Weaving Together Indigenous, Outdoor, and Indoor Education

Amy Yardley: I'm Amy Yardley. After 25 years as an elementary school teacher, I'm now on a mission to evolve our educational system into one which is racially equitable, climate responsive, and supportive of students coming with trauma, ADHD, and autism, which is possible if we properly weave together Indigenous education, outdoor education, and indoor education. Now I've been on this journey for a little over a year now, researching and taking classes on both Indigenous and outdoor education. And one of the things that I learned early on is it really doesn't matter just how good the teachers in our classrooms are if the system isn't the right system. If the system isn't the right system, it cannot produce the results we're looking for, no matter how good the operator. Our society is a direct product of our educational system. So if our society isn't what we wish it to be, then we need to evolve our educational system into one which is able to produce the type of society we would like to live in. So we have to ask ourselves, what type of a society do we want to live in? Do we want to live in an anti-racist society? Then we need to have an educational system that is racially equitable. Do we want to live in a sustainable land? Then we need to have an educational system that is climate responsive. Do we want to live in a peaceful, diverse nation? Then we must have an educational system that is designed for all learners. In today's episode, I'm going to give you an overview of the what and why behind both Indigenous education and outdoor education. But before I begin, I want to share with you an Indigenous concept that I learned that really helped me to understand how such a massive system like education can not only continue generation after generation, but evolve and improve generation after generation. And this concept is known as seven generations, the idea being that society plans for seven generations in advance. Meaning, society's structures and systems are all designed with the intent of sustaining life for descendants seven generations in advance, or about 150 years. We need to employ this thought process. We need to create a series of intentional, achievable steps to reach our goal of evolving our educational system. Now this is where I get excited because this is where my strengths lie. I love planning curriculum and steps, and I can see the big picture of what we need, and I can see the steps that are needed to be put in place to get us started on a pathway to progress. This is where I also feel like I get to finally apply a quote by Aristotle that I return to or revisit year after year. The quote you probably have heard goes, where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation. So here I am. For many reasons, we're going to want to begin with our earliest learners, our elementary school age students. I will, however, share with you one significant reason that I'm not sure the public is well aware of, which is until kids are approximately 12 to 13 years old, they learn through play. Their brains are biologically designed to intake information. Play to explore the idea and make sense of it so their brains can then compartmentalize it, storing it for later access. Both Indigenous and outdoor education lend themselves to this learning format because they are both highly student-led, inquiry-based, hands-on, and collaborative, which to a child usually equates to play. Now, Indigenous education was the model in place for over 10,000 years producing a sustainable society. Now, I want to make sure that everybody understands the magnitude of that feat: producing a sustainable society. Because I know due to missing history, many Americans are still under the impression or understanding that. Prior to the arrival of non-Indigenous people, this was a sparsely populated land with primitive societal structures. When in reality, the truth is, prior to the arrival of non-indigenous peoples, this was actually a highly populated land with cities of millions and highly advanced societal structures. This has gone largely unnoticed because 98% of Indigenous peoples were wiped out during the genocide. To state that another way, only 2% of Indigenous peoples survived genocide. We do know indigenous education produced a sustainable society for thousands and thousands of years. Now, Indigenous education is in what we call a cyclical format, meaning the information is returned to you time and time again, each time at a deeper level with more growth and extensions. This is comparable to the growth of a tree. A tree is always growing in two directions. The roots are growing down for depth and stability, the branches are growing up and extending out, always tethered at the trunk. This is reflective of the cyclical learning process in which the learning is always returned to, each time at a deeper level, with more growth and extensions, and all the learning tethered at its center. All learning is connected. And that'll make more sense in a few minutes when we get to where Indigenous education comes from. Now, the cyclical process isn't just an ancient practice. It is still what is recommended by top educational experts, and it's taught as the learning process in hundreds of colleges around the world. Now, indigenous learning occurs through the format of storytelling and experience. Now, the content is the part that