Open AccessEducation Is Ceremony: Thinking With Stories of Indigenous Youth and Families
Author(s) -
Simmee Chung
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
learning landscapes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1913-5688
DOI - 10.36510/learnland.v11i2.949
Subject(s) - ceremony , indigenous , narrative , identity (music) , sociology , metaphor , pedagogy , gender studies , narrative inquiry , psychology , aesthetics , history , art , literature , ecology , philosophy , archaeology , biology , linguistics
This research with three Indigenous youth and their families is an intergenerational narrative inquiry around experiences of belonging and identity making. Pulling forward teachings from Indigenous Elder Francis Whiskeyjack, a metaphor of “education as ceremony” is juxtaposed with the ceremonies of “schooling” (Greene, 2001). Thinking with stories lived and told by the youth and their families, I retell stories as a teacher, mother, and now, teacher educator. Experiencing personal and practical shifts to my teaching and learning, I reconsider the ceremonies of “schooling.” This study offers possibilities for how educators might co-compose more relational and educative (Dewey, 1938) experiences in schools.