financially rewards experienced educators for mentoring and supporting their junior colleagues through the difficult early years of a career. This isn’t new or hugely innovative – the trades have been doing this for decades and, while they face their own recruitment issues, they are typically not ones related to burning out new people struggling to get a foothold on compressed incomes.

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.

[1] David Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism (2019), Veronica Gago, Feminist International: How to Change Everything (2020), and Nancy Fraser, Cannibal Capitalism (2022).

Sidebar: Comparing teacher’s and nurse’s pay

How does teacher pay compare with that provided another female-dominated profession in BC’s public sector – nurses?

In 2023 a starting Category 5 Vancouver teacher (the most common designation) can expect to earn $65,176 for 10 months of annual employment. It takes that teacher 10 years to reach salary maximum and, when she gets there, she can expect to make $96,959 at current rates.  At almost 49%, the gap between these levels is high, so much so the new teacher starts off making only about 2/3 the full rate.

A starting Licensed Practice Nurse 1 in BC Health care makes $62,184 out of the gate (12-month employment) and maxes out 10 years later at $78,293 which is significantly lower than the teacher.

However…

The more appropriate comparison would be with a Registered Nurse 3 (the most commonly paid nursing rate). An RN3 starts at $78,408 and reaches maximum after 10 years at $105,846. Both rates are considerably higher than those afforded Vancouver teachers.  And the gap separating min and max rates here is about 35%, considerably lower than teachers.

LPNs and RNs also benefit from long-term “Recognition Pay” if they stick it out in their jobs over the long haul.  In the case of an RN3, this can add up to $6,720 more at the top end of the pay scale.

Both teachers and nurses face serious recruitment and attrition challenges. The pay system for nurses isn’t perfect but it is better suited to addressing these challenges than that used with teachers.

What’s needed is a focus on the long and drawn-out increment path for both groups.

John D. Malcolmson, Ph.D, is an IPE/BC board member and a consulting sociologist providing research advice to unions on matters relating to compensation.