I was excited to share with you. This is where we start to get a peek into our window into how changes are going to be made, how mindsets will begin to change with the learning. And Indigenous content comes from three specific areas. The first being relationships. So think of a forest ecosystem. There are plants, animals, humans, and the land all making up one system. Each one is a part within a system that relies on the survival of others and directly pertains toward or directly affects the survival of the others. So at all times you are learning about things from multiple perspectives, multiple angles, and imagine if kids were able to learn at a young age that they are part. Of a system, that they are part of plants, animals, humans, and the land. They are valuable. They are part of this system. We know in our society right now that a sense of belonging, senses of identity are in a deficit. And this is exactly the type of learning that helps kids to be able to develop that sense of belonging. Now, the second area that Indigenous content comes from is fascinating to me. And in order for it to be just as fascinating to you, I need to take you on a teeny little tangent with me. At one time in this country, or in the lands that make up this country, there were over 1,200 different languages spoken. And across all these different languages, all these different tribal bands. Each with their own distinct culture, there were seven values that emerged and remained constant across the board. And these values became known as the seven sacred values. And they are love, truth, wisdom. Bravery, respect, humility, and honesty. And you can see why these words would be a good backbone to any society. These words don't take a lot of buy-in. and again, imagine what if our nation, filled with different cultures, were able to agree on, you know, a set of values, would that make us understand each other a little bit better? Maybe, The third area that Indigenous content comes from are things that come naturally in fours. So think seasons, cardinal directions, earth elements. This is also the area that cycles would fall under, such as life cycles or water cycle, things that go around. The learning is cyclical. All right, let's pause and think what we have learned about Indigenous education real quick. We know that the the content comes from three areas. Relationships, values, and things that come naturally in force. We know the learning occurs through storytelling and experience, which provides that cyclical learning process. Now, while all this learning is occurring, there are a set of three guiding principles that are embedded throughout the learning with the purpose of them becoming a way of being. The first set of guiding principles is another set of values, this time called R words. And these do differ between tribal bands. So I'm just going to share with you a few that tended to be overlapping between the bands. And they are respect, reciprocity, relevance, responsibility, all character-building words embedded throughout the learning with the purpose of becoming a way of being. Now the second guiding principle, is one that I was really excited about and felt affirmed from because it is something that has been on my mind for many years now, and it is the idea of learning through multiple senses. When you use multiple senses to learn, you are acquiring a greater amount of information and retaining it for a longer period of time. Remember, each one of our senses has its own memory storage bank. Therefore, the more senses we can activate while we're learning, the greater the memory capacity is for storing. now this has been on my mind for a couple of reasons now. One for the same reason, knowing that we could be absorbing more information, but I wanted to tell you the story of when that hit me the hardest, when I realized, ooh, this is something we really need to be doing. And that was when my kids were younger. We went to Disney World and we rode on this ride called Soarin. And the idea behind this ride was to soar or fly through different habitats. So we go in, we sit on this bench, seatbelt ourselves in. It's not a wild ride. And the ride begins. The lights go off, the walls turn into a giant IMAX movie of a forest, a boreal forest. And we rise off the ground. Really, it's just a teensy bit. We realized when the lights came back on, but it it felt like a lot. It felt like we were rising up into the forest. And then all of a sudden the temperature drops, and we feel this cool breeze blowing on us. And then we begin to smell basalmic fur. And now we've got four of our senses activated and we are fully immersed in this boreal forest. It feels like we are there. And my teacher brain was fireworking out of control during this ride. I kept thinking about all the ways that I could go back and use this in my classroom. So was the first reason I've been thinking about using multiple senses while learning. The second reason it's been on my mind is because our bodies are on a use it or lose it system. And we have not had to rely on our senses for quite some time now for survival. And they are declining, they are disevolving. And that's something that we need to be aware of. And if we are aware of it and are then Purposely or intentionally using multiple senses while learning, we could at least, I would think, stop the disevolution. I don't know if we could improve it or not, but we could at least