Pedagogical and strategic blind spots: Critical and Indigenous theories of education in dialogue

Abstract

This paper advances a theoretical analysis of the similarities and differences between critical theories of education and Indigenous theories of education along three main themes: epistemological and ontological groundings, the means of education, and political projects. While both schools of theory critique neoliberal and neoconservative tendencies in curriculum and in the political economy of education, and both promote pedagogies favoring freedom from oppression, respect, and sustainability divergences in the two schools of thought are important to grasp for theoretical and strategic reasons. This paper delineates these differences and arrives at the following broad conclusions: (1) while critical theories of education are epistemologically contentious, Indigenous theories of education are ontologically rebellious; (2) while critical scholars emphasize protecting and improving public schools in the name of preserving a public good, they largely ignore how the political economy of education and different political goals encourage Indigenous educators to turn towards options beyond the traditional public school for creating alternative educational spaces; and (3) while critical scholars promote a remaking of the public sphere to increase the participation and opportunities of all individuals within it, Indigenous scholars in education favor a model of schooling capable of raising citizens that are first citizens of their own communities, and then citizens of broader communities; this tension might be best illuminated by a liberal versus a communitarian political philosophy. This paper concludes in arguing that while the two bodies of literature have much in common, a pro-public school discourse, as well as new theories for intercultural pedagogy, should address the divergences evident in these themes.

Introduction

Literature on critical pedagogy critiquing the conservative modernization, privatization, and commodification of public education in the United States serves the important function of drawing our attention to the ways that commodifying logics and audit cultures are hollowing out the democratic potential of the public school (Apple 2006, 2019; Schneider and Berkshire, 2023; Giroux, 1983, 2022). While this literature is aimed at pursuing desirable goals of “thicker” democracy, it has a tendency to universalize struggles of oppressed groups and to frame their solutions in an epistemology favoring Marxist or other critical penchants. Similar to the critique of this literature by Bowers (2008), which asserts that a “critical pedagogy of place” is an oxymoron because it universalizes decolonial approaches and fails to “recognize the nature and ecological importance of the cultural commons that exist in every community” (p. 325), I assert here that critical pedagogy maintains a serious blind spot regarding emerging Indigenous institutions of education. Critical pedagogy in the tradition of Freire, Giroux, Kincheloe, or Apple challenges the status quo, yet it remains rooted in a primarily Western (albeit controversial) epistemological grounding. Theorists of Indigenous education such as Marie Battiste, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Matthew Wildcat, Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox, and Glen Coulthard advocate for education from a different epistemological grounding: epistemologies rooted in the local worldviews and reciprocal relationships with a nation’s traditional territory (what Yellowknives Dene scholar Glen Coulthard calls “grounded normativity”) (Coulthard, 2014, p. 13). The joining of the sacred and the secular, or the central role of the learning spirit, is also a recurring theme in the literature on Indigenous pedagogies (Antoine et al., 2018; Battiste, 2013; Toulouse, 2016), while North American critical scholars tend to lean towards more secular orientations (Apple, 2006; Giroux, 2022). Critical literature also tends to critique charter and private schooling as a product of neoliberal or neoconservative privatizing agenda in education, yet these scholars do not address the fact that charter school models are alluring to educators seeking to provide an educational space with a strong focus on a given Indigenous nation's pedagogical priorities. Essentially, I argue that there is a colonial blind spot in critical analyses of the “school choice” movement, notably charter schools. Finally, critical literature tends to construct arguments with the goal of “thick” democracy in mind. While this goal is desirable, and the notion of reconstituting the public sphere is a worthy intellectual and political challenge, it ignores the goal of Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, and futurity, of which schools and education are vital tools. For this discrepancy, liberal versus communitarian political philosophies help inform my analysis of critical and Indigenous pedagogical theory.

This paper aims to put two bodies of literature, critical pedagogy and Indigenous pedagogy (both largely from North American authors) in conversation with each other along three themes: (1) epistemological grounding, (2) the means of schooling, and (3) political projects. While this conversation draws out key points of divergence, it also recognizes the crucial areas of overlap and intersection, notably in relation to the goals of social justice, cultivating respect for our environment, and pursuing new, non-oppressive ways of thinking and being.

This paper uses the terms “Indigenous” and “Native” interchangeably to refer to the first inhabitants of Turtle Island (the common Indigenous appellation for North America), and the word “Indian” is only employed as a legal term unless it is quoted. This paper does not claim to be exhaustive in its analysis nor in its examples. The hope is that it contributes to a fuller understanding of the debates around educational policy and makes a small contribution in theorizing the relationships between critical and Indigenous pedagogies.

Epistemological controversy and ontological rebellion

We can initiate this reflection by considering how critical education can be about Indigenous peoples (though in the American tradition it rarely is), while Indigenous education is from Indigenous peoples. Additionally, it is important to acknowledge a distinction between two terms often used interchangeably: Indigenization and decolonization. A handbook for curriculum developers called Pulling Together: A Guide for Indigenization of Post-Secondary Institutions (Antoine et al., 2018) offers a definition of both. On Indigenization, they write,

Indigenization is a process of naturalizing Indigenous knowledge systems and making them evident to transform spaces, places, and hearts. In the context of post-secondary education, this involves bringing Indigenous knowledge and approaches together with Western knowledge systems. This benefits not only Indigenous students but all students, teachers, and community members involved or impacted by Indigenization. Indigenous knowledge systems are embedded in relationship to specific lands, culture, and community. Because they are diverse and complex, Indigenization will be a unique process for every post-secondary institution. (Antoine et al., 2018: p. 6)

Promoting Indigenous pedagogies can be considered a process of Indigenization, as it aims to naturalize Indigenous knowledge systems in schooling and give them the power to “transform spaces, places, and hearts” (Antoine et al., 2018: p. 6). If one replaces the term “post-secondary education” with K-12 education, and considers that the processes will look different depending on the geographical and social-political locations of the school, as well as their demographic composition (i.e., schools on reservations, schools in border towns, and schools in urban areas would likely adopt different processes of Indigenization), this definition is helpful to describe Indigenous pedagogies from Indigenous peoples as varied and contextually dependent.

Learning from Indigenous peoples is different from learning about them. The latter can be found in decolonial pedagogies, or critical pedagogies.

Emerging from critical theory, and promulgated mainly by the work of Brazilian author Paulo Freire (2020), critical pedagogy is grounded in a social and educational vision of justice and equality, is dedicated the alleviation of human suffering, aims to prevent students from being hurt, and requires that teachers be researchers or scholars rather than mere agents of the state educational authority (Kincheloe, 2008: pp. 6–19). It is widely critical of neoliberal and neoconservative influences in political and social life (Giroux, 2022; Apple, 2006), and holds as a central tenant that issues of social justice and democracy are not distinct from teaching and learning (Giroux, 2022; hooks, 2014). Decolonial pedagogy might be considered as a middle ground between the two pedagogies. As Antoine and company describe it,

Decolonization refers to the process of deconstructing colonial ideologies of the superiority and privilege of Western thought and approaches. On the one hand, decolonization involves dismantling structures that perpetuate the status quo, problematizing dominant discourses, and addressing unbalanced power dynamics. On the other hand, decolonization involves valuing and revitalizing Indigenous knowledge and approaches and weeding out settler biases or assumptions that have impacted Indigenous ways of being. Decolonization necessitates shifting our frames of reference with regard to the knowledge we hold; examining how we have arrived at such knowledge; and considering what we need to do to change misconceptions, prejudice, and assumptions about Indigenous Peoples. (Antoine et al., 2018: p. 6)

Thus, decolonization has two parts: it dismantles and it promotes. Critical theorists of pedagogy in the United States do not often include a decolonial analysis—that is, they do not simultaneously seek to “problematize dominant discourses” and value and revitalize “Indigenous knowledge and approaches” to weed out settler biases or assumptions (Antoine et al., 2018) (they do, however, tend to weed out White or middle- and upper-class biases and assumptions). They do not always identify settler colonialism as the primary source of structures that perpetuate the status quo, and they do not often (if ever) include the second step of promoting Indigenous knowledges. Thus, to clarify my conceptualization, I would assert that decolonial pedagogy is the middle ground of Indigenous pedagogies and critical pedagogy. Indigenous pedagogies are not always critical, and critical pedagogies are not always decolonial. But decolonial pedagogies are always a combination of both.

Learning about Canadian Indian residential schools, for example, is critical history, but it may not be decolonial if it does not link the residential school system to the larger, on-going settler colonial identity of Canada and also promote revitalizing Indigenous knowledge. Indigenous pedagogy, on the other hand, is not automatically critical. The methods and the content of Indigenous pedagogy are informed by the worldviews, languages, origin stories, cultural values, geographies, and aspirations of Indigenous communities. Learning the language and stories of one’s Indigenous culture is an example of Indigenous pedagogy, and while it is certainly an act of resistance, it does not require explicit critique of the colonial state. Lakota language programs running in schools partnered with the Catholic Church (Red Cloud Indian School, 2017, St. Francis Indian School/SFIS Homepage, n.d.) may be examples of non-critical Indigenous education. However, more widely, diverse Indigenous pedagogies are described as sharing the following key aspects: relationality (an understanding of the relatedness we have with each other, the natural environment, the spiritual world, and the interdependencies that these relations bring about), a joining of the sacred and the secular, and holism (a focus on the whole picture because everything within the picture is related and cannot be separated), and they tend to be experiential, place-based, and intergenerational in their methods (Antoine et al., 2018: pp. 14–18). Again, while critical theory may involve relational and holistic-thinking, it tends to lack spiritual components, as well as place-based ones.

While critical pedagogy is inherently contentious and thus vehemently challenged, it is not subject to epistemic violence (Spivak, 2010; Maeso and Araújo, 2015) or epistemicide (Boaventura De Sousa Santos, 2017) as are Indigenous pedagogies. Epistemicide refers to the silencing or the killing off of knowledge, notably the knowledge of the underprivileged, the colonized, the discriminated, or what Spivak referred to as “the subaltern classes” (1998). Critical education may be under fire by policy-makers, notably in the United States (Stout and Wilburn, 2022; Furrey, in press), but its knowledge base lives on in the academy, in higher education, and in activism. Indigenous knowledges, as celebrated Indigenous education scholar Marie Battiste reminds us, live on primarily in Indigenous languages, many of which are endangered (Battiste, 2013: p. 178).

