In 2016, voters in Oregon passed Measure 99, stabilizing funding for public schools statewide to provide a residential outdoor school experience for 5th/6th grade students. The legislature tasked Oregon State University (OSU) Extension Service to distribute funds to school districts and education service districts to operate outdoor school programs and provide professional development opportunities for educators. This project by Indigenous Studies scholars1 sought to ensure that the statewide organization that funds outdoor schools in Oregon and the educators it trains are committed to the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and knowledge systems.
What we heard at listening sessions
In an effort to consult and collaborate with various community stakeholders, especially those marginalized in outdoor education, OSU Extension held a series of listening sessions. We recognized the need to explicitly consult with Indigenous communities about the experiences of Native youth participating in outdoor schools, with the understanding that all outdoor education takes place on Indigenous homelands.
Outdoor educators often reproduce and extend these same colonial logics in the field, including the logics of elimination, replacement, and erasure (Wolfe, 2006). In outdoor education, settler logics often manifest in the forms of cultural appropriation, misrepresentation, settler nativism, and Indigenous erasure. Given our work with educators, we knew there was a need for research that explores how outdoor educators, both formal (classroom teachers) and non-formal (outdoor education providers and practitioners), see themselves and their teaching in relation to Indigenous students and Indigenous studies concepts.
We heard at the listening sessions:
- The concerns expressed by Indigenous educators and families, who shared they had not often been invited into school-level planning for outdoor school programming, and we took those concerns seriously.
- Outdoor educators who specifically requested training related to Indigenous studies and outdoor education. Some outdoor educators had followed the “Tribal History/Shared History” legislative campaign with interest and wondered how the curriculum being developed could be used in the outdoor school setting.
- Others who were concerned about cultural appropriation in their camp settings and were looking for ways to learn more about responsible inclusion of Indigenous Knowledges. Some educators understood their curriculum to be less than culturally responsive and were seeking the skills to revise their existing curriculum.
Project's purpose
After the listening sessions, we agreed to explore more culturally responsive and responsible approaches to challenging colonialism and integrating Indigenous studies into outdoor education programs in Oregon. We used data gathered from a series of day-long professional development workshops for outdoor educators in various regions throughout the state to explore outdoor educators’ knowledge of Indigenous studies concepts, as well as how prepared outdoor educators were to more effectively support Indigenous students in their classrooms and schools.
Findings, implications and recommendations
The workshops served to make colonial logics and practices of erasure visible so that outdoor educators could learn to contest those colonizing logics, and create more just and humanizing spaces for Indigenous students and knowledge systems. Our findings highlight moments of:
- Engagement: instances where participants leaned into the responsibilities that Indigenous studies calls for.
- Evasion: times when participants resisted anticolonial curriculum, commitments, and their accompanying responsibilities.
Our experiences in the workshop have also made clear that we cannot “workshop” our way out of settler colonialism. Our workshop curriculum intentionally anticipated and challenged colonial logics that permeate outdoor education, but some educators resisted their individual and programmatic complicity in colonialism, and their responsibilities to Native communities.
Moreover, the educators who embraced the anticolonial content and commitments expressed the need for further support. We recognized that while workshops are a convenient way to educate a large number of educators, they can only plant the seed for educators who must continue the work on their own.
- 1This project was a professional development and research partnership between Dr. Spirit Brooks and Dr. Leilani Sabzalian and reflects our commitment as Indigenous studies scholars
