Indigenous Elders in Residence Program: Growing Relationships the Elders' Way

Background and Purpose: Traditionally, Indigenous Elders were the original teachers and leaders in tribal societies. As highly regarded members of their communities, they shared their lived experiences and knowledge through the oral tradition of storytelling, demonstrating a commitment and desire to pass on their cultural knowledge, stories, and wisdom. Due to the encroachment of western values and methods of teaching into tribal communities, methods of indigenous learning have been pushed to the margins. However, Elders desire to pass on their traditional wisdom and knowledge to younger generations. This paper describes students’ evaluations and reflections of a pilot program that brought Indigenous Elders into a higher education institution to draw on their wisdom as an educational tool and resource. 

 

Methods: From January through March of 2015, the Indigenous Elders in Residence Program hosted 10 Indigenous Elders from the Pacific Northwest who visited classes in the University of Washington School of Social Work, School of Medicine, and American Indian Studies Department. Throughout the program, a total of 36 students completed survey evaluations of the program including demographic measurements, multiple choice questions, and open-ended questions. This study draws primarily on the survey results to describe the demographic characteristics of students, student ratings of the most successful aspects of the program, and a thematic analysis of the students’ comments and reflections on the program.

Results: Participants identified as White (56%), African American (14%), Native American (16%), Pacific Islander (5%), Asian (4%), and “Other” (5%). Lunch meetings, workshops, class sessions led by the Elders, and one-on-one mentoring were rated by participants as the most effective and engaging aspects of the program. Primary themes from the students’ reflections include storytelling as pedagogy and community-building through storytelling. Students described storytelling as a meaningful form of pedagogy not previously experienced in the classroom setting. Stories also impressed upon students the importance of community, being “a part of something,” and how their own strengths and prior experiences shape their contributions to community.

Conclusions and Implications: Storytelling is a useful pedagogical tool to share traditional knowledge, past experiences, and the importance of community and students value the opportunity to learn from the stories of Indigenous Elders. The success of this pilot program illustrates a promising step toward indigenizing the academic institution and teaching through traditional pedagogies. Through this program, we envision continuing to draw on the knowledge of our Elders in order to further develop and formalize the Indigenous Elders in Residence Program. In the future, we aim to host courses taught and led by Indigenous Elders on content relevant to social work practice, Indigenous health and wellbeing, and cultural knowledge to be offered to students in diverse University of Washington departments.

Word count: 442