Despite the uniqueness of each pedagogical approach, educational policy seems to continue to conflate or misunderstand the essential epistemological/ontological nuances between them. In Canada, critical, decolonial, and Indigenous pedagogies have made gains in recent years thanks to the #IdleNoMore movement in 2014 and the publication of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015. However, sincere institutional support for pedagogy that is about or by Indigenous peoples remains uneven across the provinces, and true Indigenous pedagogy still faces the great challenge of being more than epistemologically contentious, but ontologically rebellious.

To illustrate, Wotherspoon and Milne (2020) analyzed provincial and territorial policy documents and statements to explore the dynamics and prospects for effective change associated with reforms in elementary and secondary education systems since the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action in 2015. Their study determined that “substantial movement towards greater acknowledgement of Indigenous knowledge systems and incorporation of Indigenous content continues to be subordinated to or embedded within Western assumptions, norms, and standards” (Wotherspoon and Milne, 2020: p. 1). More specifically they write,

Across jurisdictions, Indigenous education policy frameworks recognize the importance of including Indigenous knowledges and perspectives in schooling practices and curriculum. However, with a few exceptions, educational practices that build on Indigenous cultural knowledge and orientations continue to be overwhelmed by content, individualized orientations to learning and outcomes, and measurable attributes grounded in Western knowledge and perspectives. Indigenous perspectives are more often presented as means to achieve official state ends than as crucial features of a fully rounded educational experience. (Wotherspoon and Milne, 2020: p. 10)

Thus, while policy dictates the importance of including Indigenous knowledges and perspectives in schooling practices and curriculum, Western educational habits and priorities continue to obscure a genuine realization of that goal. Furthermore, Wotherspoon and Milne indicate that this is not a passive practice, but that Indigenous perspectives are likely purposefully stripped of their decolonial or critical nature through policy to favor the replication of the colonial state, rather than a co-creation of a new political and social community through education (Stewart et al., 2017). This observation suggests political opportunism in the guise of self-criticism post-TRC in Canada rather than a sincere commitment to a paradigm shift in educational policy that would permit decolonial and Indigenous pedagogies to benefit from institutional support. This wider social and cultural attitude is supported by the documented passivity or lack of knowledge about Indigenous peoples that persists among teachers (Côté, 2021), as well as the wider shared understanding that “Indigenous content [in] classroom teaching and learning [is] optional, on the periphery of mandated curriculum, or segregated and sometimes exotic content (Milne, 2020; Schaefli, Godlewska and Rose, 2018; St Denis, 2011)” (Wotherspoon and Milne, 2020: p. 11). This is unfortunate given the benefits that education about and from Indigenous peoples can have for all students.

One beneficial overlap between critical pedagogy and pedagogy derived from Indigenous perspectives is the development of critical thinking and a commitment to social justice. While in the United States education for social justice is under systemic attack, notably in the context of the Black Lives Matter protests (Waxman, 2022; Furrey, in press), Restoule & Chaw-win-is (2017) assert that social justice goes hand-in-hand with the Canadian project of reconciliation. They write,

When a thoughtful Canadian learns about the injustices of residential schooling, the Indian Act, the sixties scoop (and Millennial scoop), Jordan’s Principle, Shannon’s Dream, the missing and murdered Indigenous women, or other clear examples of disparity and systemic racism, they are usually shocked or outraged. Even if they are not turned into activists by exposure to these discriminatory practices, most Canadians at least believe that we should help the ones most in need. When Indigenous people turn up in statistics as the most likely to be marginally-housed, unemployed, incarcerated, struggling with addictions, experiencing higher rates of violence, at risk of suicide, or not completing school, there is at least a sense among many Canadians that these problems must be addressed. Tackling these social problems, then, should be a key concern for educators. We can’t do so without an adequate education about Canada and Indigenous peoples. (Restoule & Chaw-win-is, 2017: pp. 9–10)

While efforts to deliver more critical education have increased institutional backing in Canada since the publication of the TRC’s final report, such efforts still lack substantial institutional support in the United States. Indeed, as Giroux (2022) warns us in Pedagogy of Resistance, breathing room for any critical pedagogy is being squeezed out by the American political right. This is not to say that conditions in Canada are ideal; critiques abound that assert that reconciliation, somewhat like multiculturalism, has become performative politics in Canada, a way to make the country appear more tolerant while continuing to neglect issues that are systemic for marginalized communities (George, 2022; Denis, 2011; Gomá, 2020). Thus, policy for critical education in Canada as analyzed by Wotherspoon and Milne (2020) serves to preserve the colonial state rather than challenge it, and thereby neglects the decolonial potential described by Restoule & Chaw-win-is (2017).

The struggle to express both critical and Indigenous pedagogical goals in policy might be due to the ongoing gaps between the two literatures in the North American context. Other contexts, such as New Zealand and Australia, exemplify different political and epistemological exchanges between the two traditions. Antipodean theory is one such example:

Antipodean theory is a bipolar term, and therefore relational in the sense that it signifies a form of identity shaped by a relationship between the centre and the periphery (Connell, Citation2007). In its dominant meanings the term “Antipodean” is multi-national, and therefore holds out genuine hope of bi/cross/multi- or interculturalism, as discussed further below. Antipodean theory is therefore like the intercultural hyphen (Jones and Jenkins, Citation2008; Stewart, Citation2016), another relational identity concept, a continuum with multiple identity choices, rather than fixed, either-or, reductive cultural categories. (Stewart et al., 2017)

Any genuine hope of “bi/cross/multi- or interculturalism” present in antipodean theory that might be expressed in North American critical theory is arguably overshadowed by a more liberal pursuit of individual prosperity in a reformed public sphere-a reforming which tends to maintain a colonial blind spot. Furthermore, antipodean theory gives both geographic and symbolic importance to a center and a periphery. The fact that New Zealand and Australia are both considered antipodes in this theoretical approach avoids that the theory serves a nation-building (Stewart et al., 2017), as Canadian reconciliation has been critiqued to be. Mobilizing a genuine hope for hybrid identities and more analysis of relations rather than primarily essentialized settler, White, Indigenous, or other identities, through both symbolic and geographical ways of thinking, could encourage more theorizing between critical and Indigenous knowledge. Stewart and company exemplify as much in the context of New Zealand and Australia:

As the co-inhabitants of lands that support both indigenous and invading peoples, we necessarily have to listen to each other-even though there has been, and still is, resistance. The end result is something "different"… An Antipodean style of thinking contributes to an inescapable criticality that strives to move beyond the pervasive colonialist influence. (Stewart et al., 2017)

I do not suggest, nor do I think that Stewart and company suggest, that the genuine hope of intercultural identities operates in the (un)conscious erasure of Indigenous identities or futurity. On the contrary, realizing identities located in the relationships, in the new possible exchanges between cultures, would aim to ensure mutual respect for each other, a sense of care for each other’s futures on our respective terms. Developing such a different style of thinking could contribute to another benefit of Indigenous perspectives in pedagogy: that of pursuing a culture of ecological sustainability. This benefit goes further than the critical task of truth-telling; it requires learning to see the world differently, and necessitates both a critical and a creative process. More than a mere epistemological shift, it requires an ontological shift, much like that described in the cited passage above. It requires that our understanding of the world broadens so that Western knowledge is no-longer considered the “neutral starting point” (Castro-Gomez, 2007) from which all other knowledges are considered. Restoule and Chaw-win-is are again helpful in illustrating this point:

If we are to survive as a species, our fundamental stories about ourselves and who we are in relation to others has to change. The belief in human superiority and dominance over Earth and other life forms has led to incredible violence. Seeing Earth as a resource, instead of seeing her first as a mother and teacher, has meant short-sighted plunder and threatening our own existence. To save ourselves, we must become humble again. (Restoule & Chaw-win-is, 2017: p. 10)

Numerous Indigenous scholars of politics and education have made similar observations about the importance of Indigenous knowledges in the era of a Western-driven climate crisis (Wildcat et al., 2014; Simpson, 2014; Waziyatawin, 2012) and numerous scholars have asserted the need to foster true epistemological freedom to succeed in projects of decolonization (Castro-Gomez, 2007; Mignolo, 2009; Simpson, 2014; Lowan-Trudeau, 2017). However, there remains significant institutional and cultural resistance to non-Western, even non-positivist approaches to learning and understanding in Canada and the United States. This is unfortunate, again, because there is an existing framework which supports learning from multiple ways of knowing. This framework, called Two-Eyed Seeing, was advanced by Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall. It “refers to learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous ways of knowing and from the other eye with the strengths of Western ways of knowing and to using both of these eyes together” (Bartlett et al., 2012: p. 335; Leighton, 2019). This approach has been applied in health (Marsh et al., 2022), geography (Moorman et al., 2021), and architecture (Shotyk, 2020; Collier, 2021), among other fields. What is key to understand about this approach is its capacity to, in theory, hold two possibly contradictory ideas at the same time, and to learn from them in tandem. Thus, arguably, a curriculum which includes Indigenous perspectives offers a richer, more complete understanding of a given topic. To echo Restoule and Chaw-win-is (2017), “Including Indigenous education in the curriculum is not just more inclusive, it’s just good pedagogy” (p. 9). Despite this observation, resistance to the Two-Eyed Seeing approach within academic institutions, and to Indigenous pedagogy in general, remains, thus delaying the possibility of creating a new interculturally informed culture of sustainability. This might not be surprising, as the spiritual element of Indigenous pedagogy and knowledge tends to perturb strict secularists. This is problematic for a theory of critical education, since these theories tend to focus their theoretical energies on Christian religious orientations in education, largely critiquing them for over-sheltering students. What these theories lack is a robust engagement with the pedagogical potential of exploring spiritual dimensions of knowledge, as well as a more complete analysis of the relationships of power that are at play when spiritual or religious knowledge (they are not the same) are promoted in educational spaces.

