Heather Francis: What we have for you in this series is really special. At the end of 2022, we took Brenda Beyal into a studio to video record an interview. 

When Brenda presents for teachers, a whole flock of teachers gather around her at the end of her sessions. And, our sessions don't always end on time, because there's so much that Brenda has to share with teachers—teachers just keep raising their hands. They have so many questions. Even when the session is over, they don't leave without getting a chance to talk to Brenda face to face, one-on-one about their particular questions. She's really grown to be a thought leader in our community, and a great representative of many native and indigenous voices that are to be shared. She's an authentic voice. She is a Navajo/Diné woman. She is an educator of over 35 years, she has worked in educational and native communities for a really long time. You've heard her on the podcast before: she just has such a gentle, humble and genius way about her. 

We took Brenda to the studio and recorded her answering some questions that we thought would be really important to have documented and answered. These videos are now published on our YouTube channel.  Today, we're sharing two of the questions Brenda answered in the recording studio. 

1. What is indigenous pedagogy? 

2. How do the arts support indigenous pedagogy? 

Brenda and many of our NACI team members who design our tribe-approved lesson plans speak about the relationship between arts, arts, education, native culture, and native or indigenous pedagogy. Brenda gives a fabulous answer to that question in this episode. Let’s start with the first question that Brenda will answer: what is indigenous pedagogy?

What is indigenous pedagogy?

Brenda Beyal: Indigenous pedagogy is a framework that uses cultural teachings of indigenous peoples. There are structures within that framework that can be used by teachers to help them to become more culturally responsive in their classrooms. 

Storytelling:

One of the very first frameworks I can think of is storytelling, using story to help children learn a concept, or putting across an idea or even using story for correcting behavior. There are many ways that indigenous people use stories, but it is threaded throughout all of their cultural ways. 

Place-based learning: 

Another I would say structure and indigenous pedagogy is place-based on the idea that you use the historical, the environmental, the cultural place from where students come from. To help teach content, another indigenous structure would be learning by doing, using all of your senses, to help you to learn things that you should be learning. Within that structure, you could have side-by-side coaching, you would have time when you are able to reflect and listen in such a way that it helps you to just learn and do. That's an indigenous structure. 

Learning from mistakes: 

Another structure that I feel strongly about is that mistakes are to learn from and not to be graded on. 

Cooperative learning: 

Within all of these structures learning through collaboration is important. Indigenous pedagogy contains the idea that people have responsibilities within a group. As children learn, through play-space learning, through learning by mistake, side-coaching, all of those share the idea of collaborating and cooperating together.

Heather Francis: I want to recap and honor what Brenda recognized as part of indigenous pedagogy. She talks about how storytelling is a part of indigenous pedagogy and place-based learning where the historical, environmental, and cultural background of the students is used to help teach content in the classroom. She also talked about how indigenous pedagogy includes experiential learning, learning by doing, using all of your senses to help you learn. This includes side-by-side coaching, and I love how she focused on reflection and listening. 

Brenda is so good at modeling reflection and listening while sitting in Zoom meetings—I can just see her lying back in her chair and nodding her head and thoughtfully taking in what people are saying during conversation. She's so good at listening. 

I also love that mistakes are to be learned from and not to be graded on. And that indigenous pedagogy includes cooperative learning. Learning through collaboration with others and taking responsibility for the part you play in a group is important. These are all great examples of how a teacher, like she said, could be really culturally responsive in their classroom by including these indigenous pedagogical strategies. 

The next question that I asked Brenda is about the connection between the arts, arts education, and indigenous pedagogy. She actually uses all of these elements of indigenous pedagogy and uses storytelling to teach us about how the arts and these pedagogies are connected. I hope you enjoy this answer as well.

How do the arts support indigenous pedagogy?

A previously recorded interview with Brenda Beyal, Heather Francis, and Cally Flox.

