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A Word About the Office of a Pedagogy of Hope Through Research and Practice
“Without a sense of Identity there can be no
struggle.” - Paulo Freire The School of Education’s (SOE) Office of a Pedagogy of Hope Through Research and Practice (PoH), in partnership with the Office of Tribal Relations, presented a virtual conference “Re-thinking Ourselves in a Time of Truth and Healing.” Part of the Father Van Christoph Lecture Series, guest speakers Jeannine Hill Fletcher, Ph.D., and Samuel Torres, Ed.D., discussed “the Legacy of Christian Supremacy” and “Disrupting Constructions of Western Knowledge and Coloniality.” Fletcher spoke of how Christianity has been weaponized to dehumanize and exploit others. “Christian supremacy,” she explained, is using the religion to conquer indigenous land, justify slavery, and hurt immigrant communities. Through violence, assimilationist education, and theology, U.S. history primarily has been told through the lens of white, Christian culture.
Fletcher challenged educators to create curriculum that questions the white Christian, historical lens.
A number of Jesuits were present at the conference, including Father Ted Penton, from Ottawa, Canada, who participated in a panel addressing the Jesuits’ role in Native American boarding schools. Much of the records from this time are missing or incomplete but Fr. Penton is hopeful that the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policy Act (House of Representatives 8420) is one step toward healing.
Torres further expanded on the history of, and damage caused by Native American boarding schools. Through personal anecdotes, he described the role of his grandmother in reconnecting with his heritage through Nahuatl, a native language.
In Minnesota, he said Native
American dancers performed in honor of George Floyd, and were met with riot gear, underscoring the need for respect of Native traditions.
Torres addressed how the trauma of Native American boarding schools is still impacting indigenous people today. Native children were stripped of language, family, and religion, which today would be considered acts of violence classified as genocide. Torres emphasized the importance of naming things for what they are and preserving knowledge before it is lost. What the Native Americans suffered was an epistemicide: Knowledge, diversity, democracy, freedom, biculturalism, and indigenous methodologies were killed in efforts to colonize them. Torres said, “We can’t heal from something we don’t know about.” To decolonize indigenous education, educators must center indigenous voices and tell the truth about historical oppression to stop the epistemicide of Native American history. Jeannine Hill Fletcher is a constructive theologian at Fordham University and author of The Sin of White Supremacy, Christianity, Racism & Religious Diversity in America. Samuel Torres (Mexica/Nahual) director of research and programs at the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and author of Beyond Colonizing Epistemicides: Toward a Decolonizing Framework for Indigenous Education [dissertation and forthcoming book].
Decolonizing Education’s Teacher Pipeline
The Doctor of Educational Leadership (Ed.D.) program, which began in 2018, was designed for leaders to make needed changes in an educational system that historically has not been inclusive. For example, with the support of Gonzaga’s Director of Tribal Relations, Wendy Thompson, and Dean Yolanda Gallardo, the doctoral research course includes opportunities to study indigenous research methods. Elaine Radmer, Ph.D., associate professor, designed the course to focus on how researchers’ backgrounds influence research choices. The program’s cohort model embraces opportunities for dialogue that create a space of reciprocal learning between faculty and candidates. Through their shared journeys, Gonzaga Ed.D. faculty and doctoral candidates are changing structures in education. Kim Lanoy-Sandoval is a secondyear doctoral candidate advised by Catherine Zeisner, Ph.D. LanoySandoval is a member of the Navajo Nation and works with Cooperative Educational Services as thier program director for Leading Educators through Alternative Pathways (LEAP), a licensure program for teachers. Lanoy-Sandoval has been grappling with the problematic statistics about teachers of color and reflecting on why diverse representation is so low. For instance, although New Mexico is the state with the 2nd largest population of Native Americans, only 3% of New Mexico’s public-school teachers are Native American. Lanoy- Sandoval said, “It is uncomfortable to look critically at the profession I love; however, the more I pull back my colonized lens, the easier it becomes to challenge systems that intentionally screen diversity out.” Some barriers to diversity in teacher recruitment include requirements, state exams, outdated teaching methods, and a lack of celebrating differences. Teachers of color may not have an interest in a profession that intentionally leaves their perspective out. Lanoy-Sandoval said, “It is becoming more and more challenging to find teachers that identify with diverse student populations, but it is imperative to rebuild the teacher pipeline with more educators that match the diversity and backgrounds of their students.”
With New Mexico stakeholder collaboration, Lanoy-Sandoval and the LEAP team have outlined a solution to recruit more diverse
-Kim Lanoy-Sandoval
teaching candidates by removing entrance barriers and aligning teacher preparation to a culturally and linguistically responsive framework. She said, “By preparing a more diverse teaching force to meet the needs of diverse students, we have found success in recruiting and retaining a larger, diverse pool of teacher candidates who contribute to the much-needed transformation and decolonization of outdated practices in our education system.” Lanoy- Sandoval is bringing everything she is researching in the Ed.D. program directly back to students by creating the necessary dialogue to motivate change in how her state recruits, prepares, and retains diverse educators. According to Radmer, Lanoy-Sandoval embodies how a doctoral journey can promote reciprocal learning that leads to continuously improving systems to support everyone involved.