Critical theorists take an inherent position opposite dominant structures and ideologies. In large part, they argue against the tendencies towards fascism, neoliberalism, and national chauvinism. This explains why a pedagogy influenced by the conservative Christian right in the United States factors heavily into the analyses of these scholars. Michael Apple, for example, writes,

The antielitist impulses that have stood behind some of this ferment over God, evolution, and schooling are clear in ways that the religious right now sees itself as oppressed. It feels that secular humanist “bigots” who do not understand the long struggle by religious people to gain respect in the public arena are not listening to them. (Apple, 2006: p. 133)

While his vehement critique of the tactic to present Creationism in curriculum as one theory among others (2006, p. 132) is understandable in light of the power dynamics he analyzes, a reader informed by Indigenous pedagogical theory might be left wondering how this critique applies to the spiritual component which is so essential to Indigenous ways of knowing, learning, and teaching. A critique of religious dogma in education is essential because its underlying intention is oppressive; it, much like positivist tradition, claims to be all-knowing and therefore rejects other understandings of the world. However, if one turns to how spirituality is integrated into Indigenous pedagogical theory, one will find that it aligns more with a fuller understanding of oneself and one’s relation to knowledge and its function in their lives. Anishinaabe scholar, Pamela Toulouse, offers such a description:

What matters to Indigenous peoples in education is that children, youth, adults and Elders have the opportunity to develop their gifts in a respectful space. It means that all community members are able to contribute to society (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) and are physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually balanced (Iseke, 2010)I; Marule, 2012). This ability to give and ability to be well comes directly from the joining of the sacred and the secular. It is about fostering identity, facilitating well-being, connecting to land, honouring language, infusing with teachings and recognizing the inherent right to self-determination. (Lee, 2015; Toulouse, 2016: p. 1)

Based on this description and others (Four Arrows and Sorensen, 2013; Battiste, 2013; Simpson, 2014), spirituality in an Indigenous theory of education is not sheltering nor oppressive, but operates to connect students more deeply to their kin, their peers, to knowledge, and to the world around them. It is intended to ignite a deep sense of purpose, which might be linked to generating greater intrinsic motivation for education. On the other hand, a major critique of religious schooling is that it deprives students of education that they need in order to operate within the modern world and reinforces oppressive norms (often related to gender). An education of this type thereby denies students a liberty of consciousness and reproduces systems of oppression and discrimination. It would be false to say that all religious education is closed in this same sense. However, it is important to highlight that it is one thing to advocate for education from a certain cultural or spiritual viewpoint, and another to assert that a school’s cultural or spiritual viewpoint is the only one worth considering. This theoretical discrepancy is under-analyzed in the critical literature on education.

Indeed, the “joining of the sacred and the secular” is where there appears to be a significant difference between critical and Indigenous theories of education. While it would be difficult, if not impossible, to read a serious theory of Indigenous education that does not engage the spiritual component of learning, knowing, and being, critical theorists tend to focus more so on how class, race, sex, and gender impact learning, knowing, and being. Spirituality does not constitute a significant theme in critical literature. This difference should be interpreted as an ontological one, especially since it represents an obstacle in the creation of a different worldview necessary to locate possible intercultural identities for social justice and for ecological sustainability. For while critical theorists are asking readers to interpret and decode the world from the perspectives that challenge dominant ways of knowing (primarily through Marxism, feminism, critical race theory, postmodernism, queer theory, etc.), which critique the power of religious institutions, scholars of Indigenous education are asking readers to consider ways of knowing that are anchored in a different understanding of the nature of the world—though not a particular religious doctrine. Indigenous spiritualities are generally undogmatic and non-deterministic (Deloria, 1994). While critical theories in education are epistemologically contentious, challenging the status quo but largely accepting the most basic assumptions about the nature of the world (one that is “naturally” dominated by mankind), theories of Indigenous education are ontologically rebellious, creating and remembering knowledge, and acting in a world that is animated, one where mankind is not dominant but integrated into a larger network of reciprocal relationships (Coulthard, 2014). As antipodean theory suggests, critically thinking of our geographic and symbolic locations, “As the co-inhabitants of lands that support both indigenous and invading peoples” (Stewart et al., 2017) is one possible way to overcome this ontological gap and arrive at something new.

To summarize this theme, “decolonial education” can be understood as critical education which tells the truth about and challenges colonization, as well as promotes the revival of Indigenous knowledges. It thus includes elements of both critical and Indigenous pedagogies in that it aims for students to be more empathetic, ethically driven citizens who are also challenged in their worldview. While critical pedagogy shares some of these goals, it often lacks colonial analysis, and does not tend to promote the revival of Indigenous knowledges. Indigenous pedagogies, on the other hand, require learning from Indigenous peoples more than about them. This is a much more demanding task: it asks us to reconsider our relationship with the world, to accept, at least in tandem with the ways of knowing familiar to us in the Western tradition, ways of knowing that do not start from the same assumptions about the nature of the world (a way of thinking elaborated in antipodean theory) (Stewart et al., 2017). When policymakers and policy documents state a commitment to “Indigenous education,” one should immediately ask if they mean critical, decolonial, or true Indigenous education. In any case, none of these understandings are currently supported widely nor robustly by American or Canadian educational institutions. This leads us to our next theme, which concerns the means of education.

The means of education

While decolonial or Indigenous pedagogies may be gaining support in mainstream discourse, how to provide decolonial or Indigenous pedagogies to students is still varied and heavily debated. Traditional ways of teaching and learning in many Indigenous cultures involve methods of observation, experimenting, storytelling, and ceremony within the processes of every-day life. School as a specified, separate space for learning that is detached from everyday routines was introduced with European cultural norms (Akkari & Radhouane, n.d.). As Jean-Paul Restoule points out in his online course, Aboriginal Worldviews and Education, while there is more interest in promoting Indigenous knowledges in the post-residential school era, it is interesting, given the above-mentioned pedagogical methods of many Indigenous cultures, that communities and educators are continuing to use schools to revive Indigenous pedagogy (Restoule, n.d.). Leanne Betasamosake Simpson advances a similar argument, emphasizing that true Nishnaabeg intelligence comes from learning on and with the land, and resisting the role of Western schooling institutions in developing such intelligence:

…if we do not create a generation of people attached to the land and committed to living out our culturally inherent ways of coming to know, we risk losing what it means to be Nishnaabeg within our own thought systems (Alfred, 1999; Alfred, 2005). We simply cannot bring about the resurgence of our nations if we have no one that can think within the emergent networks of Nishnaabeg intelligence. We cannot bring about the kind of radical transformation we seek if we are solely reliant upon state sanctioned and state run education systems. We cannot carry out the kind of decolonization our ancestors set in motion if we don’t create a generation of land based, community based intellectuals and cultural producers who are accountable to our nations and whose life work is concerned with the regeneration of these systems, rather than meeting the overwhelming needs of the western academic industrial complex or attempting to “Indigenize the academy” by bringing Indigenous Knowledges into the academy on the terms of the academy itself. (Simpson, 2014: p. 13)

Perhaps an entirely opposite approach comes from Four Arrows (Donald Trent Jacobs). In the opening lines of Teaching Truly: A Curriculum to Indigenize Mainstream Curriculum, he writes,

This book offers practical guidelines for creating a sort of partnership between mainstream and generalizable Indigenous approaches to education, strange bedfellows that they are… As an alternative to radical resistance alone, teachers who embrace this book’s message can more successfully counter hegemonic and corporatizing focus in education than critical pedagogy alone or strikes and other protestations have managed to do over the decades… I admit to having a sense of urgency in writing this book. Mainstream education is largely responsible for our era of crises. Its authoritarian assumptions of superiority over other creatures, races, cultures, spiritual beliefs and Nature, along with its continued dismissal of Indigenous, nature-based values, have brought humanity to the brink of near extinction and has helped cause many other species to already become extinct. (Four Arrows, 2013: p. 2)

While both Simpson and Four Arrows emphasize learning from land in their pedagogical agendas, the scope and underlying political projects vary greatly. Simpson emphasizes Nishnaabeg national resurgence and surviving as Nishnaabeg people independently of the state. This is in part emphasized by her resistance to “Indigenize the academy.” Four Arrows, on the other hand, insists on incorporating “generalizable Indigenous approaches to education” in mainstream educational spaces, emphasizing the need to revive the “relatively harmonious and healthy Nature-based existence” worldview with which we all have ancestral connection, in light of the current dominance of “a more anthropocentric and hierarchical one” that has led to “the dire circumstances we now face” (Four Arrows, 2016: p. 5). A discourse advocating the widespread adoption of generalizable Indigenous ideas may raise suspicions among those familiar with the work of Tuck and Yang, who describe how “The metaphorization of decolonization makes possible a set of evasions, or ‘settler moves to innocence’, that problematically attempt to reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity” (2012, p. 1). Falsely claiming Indigenous ancestry (or what they call settler-nativism) (2016, p. 10), or desiring to “become without becoming,” that is, “playing Indian” and entertaining fantasies of being adopted into Indigenous nations to legitimate land seizure and “safekeeping” Indigenous identity (2012, p. 16), are a couple of the “settler moves to innocence” that may come to mind in reading Four Arrow’s words. Four Arrows, however, does not encourage people to “become Indigenous,” but rather to adopt a different worldview, to remember the “ancient wisdom” all peoples can trace their ancestry to before “anthropocentrism, religious dogma, absolute rule, class hierarchy, military expansion, slavery, land ownership, economic debt, domination of women, greed, jealousy, a centralized system of government (the state), and large-scale war became the norm” (2016, p. 6). Admittedly, such a worldview predates most of the cultures on the planet that have shaped the lives of people today, and this theory runs the risk of essentializing/romanticizing Indigenous cultures, which are not static but change like any other living culture. As an ideal, however, it is a worthy one to strive for. Furthermore, it can be recognized that Four Arrows does not over-generalize all Indigenous peoples as consistently adhering to this “ancient wisdom,” and he also recognizes that people in “non-Indian cultures” also try to implement this ancient wisdom to varying degrees (2016, p. 6). To this extent, he encourages that we all transcend the currently dominant hierarchical worldview informing many cultures today (even many Indigenous ones), in order to avoid environmental destruction and widespread suffering. Rather than “playing Indian,” such a perspective has the potential to encourage the creation of something new emerging from co-creation, something he emphasizes as follows:

If we bring awareness to such innate resources [our ancient wisdom], we might have a chance to regenerate our ability to live on Earth and survive. This requires us to help existing Indigenous Peoples while borrowing from their wisdom until we can recreate our own Indigenous perspectives related to the places we now inhabit. (Four Arrows, 2016: p. 6)

Another important critique to assert, however, is that Four Arrows runs the risk of transforming Indigenous peoples into the symbolic representation of an ideal. Indigenous peoples are not vessels of wisdom from which the settler can draw when he is thirsty for spiritual solace-- they are individuals, and they are also peoples with a hope for the future and the desire to keep existing as a collectivity. If an Indigenous community does not practice the ancient wisdom so described, then are they less Indigenous, or their inherent right to self-determination less worthy of respect? Furthermore, assuming settler access to wisdom in Indigenous communities runs the risk of transforming self-determing, modern, culturally-distinct peoples into mere symbols in the imagination of the settler. Four Arrows does however address the concern of ignoring the uniqueness of individual Indigenous nations by generalizing Indigenous ideas. He writes,

Another concern about the emphasis of Indigenous worldview is related to its pan-Indian orientation. Generalizations about common assumptions held by diverse Indigenous nations can diminish the individual tribal identity. After all, being Indigenous means living in accord with the understandings gleaned from unique local landscapes and the life it contains. So how can there be a single worldview when there are so many different geographies? The answer is that a single worldview does operate commonly throughout traditional Indigenous cultures in spite of their diversity, just as varied landscapes share common features. If cultural diversity is honored, recognizing a common worldview can bring solidarity and support it. The fact that common features of many Indigenous nations contrast with those among diverse “non-Indian” cultures is potentially useful for everyone's decolonizing efforts. (Four Arrows, 2016: p. 3)

In many respects, the work of Four Arrows is rare in the North American literature on Indigenous education and decolonization in that it daringly transcends nation-building theorizing in its aim for widespread transformation of consciousness. Furthermore, this widespread transformation is non-assimilationist, maintaining a respectful reverence for Indigenous cultures and peoples. Indeed, Teaching Truly is closely aligned with the co-constructive, non-state oriented antipodean theoretical approach in that it locates hegemony in different educational topics such as language, math, science, and music that are influenced by capitalism, consumerism, and Euro-centric perspectives, as well as its antipode: pedagogical practice favoring critical thinking, song, story-telling, experiential learning, and specific Indigenous examples of these same topics, in order to pursue a new, intercultural way of thinking and being. In this way, Four Arrow’s theory has something in common with critical pedagogies: a goal to transform the public sphere. However, for Four Arrows, this transformation is not tied to a conception of statehood or nationhood, and unlike Henry Giroux, who also dreams beyond the state, this transformation does not occur through the pursuit of greater individual freedoms (Giroux, 2022: p. 510). While learning from and with the land might serve as common ground for Four Arrows and Simpson, Simpson emphasizes Nishnaabeg national resurgence and surviving as Nishnaabeg people independently of the state. The scope of Four Arrows’ theory is wider, aiming for more widespread cultural change not in a specific Indigenous society, but in the larger, dominant one. These authors remind us that where Indigenous pedagogy is supported, analyzing its scope can better inform us on the type of content it aims to impart, and the social and political goals that stem from its philosophy.

While Simpson and Four Arrows may constitute two poles in the theoretical literature on Indigenous pedagogy (the first being nation-centered and the second more universalized), those in educational practice tend to propose a mix of both Western and Indigenous knowledge. One report by the Advisory Board on English Education in Quebec bears a title exemplifying this philosophy: Indigenous Education: Walking on Both Sides of the River (ABEEA, 2017). In it, the authors write,

Education is the key to empowering Indigenous people to stay in their communities, or to return to them after college and university as professionals and entrepreneurs, but it must also give them the option of moving away and contributing to the wider community, if that is their choice. In the words of an Alberta Elder, this means: “Education for children to walk on both sides of the river.” This implies the need for balance between a culturally relevant curriculum and the standard school curriculum. (ABEEA, 2017: p. 7)

From this idea stems many ways that educators try to help students “walk both sides of the river,” and different contexts offer different opportunities and obstacles. On reservations (in the U.S.) or reserves (in Canada), teacher retention is a problem, as well as finding and hiring qualified teachers that come from the communities (ABEEA, 2017: p. 11). Additionally, even schools and school boards run by Indigenous nations, such as the Cree School Board and Kativik Ilisarniriliniq in northern Quebec, are still required to administer ministry exams to students, and to promote or not promote them based in part on those results. However, in the communities, there is access to Elders and knowledge keepers for sharing cultural knowledge with students, as well as a generally positive view of their Indigenous identity (ABEEA, 2017: p. 8). In primarily settler or mainstream spaces, however, racist attitudes towards Indigenous peoples and cultures persist (ABEEA, 2017: p. 14), highlighting the need for a decolonial pedagogy that is anti-racist (Battiste, 2013: pp. 125–139). Historians of Indigenous education in the United States, Jon Rehyner and Jeanne Eder, document these dynamics and forward-looking approaches, and mention certain elements of a pedagogical approach akin to the critical pedagogical approach described by Kincheloe (2008). They write,

The five centuries of immigrant ethnocentrism, cultural chauvinism, and insensitivity to Indian needs described in this book still exist. Teachers who go beyond teaching, who learn about their students’ cultures and home life, can change their students’ lives for the better. Rather than a one-way monocultural, “English only” education for assimilation that has dominated the historical record, this book documents the advantages of an “English Plus” education, one that involves mutual accommodation and a two-way exchange between Indian and white societies, something Sioux author Luther Standing Bear recognized many years ago when he concluded that young Indians need to be “doubly educated” so that they learned “to appreciate both their traditional life and modern life” (1933/1978, 252). (Reyhner and Eder, 2017: p. 15)

For reaching both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students with a new way of thinking, promoting identity-affirming Indigenous pedagogies in Indigenous spaces, and decolonial pedagogies (that are critical of settler colonialism and that promote the futurity of Indigenous peoples and cultures) in settler spaces, as well as promoting intercultural exchange and co-creation in both contexts, is likely the most contextually conscious approach. However, neoliberal and neoconservative tendencies in education present obstacles for engaging with Indigenous knowledges at any degree and in any context.

In their paper titled Still Flourishing: Enacting Indigenizing Language Immersion Pedagogies in the Era of US Common Core State Standards, Hermes and Dyke “describe common tensions that arise in designing curricula that aim to simultaneously revitalize an Ojibwe land-based and relational epistemology and meet local and national standards in Wisconsin, USA” (2019, p. 378). US Common Core State Standards have been criticized for reinforcing a performance-based curriculum that undermines critical thinking and habits required of a democratic education (Tampio, 2018). It has also been identified as a neoliberal, market-based reform that helps to construct and control an educational marketplace in which corporations can immediately profit by selling standardized tests and other educational commodities (Slater and Griggs, 2015: p. 438). Hutt and Schneider (2023) also highlight the profitability that the standardized testing movement has created for companies that create, print, sell, and grade the tests. On this topic, Reyhner and Eder write,

Perhaps the greatest danger facing Indian education in the twenty-first century is the push for outcomes assessment, state and national standards, and the associated increased use of high-stakes testing in all facets of education, but especially for promotion to the next grade. Young minority students who do poorly on tests are often placed in special education and basic skills programs instead of culturally appropriate programs. High school students get tracked into non-college-bound curricula based on achievement tests (Oakes 1985) and are denied diplomas when they cannot pass exit examinations. (Reyhner and Eder, 2017. p. 14)

Reyhner and Eder also point to the political leverage of textbook publishing companies, which have an interest in schools across the nation using their books which typically target middle-class students from the dominant culture (Grunwald, 2006; cited in Rehnyer and Eder, 2017: p. 14). This combination of commodification and standardization of education, central to a neoliberal paradigm in current policy, result in pedagogical obstacles illustrated in the work of Hermes and Dyke (2019).

One obstacle they illustrate is the bifurcation of “skills” from “content,” which “exemplifies the kind of supposed neutrality and universality of ‘knowing’ espoused by those who (fail to) locate themselves” as nested within a Western discourse of knowledge (Hermes and Dyke, 2019: p. 387). The authors exemplify this through the example of students learning to write their name, which is a part of Wisconsin’s Common Core State Standards (WCCS) (WDPI, 2011a; cited in Hermes and Dyke, 2019: p. 389). As the authors explain,

In the immersion school… Ojibwe names are usually much longer and typically have more syllables than English names. Some children are learning to say their name in Ojibwe for the first time. They struggle to speak it, let alone to write it. Take, for example, the Anishinaabe name, Niiyaandiwed (Nee-yawn-di-wade), typical in its level of difficulty. Writing all 12 letters requires a significant amount of time and fine motor skills. One immersion teacher recalls a little boy saying, “I wish my name was Makwa [bear],” as he was writing his 15-letter-long name (Hermes and Haskins 2019).

Beyond the practical obstacles presented for Ojibwe students trying to meet the state’s skill requirement above, the bifurcation of the skill of writing one’s name, and the content of that name and how it is used, demonstrates deeper epistemological confrontation. They write,

…in normative school practice, a student’s name at the top of the page signifies that s/he “owns” this work, it is his/hers to receive credit for, and plagiarism is often met with strict discipline. This form of knowledge ownership does not translate well in Ojibwe intellectual traditions, which emphasize such values as honoring the wisdom of elders and collaboration, and which are predicated on a trusting relationship between one who seeks knowledge and one who can offer guidance. (Hermes and Dyke, 2019: p. 390)

While it may seem that learning to write one’s name is a basic task with little political ramifications, the above analysis demonstrates how the prioritization of certain skills, especially when detached from content, communicates distinct worldviews and thus specific (Western) ways of being in the world. Moreover, standardizing this skill and others like it will ensure for the state that the worldview which gives it power is inculcated for all students from an early age. Critical scholar, Michael Apple, author of Ideology and Curriculum (2018), would likely agree with Hermes and Dyke that “the struggle for the American curriculum is the struggle for the means of (re)producing national identity” (2019, p. 377). Despite this overlap, Apple does not engage in an analysis of how this struggle manifests for sub-national communities with distinct national projects (a notion we will explore in the third and final section).