 

Brenda Beyal:The arts and indigenous pedagogy pair well, they tell hard stories. They reach children—the arts reach children—because the structures in the arts are so inviting. That's why our NACI program is a part of the BYU Arts Partnership. We went on a tour yesterday to an art department. As we were traveling through the different spaces within it, I noticed indigenous pedagogy just genuinely and authentically being used. We went into an art gallery, and it was a faculty art show. Each of the faculty members was telling a story through their art and through their medium. It started with maybe their own cultural story, their own historical way, or it was place-based in that environment. 

We went to another space. There were students who were doing printmaking; there was one student who had the same prints. There were just so many prints on her table. We asked her, what are you doing? And she said, I'm trying to get my print to look like this. Somewhere, she had a model, and someone had shown her, but now she was learning through her mistakes. She didn't stop. She just continued to learn. She was becoming resilient in her art. She was also learning by doing. Another place that we went, they were oil painting, and there was a still-life there. As the girl painted, she kept looking at the still life, looking at her colors. There was a teacher right there in the middle of the room who was right there, willing to side-coach, willing to model, and she was in a safe space where she could experiment and learn. I feel like the arts naturally have indigenous pedagogy embedded in them. 

Now, if you don't believe me, let's invite an artist in and see if my indigenous structures match up to what they were taught in their art form. So, Heather, can you come in? Can you tell me about your world of dance? And how you see indigenous pedagogy: side-by-side coaching, cooperative learning, learning by mistakes, that we learned from our mistakes?

Heather Francis: First, I want to point out, I think there's one more indigenous pedagogy that just happened, which is the inclusion of family.

Brenda Beyal: Intergenerational learning! Yes, definitely. Thank you for reminding me.

How Dance Incorporates Cooperative and Embodied Learning as Indigenous Pedagogies

Heather Francis: We're not blood, but you, you are like my auntie. And now you are doing this with me? Yes, mentoring me, but also including me—thank you. In dance, there's lots of storytelling, we use movement to express what either happened, is happening, or what we hope will happen; or, how we're feeling, how we felt, or how we hope to feel. We use movement, which is very sensory. You talked about how indigenous pedagogy is embodied: it's learning by doing, it's using all your senses. So I include intuition, that sixth sense. When an artist is creating, they'll often get to a part in their process where they have a problem that they've identified: “Oh, I want it to be this way,” or, “ Oh, that didn't work out how I wanted.” You have to use your intuition to make the next right step. Sometimes it might be a tool you do know that a mentor taught you. Or, you might have to create it yourself. But you have the intuition to make that choice. The ability to make choices like that is something you learned as an artist. And what was another one? Oh, cooperative learning. There is lots of cooperation in dance, especially when you're dancing with a company. Or if you're co-choreographing, making the decisions with other people during productions, you have your lighting designers, stage set, costumes, programs, marketing—the whole production team has to cooperate together.

Brenda Beyal: So do you see how I feel like indigenous pedagogy pairs so well with the art forms? Absolutely. Can you tell me about this in your art form? Can you tell hard stories through dance?

Heather Francis:Oh, yes! We do tell hard stories through dance. I've seen women who've lost babies express their pain and grief. I've seen Native groups express the pain of land acquisition from outsiders. I've seen people express the pain of not being understood, feeling like an outsider. There are hard stories that the arts do tell. Some are narrative and tell hard stories that happened historically. And I've seen that in Australia, some Maori people did a dance that seemed….at least from my perspective; it's all about interpretation too, right? So they might have been having a great time, and I thought they weren't.

Brenda Beyal:But that's okay. Because you have different perspectives. Thank you for joining me. Our lesson plans are built on an indigenous pedagogy paired with the arts. There are many activities and art experiences that you can use to help your class become more culturally responsive. You can see them built into our lesson plans found on our website.

Heather Francis: There you have the first two questions and answers that Brenda recorded at the video studios last semester. I hope you learned something about indigenous pedagogy, that you got an opportunity to reflect on how you use indigenous pedagogy in your classroom. Thank you so much for joining us. Our next two episodes will be filled with more Questions and Answers from Brenda So, I look forward to sharing that information with you and hope you have an artful day.