stop and begin using our senses to become more aware of our surroundings. Now, the third guiding principle is known as world perspective or worldview. And out of all the things that I've shared so far, I think that this is probably going to be the one that's hardest for non-elementary school teachers to be able to picture. So I want to give you a few examples of what world perspective or worldview might look like when you're talking about a young person without a lot of life experience. One example would be to utilize the literal, like the literal sense of the word. we could take a natural phenomenon that occurs around the world and learn about it. such as fall equinox. We could learn what the earth and the sky are doing all around the world during fall equinox. We could learn how different cultures are celebrating or what their traditions are during the fall equinox. So that's one way. Another way we could practice worldview or world perspective would be to go back to our example from earlier when we were talking about the forest ecosystem. If we wanted to take a closer look at butterflies per se, rather than just learning about the viewpoint of a butterfly or the perspective of a butterfly, we would also be learning about how plants, other animals, humans, and the land are all either affected by or affect the butterfly. What is the land doing during the time to affect the butterfly's behaviors or decision making? what's happening during that migration process? Are there other predators that are traveling to the same migration path because they know there's gonna be a butterfly buffet? What happens at their final destination? Do more predators also travel there? What happens to the insects that are already living there? What does it have any impact on the humans? So that's the second way. A third example, very tangible for kids, would be to simply sketch a tree from multiple angles. They would see how no matter where you look, you're getting a different view of the tree. So these are the three guiding principles that are always embedded into indigenous learning. Now we can't truly separate or tweeze apart indigenous learning and outdoor learning. There are way too many overlying components. Much like if you are teaching literacy, you can't really tweeze apart reading and writing. One big difference that you do need to know between the two is that outdoor education is essentially indoor curriculum being taken outside. The teacher may substitute man-made materials for natural materials, but the curriculum is the same. Now there is a ton of research out there supporting the benefits of outdoor education. I'm going to highlight the ones that directly pertain toward racial equitability, climate responsiveness, and supporting our students with trauma, ADHD, and autism. So to begin with, outdoor education is more racially equitable because outdoors belongs to everybody. It is not a colonial school setting implying colonial methods are the methods, no matter the culture. Outdoor education is supportive of students with trauma, EDHD, and autism due to environmental triggers that release mood-boosting hormones that tend to be lacking in these students, which causes the learning to feel harder and less motivating. Some examples of those triggers would be bird song. When you listen to birds singing, it releases serotonin in the human brain. The first inch of the ground is where the earth's energy is stored. It has a grounding and calming effect on people. When the kids are interacting with each other, it releases endorphins, also known as happy hormones. When kids are figuring things out, which happens all the time in hands-on learning, every time they figure something out, they're getting a hit of dopamine. So these are all Another way that it supports these students is students with ADHD and autism are what we call neurodivergent thinkers. And our neurodivergent thinkers can see the big picture and they can hyperfocus for long periods of time on topics of interest. Both Indigenous education and outdoor education lend themselves to this learning format due to the fact that they are both highly student-led, inquiry-based, hands-on, and collaborative. Now, this isn't just beneficial for students with ADHD in autism. This is beneficial to all students. One fact that I don't think that the public is well aware of is it takes all students approximately 20 minutes for their brains to fully engage within a topic. So if you think about the number of times that kids are switching topics during the day, you also have to factor in the amount of those warm-up times when their brains are not yet fully engaged within that topic. As for indoor education, it will still continue to have its place within this weaving of indigenous, outdoor, and indoor educational concepts and systems that are allowing us or helping us to evolve our educational system into, one more time, one that is racially equitable, climate responsive, and supportive of our students coming with trauma, ADHD, and autism. I would like to thank you so very much for being here on the very first episode of Educate Us and my first episode or show ever. And I'm so excited to have you on this journey with me. You are invited to subscribe. The links are below to both my podcast and YouTube show. You are also welcome to follow me on Instagram for more tidbits. And again, thank you so very much, and we'll see you very soon. Soon. Bye.