Another epistemological confrontation occurs between the WCCS literacy skills, meant to prepare children for the worlds of college and work, and the Ojibwe oral tradition, which transmits critical thinking skills through story. The work of Jo-Ann Archibald, which presents research on bringing traditional storytelling into educational settings in Coast Salish communities, offers similar analysis about the pedagogical value of stories in Indigenous cultures (Archibald, 2014). As Hermes and Dyke explain,

While [the teacher, Bimijiwanikwe] engaged students in a critical discussion of the fable in order to situate it within an Indigenous history (the fable was a tool for the reproduction of settler identities), she also engaged students in practicing normative literacy skills, such as naming parts of the story and understanding sequencing. Bimijiwanikwe’s example illuminates the tensions between the standards and Ojibwe epistemology-while the standards find the latter skills sufficient to produce good workers, students, and citizens (of the USA), Waadookodaading as a decolonial education project struggles to provide space for students to understand the ways in which this production (of workers, students, and citizens) is premised on their own Indigenous erasure. (Hermes and Dyke, 2019: p. 393)

This example is critical for demonstrating that despite the epistemological tension between the Common Core Standards and Ojibwe knowledge systems, skilled teachers can meet the objectives of both through carefully constructed pedagogical practice. The work of Archibald offers a similar analysis, explaining the skill that must be acquired in order to effectively utilize storywork in the classroom to realize its full pedagogical potential (2008). However, teacher trainings largely do not involve a careful study and practice of the skills necessary for such pedagogy, as it mainly prioritizes how to teach the skills “sufficient to produce good workers, students, and citizens (of the USA)” (Hermes and Dyke, 2019: p. 393). With increasing standardization, which benefits companies responsible for testing and pedagogical material (and benefits the American national project as well), teacher trainings are likely to be increasingly standardized in parallel, demonstrating how the neoliberal paradigm infringes upon the possibility of cultivating skilled teachers able to meet multiple epistemological objectives in a truly intercultural curriculum. Even if there are more promising teacher trainings programs for Indigenous educators (such as the Cree Teacher Training Program at McGill University) (Eeyou Education, n.d.), the tensions that standards place upon pedagogical priorities are likely to perpetuate unequal epistemological influences in both Indigenous and settler spaces.

A final example demonstrated by Hermes and Dyke illuminates the space-time differences between WCCS and Ojibwe lifeways. For while American and Canadian curriculums are designed according to the Gregorian standard (12-month) calendar, Indigenous communities respond to cyclical transformation in the land and weather (Hermes and Dyke, 2019: p. 393). The immersion school operates on an alternate calendar, which they explain as follows:

Alternatively, the immersion school schedule is determined by when the fish are spawning, the sap is running, and the rice is ready to harvest. The ability to “read” the environment is important. Responding to the Earth, gathering foods that are ready, means that the overarching school structure is shaped by these activities and literacy, math, or any other academic skills that can be covered while also carrying out these activities. (Hermes and Dyke, 2019: p. 393)

Here again, we can observe the ways in which Indigenous spaces of education can teach two different worldviews when there is the flexibility and skill to do so. This skill is described as working through and resisting a system incongruent with Ojibwe worldview. They write,

Waadookodaading attempts a form of learning that both acknowledges and works within these dominant ideologies (e.g. the Gregorian calendar), yet it also practices what Medin and Bang (2014) describes as adaptive reorganization within a complex system. The immersion school teaches through yet resists compliance with a system that is incongruent with Ojibwe heritage, all the while in and through an endangered language that most are still learning. This is the daily work of Indigenous immersion teachers. (Hermes and Dyke, 2019: p. 395)

Adapting school scheduling according to the local cycles of the environment is exemplified in the Cree School Board schedule as well, which offers students and teachers two weeks (one fixed, one depending on when the geese are expected to arrive based on temperatures that year) for cultural activities, primarily going into the bush and hunting geese (Miller, 2019). This arrangement can be interpreted as resistance to the normative calendar, communicating to students the value of their cultural and environmental uniqueness by leaning on Cree space-time assumptions.

Thus, as the work of Hermes and Dyke demonstrates, increased standardization of curriculum creates tensions for Indigenous educators by prioritizing skills laden with Western value, which impacts the range of pedagogical practice even skilled teachers would have time to implement. Standardized curriculum imparts specific Western epistemological assumptions, including an individualistic, possessive, and competitive approach to the learning journey (rather than a relational and guided journey), a prioritization of vocabulary building and other relevant skills for the world of college and work over critical thinking, and a presentation of a “universally applicable” content rather than place-based environmentally responsive content (Hermes and Dyke, 2019). Nonetheless, educators in this example find ways to both work in and resist a complex system incongruent with their worldview, exemplifying that intercultural spaces of education are possible, if not challenging, to realize. Other authors such as Marie Battiste, 2013, George Cajete (2003), and Jo-An Archibald (2014) are among those whose work has the capacity to guide pedagogues in cultivating such an intercultural pedagogical practice in schools. However, policy environments remain a limiting factor.

In the United States, and to a more limited degree in Canada, the school choice movement has presented multiple alternatives to the traditional public school model. Mainly led by conservatives, this movement has roots in Reagan-era policies with the ultimate goal of privatizing the public good of education (Schneider and Berkshire, 2023). Charter schools, homeschooling, and voucher programs are just a few of the “choices” that are increasingly diverting tax dollars from public institutions, as well as (sometimes) contributing to more religious oriented schooling using state funding (Apple, 2006; Schneider and Berkshire, 2023). While this movement might be described as part of a neoliberal policy trend for education (Giroux, 2022; Apple, 2006; Schneider and Berkshire, 2023), the recent attack on critical pedagogy following the Black Lives Matter protest activity in the summer of 2020 can be interpreted as a neoconservative trend aiming to restore patriotic, firmly capitalist, White, and non-critical cultural norms in education (Furrey, in press). Even in Canada where the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report mandated changes in curriculum in public education, true adherence to these calls to action are uneven across the country (Kairos, 2018). Thus, policy environments matter for evaluating the means of transmitting Indigenous and decolonial pedagogy. However, critical scholars and other supporting public schools (a worthy goal) may be at odds with some propositions for Indigenous spaces of learning that lay outside the public system—notably Native charter schools (Furrey, submitted for publication).

While some policy-makers, such as those in the state of South Dakota, have suggested that the current school system can incorporate Indigenous and decolonial pedagogies (Groves, 2020), the work of Hermes and Dyke cited above helps demonstrate that conciliating current public school norms and Indigenous educational priorities requires skill and capacity for adaptation not always readily available to in Native educational settings, nor in settler settings (Wotherspoon and Milne 2020: p. 11). In terms of capacity for adaptation, the policy and funding environments of (Indian) education suggest that the public education system is not as apt to evolve as policy-makers let on.

Indeed, despite an increase in “Indian control” of “Indian education” in both Canada and the United States since the 1970s (Brenna, 2014; Wiscutie-Crépeau, 2021), it is rare to find successful schools that have both Indigenized their organizational level (meaning schools are governed and administered by tribal/community members and the majority of the staff are tribally/community enrolled members), as well as Indigenized their infrastructure, meaning that the curriculum reflects the culture of the tribal/First nation, the language, the teachings, and the values (DeLong, 1998). According to the former superintendent for education for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Dr. Loretta DeLong, “When they exist at all, cultural curriculum and language courses are added to the regular curriculum only through special program monies, which are short term and do not bring long-term change” (DeLong, 1998). This statement suggests that, although 128 of the total 183 schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Education in sixty-four reservations across twenty-three states are tribally controlled (BIE, n.d.), funding mechanisms likely continue to impact the degree to which a tribe’s cultural knowledge can be part of the school’s curriculum. Recent information suggests this may be improving. According to the BIE’s 2023 Budget Highlights, “The request level of $21.5 million for Education Program Enhancements supports professional development for teachers, advances the quality of in-classroom instruction, and incorporates improved Native language and culture programs in classrooms” (BIE, 2023: p. 2). Additionally, it states that the budget supports 100% of the estimated requirement for tribes that choose to operate BIE-funded schools through grants, and supports activities that promote educational self-determination (BIE, 2023: p. 2). While such a budget announcement is exciting, the work of Naomi Riley, The New Trail of Tears: How Washington is Destroying Indian Americans, documents widespread corruption and mismanagement within the BIE (2021), which reportedly impact the reliability of those funds. Funding opportunities for Indian education in the United States have come from varying sources since the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934 (Brenna, 2014), and in 1975, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance act granted tribes the ability to assume responsibility for programs that had been previously administered by the federal government (Indian Affiars, n.d.). Yet, despite this right and various possible sources of funding, fifty-five schools are still directly funded and operated by the BIE (BIE, n.d.). While the BIE might provide a culturally relevant curriculum, its funding and management are heavily critiqued. Elizabeth Bailey, 2022 Director’s Award Winner at the Hoover Institution Summer Policy Boot Camp, summarizes this tension in her proposal for charter schools in Native North and South Dakota as follows:

Tribal charter schools will also be able to address the major barriers to education that Native students face in both states’ traditional public and BIE schools. Namely, as Native students in traditional public schools struggle to connect their culture to the curriculum, tribal charter schools will be able to integrate Native languages, cultures, and philosophies into every lesson. While the BIE already operates by these principles, tribal charter schools will not be encumbered by the same federal bureaucracy and volatile funding processes that hold BIE schools back. (Bailey, 2022: p. 4)

Thus, it would not be accurate to assert that the current public school system easily allows for such conciliation—especially when states demonstrate resistance to Indigenous-led initiatives to improve Native school experiences (Martzen, 2021; Groves, 2020; Furrey, submitted for publication), and when there is an on-going attack on critical pedagogy and a simultaneous promotion of classical patriotic pedagogy in the United States (Giroux, 2022; Furrey, in press). The consistent promotion of Native charter schools is further evidence that the public school system is not an easy environment for Indigenous pedagogy.

In large part, critical theorists such as Giroux, Apple, and Schneider and Berkshire express suspicion, even condemnation, of charter schools. They are not alone or without reason, as charter schools have been critiqued for mismanagement and fraud (The Center for Popular Democracy, 2014), mixed performance compared to public schools (CREDO, 2022), for spending millions of tax dollars on private management companies, such as White Hat Management (Strauss, 2022), for discriminating against students with special needs (Strauss, 2021), and for contributing to the increasing segregation of the American student population (Perry, 2022; Carrillo and Salhotra, 2022). Besides mixed performance and clear corporate profiting off of redirected tax dollars, there is also a concern that charters are an avenue for state funding of religious education. As Apple writes, “Although in theory there is much to commend in such policies […] all too many charter schools have become ways through which conservative religious activists and others gain public funding for schools–and home schooling–that would otherwise be prohibited such support” (2006, p. 40). Schneider and Berkshire offer a similar critique in their analysis of the privatization of public schooling in the United States, and also raise the issue of charter school curriculums that are restricted largely to studying religious texts (2022, p. 44). Additionally, charter schools have been critiqued for prolonging the issue of racially segregated schooling (Perry, 2022) not by causing segregation per se, but by exacerbating dynamics caused primarily by the archaic drawing of district lines (Carrillo and Salhotra, 2022). With right-wing leaders increasingly supporting the privatization of education through voucher programs and charter schools, the strategic animus of a study supporting that Black students score higher in math because in charter schools they are more likely to have a teacher that looks like them, is rather obvious (the Thomas B. Fordham institute that published the study also authorizes charter schools in the state of Ohio) (Will, 2019 ). However, with approximately 55%–60% of the charter school population from 2005–06 to 2020–21 being Black or Hispanic (Xu, 2022), the notion that charter schools might offer a safe educational space for marginalized populations should not be disregarded. In this line of thought, I would suggest that Indigenous spaces of education, which often involve a different national project, are largely ignored in these analyses. This is problematic for advancing a strong case for public education. Several examples suggest that Indigenous communities are turning towards the charter model to advance their own pedagogies in a public system that underfunds them and/or marginalizes the pedagogical content and processes required for being able to “walk both sides of the river” (ABEEA, 2017: p. 7).

Even in a relatively friendlier policy context for Indigenous education, such as Canada, Mother Earth’s Children’s Charter School (MECCS) located near Stony Plain Alberta is an example of a charter school designed to serve Native students (it should be noted that Alberta is currently the only Canadian province that permits charter schools). In the fall of 2019, the United Conservative Party (UCP) removed the cap of fifteen charter schools, resulting in the current number of twenty that are now being run in the province (Mindzak, 2020). While this trend should certainly be interpreted as a neoliberal and neoconservative push to privatize education in Canada, it should also not be ignored that some of these schools are destined for underserved student populations in the province: Indigenous students as well as English-language learners (Mindzak, 2020). According to one report about MECSS,

Mother Earth’s Children’s Charter School (MECCS) was established in 2003 to help provide Indigenous students with an education based strongly on cultural context rather than a traditional western educational model. MECCS functions do not only benefit students academically but also to foster students’ self-confidence and self-respect, develop their appreciation for their cultural ties to Mother Earth, and emphasize the importance of balancing the four components of self-spiritual, physical, social/emotional, and intellectual. Additionally, in recognizing that the needs of each student are unique, each child is provided with an Individual Program Plan to ensure they are being supported for success. Overall, it is the main goals of MECCS to help students achieve their academic potential and to nurture their spiritual connectedness. (Lessard, 2018: p. 6)

Among the listed benefits of the school, the report mentions higher performance on the province’s standardized tests, decreased dropout rates, increased feelings of safety among students, increased number of students and parents/caregivers attending cultural/spiritual programming and events, and increased number of MECCS students graduating grade 12 (Lessard, 2018: p. 6). Essentially, this charter school’s mission was to change its curricular infrastructure from the traditional model in order to respond to the multitude of challenges facing Indigenous students in the province. Indeed, while students still take the Provincial Achievement Tests (PAT), the description suggests that this test does not determine the orientation of the curriculum. Increased scores on them might thus be interpreted as a positive side effect of students’ overall improved well-being.

In the United States, the Native Indian Education Association, which has existed since 1969 with the goals to “Promote educational sovereignty; Support continuing use of traditional knowledge and language; [and] Improve educational opportunities and results in our communities” (NIEA, n.d.) is one major promoter of Native charter schools that has developed a framework to promote the growth and expansion of such schools throughout the United States (NIEA, n.d.). The description of their handbook titled Sovereignty in Education: Creating Culturally-Based Charter Schools in Native Communities states “Fundamentally, charters that are grounded in Native ways of knowing, believing, and operating, provide an educational avenue that many Native peoples have sought for decades” (NIEA, n.d.).

One charter school example we can observe in the U.S. is the STAR school located on the Navajo reservation. STAR stands for “Service To All Relations” and constitutes the first value of this public charter school serving mainly Native American students, grades K-8, near Flagstaff and Leupp, Arizona. The school started in 2001 with the aim to bring a “superior education” to a rural community with “few jobs, no public utilities, and high drop-out rates” (STAR School, n.d.). The mission of STAR school is described as to nurture “enthusiastic” and “independent” learners who will learn throughout their lifetime. This is accomplished through applied learning, learning through communication, community-based learning, and creative learning. The values of the STAR school are (1) Service To All Relations, (2) the “4R’s”: Respect, Relationship, Responsibility, and Reasoning, (3) Expecting Excellence in Preparation of our Students for Life, which includes descriptions of the spiritual, physical, and emotional aspects to consider for students, and (4) Honoring our Place and Place-Based Education (STAR School, n.d.). The school serves as an example in Fours Arrows’ Teaching Truly: A Curriculum to Indigenize Mainstream Education (2013) as a school that implements infrastructure and education for students emphasizing ecological sustainability and Navajo (Diné) values, but that also continues to experience frustrations with state regulations. The author of the chapter, Mark Sorensen, is worth quoting at length:

Admittedly, mainstream standards and state policies have done little to help us live in harmony with the environment. This is why indigenizing the mainstream curriculum independently in the classroom is so important for all of us. State officials have even looked with suspicion and mistrust at our dedication to being off the grid and remaining one of the first off-grid-solar and wind-powered schools in the U.S. They have been unwilling for the most part to allow us any deviations from a set of plans designed for a school building with an unlimited power supply from the grid. Although local building officials may have good intentions respecting the safety of students, their unwillingness to open up the regulations to accommodate innovation has been frustrating. (Jacobs and Sorensen, 2013: p. 62)

STAR School operates as an alternative learning space, tuition-free and open to all students, which depends on the model of a charter school to be able to operate and fulfill all the elements of its mission. It is also important to highlight that the school serves a rural, largely Diné (Navajo) population according to its specific characteristics, values, and needs that at times defy or at least do not easily correspond with Arizona’s public school policies. According to Sorensen, the school received a letter grade of D in 2012 based on the state-approved standardized tests; yet, when the average graduation rate for Native Americans was around 50% at the time the chapter was written, the rate for STAR School alumni attending different high schools in the area was over 80%, and these students have been recipients of prestigious awards, scholarships, and fellowships (Four Arrows and Sorensen, 2013: p. 58).

STAR School is not the only school in the area that aims to serve Diné students, but the differences between the two models help explain a push for charter schools in rural Indigenous communities. The Puente de Hózhó bilingual magnet school, which is a part of the public Flagstaff unified school district, offers the Diné Immersion Program. This program “provides students in grades K-5 content-based Diné language instruction utilizing a multi-faceted approach to maximize each student’s language learning experience” (Puente de Hózhó Elementary School, n.d.). The idea of magnet schools began in the 1970s as a way to desegregate schools by bringing students of different backgrounds together around common interests. Unlike charter or private schools, they are a part of existing public school districts, but they focus on specific fields of interest, such as performing arts, technology, science, or world languages (Walden University, 2023). In the case of Puente de Hózhó, this special focus is on Spanish and Diné language immersion programs. With a model that welcomes twenty-five students of English-speaking background, twenty-five students of Spanish-speaking background, and twenty-five students seeking to commit to learning Diné (Puente de Hózhó Elementary School, n.d.), the public interest of this school would be bringing together different linguistic and cultural communities of Flagstaff in one school where the significance of each is prominent. Thus, while STAR School serves a largely rural population with an intent to help students learn how to live more sustainably, Puente de Hózhó serves a multicultural, more urbanized area and focuses on bilingualism as its central pedagogical focus and advantage. While the bilingual model at Puente de Hózhó is indeed exciting, its multicultural orientation and clientele, as well as its goal that “Students will meet or exceed state, national, and international academic standards” (Puente de Hózhó Elementary School, n.d.) supports the observation that there still remains general resistance to public funding and public commitment to robust organizationally and infrastructurally indigenized learning environments that do not adhere to the status quo as determined by current educational regulations. As Flagstaff and rural Navajo Nation are two very different places, the pedagogical needs, aspirations, and possibilities would not logically be the same, yet the policy environment is not equally friendly to both models. The example of efforts to gain state funding for Lakota language immersion charter schools also supports this observation that Native charter schools aim to serve primarily rural Native communities, but tend to lack public support (both in discourse and in resources).

As part of a large and expanding effort to improve schooling for Native American students in South Dakota, Senate Bill 139 was presented in early 2022—the third attempt in five years to pass legislation that would allow for creation of state-funded charter schools aimed at immersing students in Lakota language, culture and history. It was killed by the education committee in the House of Representatives in a vote of eight to four. Opponents of the latest Lakota Immersion charter school proposal said the bill would have siphoned too much funding away from school districts where the schools would be located (Pfankuch, 2022). Proponents of state-funded Lakota immersion schools cite chronic absenteeism, severe underperformance, high drop-out rates among Native students in public schools, as well as research and examples from existing immersion schools that show that Native achievement levels and graduation rates improve significantly under the cultural and language-immersion model being presented (Pfankuch, 2022). This is important to consider in low-income areas, where evidence demonstrates that Native language study for Indigenous students improves literacy over-all:

Poverty is pervasive in North and South Dakotan tribes, with 31 percent and 50 percent of each state’s respective Native communities living below the poverty line. For comparison, at Waadookodaading, 43 percent of the local Native community lives below the poverty line. Despite this, 100 percent of third- through fifth-grade students demonstrated reading proficiency, compared to just 63 percent of their Native peers in the nearby traditional public schools. Waadookodaading teachers credit “the deep conceptual knowledge of [the Ojibwe] language” for their students’ outstanding achievements. (Bailey, 2022: p. 5)

However, charter schools are not the only model for providing Indigenous language study. One promising example is the Lakota Language Immersion Classroom housed on Red Cloud Indian School’s main campus on the Pine Ridge Reservation (Red Cloud Indian School, 2017). The project started with five kindergarten students, and plans were to increase that number to twenty-five and to add a grade level by 2020 (Red Cloud Indian School, 2017). Additionally, the school is partnered with the American Indian Studies Research Institute at Indiana University to develop a comprehensive, standardized, professionally developed K-12 Lakota language curriculum (Red Cloud Indian School, 2017). According to its website, “The mission of Red Cloud Indian School, a Catholic Institution administered by the Jesuits and the Lakota people, is to develop and grow as a vibrant Church, through an education of the mind and spirit that promotes Lakota and Catholic values” (Red Cloud Indian School-Mission and Values, n.d.). Schools opened in the late 1800s that operated as residential schools with a clear intention to assimilate Lakota youth continue to operate as Catholic schools that are sometimes administered by tribal governments and sometimes receive BIE funding. A similar case is Saint Francis Indian School on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. Much like Red Cloud Indian School, Lakota values, language, and culture are an integral part to the school’s mission (Saint Francis Indian School, n.d.), but vestiges of Catholic influence remain. Nonetheless, an emphasis on Lakota language and culture are presented as essential elements of a successful educational journey for students. Red Cloud Indian School is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating as an accredited private school and organized under the laws of the State of South Dakota, and recieves no federal, state, or tribal funds (Red Cloud Indian School, n.d.). St. Francis is a private school accredited by the South Dakota Department of Education and Cultural Affairs with the goal “to meet and exceed the standards directed by the Department of Education” (Student Handbook, 2019); it is tribally controlled and recieves BIE funding (Bureau of Indian Education- School Directory, n.d.). If these models exist, then we must consider possible benefits of turning to the charter model for Indigenous educational spaces. Bailey’s policy proposal explains some reasons:

The minority of Native communities in North and South Dakota that do have tuition free options outside of traditional public schools do not fare much better in terms of what is available. Native students in these districts can elect to attend a BIE school, which may offer a culturally responsive education. But these schools are so chronically underfunded, underperforming, and structurally unsafe that the BIE has been barred from opening new educational programs by Congress since 1995 and has been on the GAO’s “high-risk” list of agencies and programs most in need of transformation since 2017. (Bailey, 2022: p. 3)

Besides unsafe school conditions, chronic underfunding and mismanagement of the BIE might explain why a measure in South Dakota allowing Native-focused charter schools only if they receive federal grants has never been utilized (Pfankuch, 2019). Furthermore, recent attention drawn to the nefarious impacts of religious residential schools for Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States (Evans, 2021), as well as their lasting impacts on families and communities (Wakpa, 2017) might also lead students to pursue schooling outside BIE and Catholic Church-funded/affiliated institutions with residential school histories. Pro-charter arguments in South Dakota assert that charter schools are “effective because they allow for innovation in teaching methods and also greater flexibility in curriculum development, staffing, scheduling and teaching styles” (Pfankuch, 2022). As Nick Tilsen, head of the NDN Collective, an advocate for charter school legislation, stated at an October 2019 meeting, “We want to have flexibility for Indian education to be able to innovate and create, and charter schools allow for that… It’s a choice that doesn’t exist in South Dakota but does exist in other states” (Pfankuch, 2019). Indeed, South Dakota is one of five states in the nation that do not allow for charter schools (Pfankuch, 2022). Additionally, “A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that of the forty-four school districts in North and South Dakota where more than a quarter of the student body is Native, over half (56%) only offer traditional public schools (cited in Bailey, 2022: p. 3). Finally, a possible benefit of turning towards charter models is political. Permitting charter schools in the state would, to an extent, symbolize public interest in and state recognition of the value of Lakota-based educational programming as a viable choice of schooling, as well as potentially recognize the educational sovereignty of tribes. This is notably important when one considers the political context around education in the state that has become heated under Governor Kristi Noem’s aggressive campaign to support “honest, patriotic education that cultivates in our children a profound love for our country,” which shortly preceded the South Dakota Department of Education’s draft of new social studies standards with more than a dozen references to the Oceti Sakowin removed (Matzen, 2021). While the decision was reversed, the governor has continued to push increasingly “patriotic” and restrictive legislation on education (Folley, 2021; Furrey, in press), all the while supporting school choice opportunities that do not support Native students in the state in any obvious way (Furrey, Article submitted for publication). Thus, in a political and social context that is hostile to Indigenous peoples (Ortiz, 2020), one could understand how Native charter schools are not just about providing culturally relevant education, but serve also as both a practical and symbolic assertion of tribal sovereignty.

To summarize this theme, it should not be ignored that there are numerous reasons to be skeptical about the growth of charter schools and their place in a neoconservative and neoliberal political agenda in education. Nonetheless, it is equally important to point out that many pro-public school advocates, primarily critical scholars, are ignoring that this model serves Indigenous projects for creating culturally relevant spaces of education and asserting educational sovereignty in unfriendly, if not outright hostile, policy and funding environments. A robust, critical case for public school reform must incorporate valid responses to the reasons why Indigenous communities are increasingly turning to the charter school model, as well as consider the other means of education proposed by Indigenous scholars who are also seeking a creative co-construction of a better public sphere.

School as a common good, and school when you don't want to be common

A final and vital difference between projects to integrate a more critical pedagogy into mainstream curriculum and to advance and support spaces of Indigenous pedagogy is how the legacy of schooling is critiqued and the political implications of those critiques. Critical scholars tend to critique corporate influence and models in curriculum and school governance (Apple, 2006), while scholars of Indigenous education critique the role of schools for assimilating Indigenous youth, as well as contributing to the construction of a settler colonial identity at large (Carleton, 2023). While both critique capitalist ends to schooling, critical scholars tend to focus on issues related to differences in class (a Marxist approach), whereas Indigenous education scholars focus on differences in national projects and futures (a decolonial/settler studies approach). These interpretive frames might be best understood through their different political philosophical underpinnings.

In her book Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (2014), the late bell hooks writes about her personal experience in a segregated school as being more academically stimulating and providing a more encouraging learning environment than the integrated school that she ultimately attended. She writes,

Though they did not define or articulate these practices in theoretical terms, my teachers were enacting a revolutionary pedagogy of resistance that was profoundly anticolonial. Within these segregated schools, black children who were deemed exceptional, gifted, were given special care. Teachers worked with and for us to ensure that we would fulfill our intellectual destiny and by so doing uplift the race. My teachers were on a mission. (hooks, 2014, p. 3)

Her teacher, as hooks describes it, was teaching to a classroom of Black students and thus designed a pedagogy that centered their experience as Black citizens of the United States. The teacher, as hooks writes, “knew” them (2014, p. 4). Things changed when hooks moved to an integrated school:

School changed utterly with racial integration. Gone was the messianic zeal to transform our minds and beings that had characterized teachers and their pedagogical practices in our all-black schools. Knowledge was suddenly about information only. It had no relation to how one lived, behaved. It was no longer connected to antiracist struggle. Bussed to white schools, we soon learned that obedience, and not a zealous will to learn, was what was expected of us. Too much eagerness to learn could easily be seen as a threat to white authority. (hooks, 2014, p. 4)

The pedagogy of this new integrated school was based in a White, masculine normativity, as opposed to a normativity of Blackness that had been the basis of hooks’ education before the end of segregation. This example is not intended to support segregation in schools based on racial or ethnic identity, nor to lend credence to the study by the right-wing think tank cited earlier. Rather, it is intended to demonstrate how schooling communicates and informs specific understandings of national identity and citizenship. As Apple (2006) illustrates theoretically what hooks illustrates through a mix of theory and experience, schools are institutions that reproduce systems of privilege. When integration occurred, there was not a conciliation of Black and White American normativity that informed schooling. Rather, Black, Latinx, and Native American students were expected to adhere to and accept the White normativity and liberal ideological grounding in which the principles of democracy, progress, and freedom are rooted, and from which the mainstream curriculum was designed. This mirrors how the Civil Rights Movement did not lead directly to a society with equal influences from all ethnic groups in the United States. Rather, minority groups were integrated into an inherently racist, classist, and patriarchal order with trajectories to further atomize individuals, thereby limiting the scope of possibility for collective resistance or more radical epistemological rebellion. It is desirable for the current neoliberal order that minority groups (and especially sub-state national communities) carve out spaces for themselves in the current system as individuals rather than propose serious changes to it as a collective. This is why recent social movement activity that demands a critical evaluation of capitalism, meritocracy, and whiteness in mainstream curriculum has evoked intense response from conservative leaders (Furrey, in press). To illustrate, Florida governor Ron DeSantis demonstrated just how far he was willing to go by banning all AP courses as a strategy to block a pilot AP African American studies course in the state (Elliott, 2023). What these dynamics reveal is that debates about critical education are closely linked to a war over the cultural content of American identity, and to efforts to remake the public sphere so it is more just (Giroux, 1983: pp. 135–142). Furthermore, resisting the current trend of privatization of public schooling is important if we consider that it is the last significant public good in American democracy (Schneider and Berkshire, 2023: p. 6). These are worthy and important battles that are essential to sustain if one hopes to live in a truly equitable, democratic, and just country. However, we must also remember that these are different from the academic priorities of Indigenous peoples. As Hermes and Dyke (2019) assert, Indigenous peoples have long been aware of the assimilative effects of schooling, and have never truly benefited from its promises of class security. They write, “Study of decolonial social movements from the 1970s and on illuminates that interest and participation in education, especially higher education, among Indigenous communities has grown largely in response to Indigenous-led efforts to reclaim [educational] institutions” (2019, p. 385, original emphasis). Indeed, rather than aiming to increase and improve participation in mainstream schooling, there is a long history and contemporary trend of Indigenous peoples creating and nurturing spaces of education where they can benefit from an education with their perspective and experience as the normative grounding.

Furthermore, reclaiming these spaces is essential for protecting endangered knowledges. In her avocation for displacing “cognitive imperialism,” Mi’kmaq educational scholar, Marie Battiste, writes “Despite the rich diversity in humankind today in terms of knowledge, skills, talents, and heritage, only one visible, powerful, and defining tradition of knowledge has been embraced, developed, and diffused throughout the world” (Battiste, 2013: p. 161). It is vital, she asserts, to promote Indigenous knowledge and the languages that vehicle them (Battiste, 2013: p. 178). Examples like the STAR school and the increasingly numerous Indigenous language immersion schools and programs cropping up around the United States and Canada are encouraging. However, Hermes and Dyke describe how the political economy of education increasingly poses constraints and pressures on Indigenous spaces of learning to conform to Western standards and priorities, notably the Ojibwe immersion schools that are the subject of their paper (2019, p. 385). Thus, even in spaces where Indigenous pedagogies are practiced and knowledges shared, evidence suggests that educators in these spaces have no choice but to continue to develop strategies of resistance in the face of standardized testing and other “accountability” measures that are a part of what Apple calls an “audit culture” in education (2006, p. 27). Similar pressures are observed in Canada through a “transfer without penalty clause” imposed on First Nation schools that, albeit indirectly, force communities that acquire jurisdiction over education from the federal government to abide by the provincial standard curriculum (Restoule, n.d.). Despite these challenges, however, Indigenous educators continue to resist and work to place their cultures and languages at the center of their pedagogical practice (Hermes and Dyke, 2019).

Thus, education is understood as an essential tool for fostering Indigenous nationhoods. It is, to quote Blair Stonechild, an Indigenous scholar and survivor of the Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School at Lebrat, “the new buffalo” (Smith, 2011). As T.S. Lee asserts, Indigenous education involves recognizing the inherent right to collective self-determination (2015). Alternately, critical scholars acknowledge individual self-determination and the strengthening of social bonds, but they do not problematize the multiplicity of social and political commitments that can exist in minority societies and in sub-state nations such as Indigenous nations. The accent on individual rights in critical theory, even in tandem with social justice, is evident in Henry Giroux’s description of critical pedagogy:

Rather than viewing teaching as a technical practice, pedagogy in the broadest critical sense is premised on the assumption that learning is not about memorizing dead knowledge and skills associated with learning for the test, but engaging in a more expansive struggle for individual rights and social justice. (Giroux, 2022: p. 510, my emphasis)

Additionally, in his call for a radical pedagogy which involves an admirable utopianism and faith in the possibility of creative risk-taking, Giroux announces a vision of a society where “alternative public spheres will no longer be necessary” (1983, p. 242); such a vision blatantly clashes with the pursuit of Indigenous futurities. Even if Four Arrow’s vision to normalize a new (or rather ancient) nature-based and non-hierarchical worldview were to be realized, distinct cultures and nations have always existed and will continue to exist. Non-Native society can and should learn to embrace Indigenous ways of thinking without erasing the kinship identities and historical resonance of Indigenous nationhoods-indeed, this is the ultimate step in truly equally and respectful intercultural exchange: a sincere care for each other’s collective futures. While critical theorists recognize the significance of place in people’s realities and accept that it impacts a theory of liberating pedagogy, I echo Bowers’ (2008) critique that they ultimately too often universalize decolonial approaches and underestimate the value and depth of cultural communities. While they critique the use of education by neoconservatives for preserving national myths, they overlook, and thus do not respond to how education is essential for Indigenous peoples to ensure their collective future and preserve their national myths, even though it is indeed a form of nationalism in itself. This thus represents, at best, an under theorization of the relationships between education and nationhood/nation-building. Additionally, they under theorize how existing in an “alternative public sphere” does not necessarily equal being insular, as theories of rooted cosmopolitanism can help us understand (Kymlicka and Walker, 2013). In regard to theorizing pedagogy in light of this discrepancy, the question posed by Hermes and Dyke (2019) in their analysis of a statement issued by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction merits serious reflection: “Why is ‘every student in Wisconsin’ expected to become a ‘world citizen ' when some students are actively prohibited from belonging to their own sovereign nations?” (p. 386).

To conclude this final theme, (at least) two different political philosophies distinguish critical theories of education and Indigenous theories of education. The focus on individual rights and improving the conditions of the public sphere in critical theories suggests a liberal democratic underpinning. Though critical scholars acknowledge the various systems that discriminate according to class, race, gender, or sex, their promotion of the reviving of social bonds remains grounded in an individualistic, liberal, understanding of democracy; the goal of remaking the public sphere is to ensure that all individuals have equitable participation and opportunities within it. This is a valid and honorable objective. However, they do not acknowledge the status of Tribal Nations, First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities, which have at hand a separate and equally important project of determining their own communities’ futures. Communitarianism, “the idea that human identities are largely shaped by different kinds of constitutive communities (or social relations) and that this conception of human nature should inform our moral and political judgments as well as policies and institutions” (Bell, 2020), helps us interpret the different political orientations for which education can be designed and envisioned. Enabling communities to raise citizens according to their values and customs, as well as in their own languages, is to support an intrinsic “obligation to support and nourish the particular communities that provide meaning for our lives, without which we’d be disoriented, deeply lonely, and incapable of informed moral and political judgment” (Bell, 2020). One can assert that a pedagogy based in this philosophy could foster richer connection to and understanding of place and communities, and of the connections between places and communities, and can thus contribute over-all to a more respectful, non-oppressive citizenry. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson describes as much in her vision of an education in the Anishnaabe worldview:

Nishnaabewin did not and does not prepare children for successful career paths in a hyper capitalistic system. It is designed to create self-motivated, self-directed, community-minded, inter-dependent, brilliant, loving citizens, who at their core uphold our ideals around family, community and nationhood by valuing their intelligences, their diversity, their desires and gifts and their lived experiences. It encourages children to find their joy and place it at the centre of their lives. It encourages children to value consent. This was the key to building nations where exploitation was unthinkable. But don’t our children have to live in a hyper capitalistic system? Well, yes; and if we are going to survive this as Nishnaabeg, we need to create generations of people that are capable of actualizing radical decolonization, diversity, transformation and local economic alternatives to capitalism. (Simpson, 2014: p. 23)

To summarize this final theme, schooling can serve two different democratic or non-oppressive functions: reshaping the public sphere so that it is more just, but also protecting and progressing the agency of endangered and discriminated cultures and knowledges so that they may develop on their own terms. Schools can serve both of these functions, yet much critical literature in education fails to acknowledge the validity of both of these goals, and thus fails to engage with the necessary theoretical and strategic challenges that these goals require.

Conclusion

The objective of this paper was to put critical and Indigenous theories of education into conversation with each other across three broad themes: epistemological/ontological differences, the means of education, and the political and philosophical underpinnings of their objectives. Its intentions are purely theoretical, a jab at rendering coherent the nuances in critical and Indigenous theories and visions of education on Turtle Island (North America). While the two literatures critique capitalism and the neoliberal trend in both curriculum content and the political economy of education, and both envision education as the means by which to combat oppression and to promote respect and a strong sense of community, there are nonetheless important discrepancies to keep in mind. First, critical theories tend to focus on the important task of truth-telling, of standing up to power and critiquing it. This often results in epistemologically contentious theorizing. This task might be considered the first step of a decolonial pedagogy, which tells the truth about colonialism and highlights the importance of an anti-racist pedagogy, but it goes further by also supporting Indigenous perspectives and knowledges. Going further than epistemological contention, Indigenous theories inherently involve ontological rebellion, which is proving to be complicated to integrate into mainstream policy and schooling (Wotherspoon and Milne, 2020: p. 10). Second, critical scholars typically promote the public school system as a common good that is essential to a healthy democracy. As a result, they tend to critique school choices outside the traditional public school model as threats to that essential common good. These understandings of the viable means of education have a blind spot: charter and private schools are (primarily in the U.S.) viable options for Indigenous communities that want to create alternative spaces of education for their communities and nations, especially in the context of an increasingly patriotic and standardized public school system. Thus, a deeper analysis of how the changing political economy of education brings to bear challenges and opportunities for Indigenous spaces of education needs to be considered in critiques of non-public spaces of education. Finally, while critical theories of education seek to remake the public sphere to achieve thicker democracy, this understanding of democracy assumes a single national community and emphasizes individual access to and participation within it. Indigenous theories of education tend to promote separate spaces of education in order to raise citizens for their own national futures. These theories do not promote a closed-minded, inward-oriented pedagogy, but rather describe a pedagogy in which the student’s Indigenous culture and language is the starting point from which to embrace the world. Fostering such spaces of education could be justified within a framework that emphasizes critical thinking, social justice, and Indigenous sovereignty and futurity.

To conclude, I align somewhat with Four Arrows' vision, and that of antipodean theory (Antoine et al., 2018), that embracing a new worldview through a co-creative process could achieve goals inherent in both critical and Indigenous theories of education. However, in order to be able to “borrow from the wisdom” of Indigenous peoples to cultivate that worldview as truly equal partners, I maintain the position that it is essential to first protect the educational sovereignty of Native peoples, to hear out the visions they have for educating their future generations, and to uphold their means of protecting those visions (as the work of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson compellingly advocates) (Simpson, 2014). While the transcendent, humanist utopia envisioned by critical scholars is alluring, this vision will remain myopic if they do not engage substantially with the objectives of self-determination of Indigenous peoples. By and large, for most of North American critical pedagogical theory, Indigenous self-determinism is a critical blind spot and thus serves as an obstacle to meaningful co-creation of new ways of being and educating (Steward et al., 2017). If one truly intends to make of public education a means by which to foster a more loving, equitable, just, and caring world, and to arrive at that place through meaningful co-creation (and not mere creation), then a theory or strategy aimed at this end cannot afford blind spots.